The Anatomical Cook

[drusilla-silk]

So the plan is to get back into cooking and content creation, so my first Pillowfort is TheAnatomicalCook.

https://www.pillowfort.io/TheAnatomicalCook

Nothing on there right now, but I’ll soon move my old blog to my new blog. :)

[theanatomicalcook]

Tonight I had @corvid-accomplice and another friend over for dinner.  This was the dessert. This is my first successful dome dessert, brought to you by Netflix and adventure. So, a dome of very smooth white chocolate cheesecake, with a base of digestive biscuits and butter, and a thick and chewy salted caramel centre. And then covered in a smooth and shiny caramel mirror glaze. My third attempt with glaze, and I finally succeeded! And then I served with a ring of very rich and dark crumbled caramel 'dirt'. So three types of caramel. The flavours and textures were balanced, it looked pretty, and it was so goshdarn delightful to make.

[theanatomicalcook]

So these are my latest food gift. Dark chocolate and raspberry brownies, cut into icecream sized segments, stuck on icecream sticks, then covered in dark chocolate, love heart sprinkles, and gold sparkles. The chocolate shell keeps the brownies from crumbling, and keeps them super moist. And the sprinkles hide all manner of imperfections. Plus I got to eat all of the off-cuts. Overall, very successful, would do again. But oh wow do I need to cut the portions smaller! By two-thirds into the treat, you've eaten so much sugar, you can see through time and space... Different flavour brownies and decorations could be fun, too.

Recipe for raspberry and chocolate brownies: here.

[theanatomicalcook]

The 6th of January is Epiphany - when the three kings came to see baby Jesus - or alternatively Twelfth Night, or simply the end of the festive season, although my tree is still up because it makes me happy with its shining and sparkling. Epiphany isn't something I've celebrated before, but it has its own pastry cake - a Galette des Rois - and my friend suggested we have a feast, as is traditional, and we realised we could have a theme of summer fruits throughout. And then it just took on a life of its own. Such a success! To begin we had Mary Street Bakery bread, with homemade Mad Milliecultured butter, which I'd shaken into existence - in a jar - the day before. Homemade butter is fun to create, and always feels luxurious to have on fresh bread. Breaking down meals to the basics always interests me, and butter is something I usually take for granted, so it's fascinating knowing how much work you put into it. Then the main course, duck a l'orange, a Julia Child recipe, which was frankly a little intimidating, but absolutely divine. Not just orange juice and zest, but Cointreau and orange bitters, flavoured our very large, well cooked duck. We served the meat cool, but with the thick, orange sauce nice and hot. Then the salads, each with some fruit to bring the meal together. An orange and purple carrot salad; a rocket, pear, blue cheese, and pecan salad; and my favourite, a tomato, nectarine, lettuce, mozzarella, and prosciutto salad. After such a heavy meal, we cleansed the palette with a Normandy tradition, a trou normand, which was a scoop of my homemade green apple sorbet, and a shot of Calvados apple brandy. The idea is to give you more room for the next course, which was... the Gallete des Rois! Well, technically, the next course was champagne. But then we had the Epiphany cake! And also a somewhat-collapsed-but-still-delicious swiss roll I'd made - using my Christmas peach bellini jam and fresh cream - in a fit of 'what if we don't have enough food?!' that morning. And fresh berries and icecream. But the star was the pastry. See, a Galette des Rois is two rounds on puff pastry, filled with almond cream - sugar, butter, almond meal, and eggs. Inside the pastry, hidden in the cream, is a ceramic bean or figure. The Galette is covered in a cloth, and has a golden crown on top. Slices are served randomly to party guests, and eaten carefully, for whoever has the bean in their slice of pie is the King or Queen of the evening, and gets to wear the crown.

We ended up having two Galette de Rois, which was fantastic, because they're incredibly delicious. So, two beans. But it was kind of funny, because nobody found a bean on the first try. We finally found our King when he ate his third slice, but the bean in my Epiphany cake was never found at the party. I was really pleased with my Galette, as I used puff pastry I'd made for a vanilla slice months ago, and it still puffed up and remain quite crisp. And the almond cream was delicious. Although: I really over packed the cake, and so a lot of the filling burst out of the sides while it baked. Horrific. No matter: I cut off the untidy bits, freed the cake, served on a lovely glass plate, and it looked very presentable, and indeed, incredible eatable. 

[theanatomicalcook]

So Mother was worried there wasn't going to be enough food for Christmas, and repeatedly asked me to bake things. And so I did, and the things I baked resembled what they looked like in my head, which was lovely. Also, I'm so incredibly exhausted now... Marshmallow tea cakes (as seen on a angst-filled Great British Bakeoff several years ago), topped with white chocolate and royal icing holly I bought off of Ebay, to make them look like lil' Christmas puddings; a Chocolate Yule Log (the filling tastes like old-school Yogo) surrounded by crispy, homebaked Meringue Mushrooms, and fresh cherries; and heavily bedazzled gingerbread name tags for the family table (I made a successful royal icing, hurrah!), decorated Very Golden to go with the table decorations.

Marshmallow Tea Cakes recipe: here

Yule Log recipe: here 

Meringue Mushrooms recipe: here

[theanatomicalcook]

Another gift giving, another chance to play with food jars. Enough Vegan Chili to feed an pacifist army (it was so much fun buying so many pretty legumes); a He Who Walks Behind the Rows 'Children of the Corn' corn bread jar (with added blue corn meal for added spook/flavour); and a batch of Peach Bellini jam (the sparkling wine gives the sweet peaches a little kick, and makes the jam much more suitable for grown-up palettes).

Just realised that I spelled 'Bellini' wrong on aaall my jars. And I actually really tried to get it the labels right this time. But oh my goodness it tastes amazing! Somewhere between a jam and a syrup, so it's perfect for toast, cake, icecream, on a spoon late at night when you have a craving for something sweet...

Vegan Chili recipe: here Cornbread recipe: here Peach Bellini Jam recipe: here

[theanatomicalcook]

More cross stitch. The first is a quote from the New-England period horror The Witch. That's Black Phillip the family goat in the middle there. The goat actor was a real bastard and broke the ribs of the main actor during filming - damn those goat horns - and so the actor went and ate goat curry with his wife after filming had ended. The second is a cat silhouette, for my Aunt. There were meant to be two kitties, facing away from each other, with the tails forming a heart shape. But I decided after spending a week stitching the first cat - so much counting! all one colour! - that I'd go for something more personalised. So 'V' for my Aunt's initial, and a heart for the missing cat and the heart her tail would've made.

Cat cross stitch design by: HappyNeedleDesigns Black Phillip cross stitch design by: SpellboundStitchings

[theanatomicalcook]

Latest craft presents. A cross stitch saying 'I want to pet every dog in the world' - who doesn't? - complete with lil' doggos. A cushion with retro-futurist space gal images embroidered all over. And a chili infused vodka with edible glitter, presented in a glass skull that once held a much more expensive vodka, making for a lovely snow globe and a refreshing taste with a pleasant burn. 

Space Girl embroidery pattern by: Sublime Stitching Dog cross stitch pattern by: AnnaXStitch Chili Vodka recipe from: Gifts from the Kitchen by Annie Rigg

[theanatomicalcook]

Incredibly excellent Christmas party! The Socialist Santa present is amazing, filled with Elizabethan costumed piggies in a classic tragedy, made even more awesome because Elizabeth I had lil' pet guinea pigs herself, and you just know she would have dressed them up! I made vegan agar mulled wine jellies in dinosaur and robot shapes, with edible glitter, which is my new favourite thing (nom). And the Socialist Santa I gave was a jar of Very Awake Truffles: decadently rich Guinness stout and dark chocolate fudge, surrounding choc covered roast coffee beans, and rolled in cocoa.

Recipe for the fudge: here. Truffles last at least two weeks, so I still had some for Christmas Day. And it was easy to keep some coffee free for my less caffeinated buddies.

[theanatomicalcook]

Now I can share both of these. Wedding cross stitch! I made the first for a couple of Doctor Who fans who are getting married on Saturday. The second was for a wedding a few weeks ago. It has the couple's name in binary code, with an infinity symbol winding through. I find cross stitch really relaxing and grounding. It's like colouring, except I'm terrible at colouring. I like the pixel effect and the way a bunch of points create an image. Hedda is also a fan of my cross stitch, because I do it in the spare room/closet/library/guinea-pig-run-room, and wow does she take the opportunity to run. I sit on the floor and she runs and climbs and plays, and occasionally steals and runs away with (and quickly trips over) my paper pattern, because she is incredibly jealous of anything I do that with my hands that isn't patting or feeding her. Currently I'm a pixel cross stitcher, although one day I hope to graduate to Pointillism. ;)

Tardis pattern by: Armada Designs

Binary Code pattern by: Happy Stitch Net

[theanatomicalcook]

So this is the time I insulted all of French patisserie by making an Opera cake (layers of chocolate, vanilla-syrup-soaked almond sponge, chocolate ganache, and French buttercream icing) and making a goshdarn rainbow. It was for @nicbutt‘s birthday, and considering the only components I'd ever made before were the syrup and chocolate, I'm quite pleased with the results. However, now I know how to improve this thing, and make the layers more pronounced, and whole thing neater and prettier and more... patisserie. So basically if you want a rainbow Opera cake for a thing, let me know. ;)

[theanatomicalcook]

Kitty kat blanket. I really love giving personality to a colourful granny square rug. Mowmowmow.

[drusilla-silk]

@i-am-not-adorable now has the sage and always appropriate advice to DUMP HIM in pretty floral bunting. I like making bunting. I like giving advice even more. Any suggestions for further messages?

[drusilla-silk]

The original plan was to crochet Richard a Black Phillip goat toy. But that was hard and frustrating. So he got Black Phillip deconstructed into a nice gothy rug. With felt horns and angry eyes.

[theanatomicalcook]

‘Game of Thrones’ Birthday Cake

It was my friend’s Game of Thrones birthday party, so we made an appropriate cake.  

Outside is a creative take on mirror glaze - we were going for gold and blood - and on top sits a handcrafted Iron Throne made out of of chocolate gingerbread.

We used a sword cookie cutter to make the throne, and held it all together with caramel toffee.

The inside has marbled milk and white chocolate cake, with whipped cream butter frosting, and some sliced fresh strawberries.

[theanatomicalcook]

@i-am-not-adorable‘s birthday celebration deserved a monstrously huge Salted Caramel and White Chocolate Cheesecake. Three damn litres of sweet cheese goodness - I literally had to mix it with my forearms, because it was too much for any spoon! Crushed granola biscuit base, a layer of salted caramel syrup, three litres of white chocolate cheesecake, and a surprise centre cavity filled with fresh whipped cream, more syrup, and lumps of crunchy homemade salted caramel toffee. Sealed in thickened cream, then topped with the remaining salted caramel syrup, and more tasty toffee shards. This is a huge cake, so I'm sure you can convince Leah to share. Also, I'm either high on sugar, or the inside slice has a lil doge face.

[theanatomicalcook]

‘Jellyfish are Our Oceanic and Photographic Superiors’ Birthday Cake

It was @trashblog-tr-as-shblog‘s Cake Day, and they love marine life, so I made a dramatic oceanic cake.

It’s either a terrifying vision of the giant jellyfish future, or just a really pretty, vibrant, mermaid-ish mood piece.

The cake itself is covered in ocean style frosting (video: here) and there’s a little (and very lonely) yacht sailing in the far corner.

The lil’ boat is cupcake topper, and sadly, quite inedible. I got it: here.

The main decorations are sugar cookie jellyfish, decorated with blue, pink, and purple royal icing, and a whoooole heap of silver pearls (I usually call them cachous). 

You might think my decorating style is, ‘stick shiny cachous on things til’ they look professional’, and you’d not be wrong.

These are my jellyfish. I used the sugar cookie dough I had in my freezer, and an egg white based royal icing. My icing isn’t totally smooth, which was a design decision, and definitely not because I haven’t quite got the hang of royal icing yet. Recriminations aside, I’m pleased with the effect, and it goes well with the water wave style icing of the main cake.

I got the jellyfish cutter from Kool Cookie Cutters, but it’s available a lot of places.

Here’s the back of the ocean cake. This look is achieved through a clever-but-simple buttercream of variated blues and white for wave foam. You can see it: here. It’s a very forgiving icing style - you just keep at it until it looks right - so it was fun to play with, and less stressful than I expected.

The inside of the cake was marbled with pink, blue, and purple coloured cake. After making the cake batter, I split it into three equal portions, and added enough food dye to each to achieve the right colour. Then I spooned small amounts of each other colour into the cake pan, letting it layer itself in what I hoped was a picturesque way.

I used a scale to make sure each cake tin was filled with the same amount of batter, and knocked the tin against the counter a few times to make the batter sit smoothly for baking.

Adding food dye to cake batter is an easy way to make your cake decoration look waaaay more complicated than it is. And, since I have a continuous hand tremor and not-great coordination, is very handy for someone like me.

^ SLICE OF CAKE.

So this was the first time I actually got to try the cake I decorated, which was exciting. And it tasted delicious. A satisfying balance of rich, creamy icing, and moist, dense vanilla cake. And it dyed my tongue bright blue, which was cool.

Definitely proud of this one.

Cake and buttercream recipe can be found here, and it’s my go-to for these styles of cake. But when it comes to the icing, I use only butter, rather than a mix of butter and shortening.