Extermi-cake :: Dalek Cake

This is a cake I made for my oldest son's 9th birthday. I'm just posting it for old time's sake.

I’ve made my sons’ birthday cakes every year and each time I somehow come up with something twice as difficult as the year before but it’s great fun and worth it when my boys see it finished for the first time. This is a Dalek robot from Doctor Who. I totally free-styled the design of the cake but I will try to relay the process here. Hint: It’s not just cake…

I will list the ingredients below but it’s up to you to get creative and put it all together so get ready to be covered in chocolate for the next few hours.

• One batch of chocolate cupcakes (Box mix again, the kids won’t mind)

• 4 Chocolate Moon Pies

• 10 mini tootsie rolls

• 25 Chocolate malt balls (bulk style candies)

• 10 Peanut butter balls (if you can’t find these just try to find a lighter colored ball (gumballs?)

• 4-6 Peanut Butter Cups (Small- Reese’s style)

• 10 white chocolate melting ‘buttons’

• 4 cups of ganache. Try this recipe: http://www.chow.com/recipes/12691

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Invert bowl cake flat side down on circular cake platform thing. I used cardboard on a cookie sheet. Cover it in ganache. That is the Dalek’s base.
2. 
   
3. For the torso I rigged two cupcakes that had been cut in half (tops cut off) and four Swiss Rolls to form a circular shape on top of the base. Place the cupcakes cut side in along the top of the base and use the Swiss Rolls (OR appropriately carved cupcakes) to fill in the gaps, rounding out the body. Cover in ganache. Then put one of the cupcake tops on top of this, and cover it in ganache.
4. Place one Chocolate Moon Pie on top of the cupcake top and put a dollop of ganache in the center to affix a peanut butter cup and put a dollop of ganache on top of that and stack up three more Moon Pies, using ganache as your glue.
5. Finally, cover another cupcake top in ganache and stick it on the top Moon Pie. You know how the figure completed. On to the detail work.
6. Arms: I used Tootsie Rolls as modeling clay and formed these weird pincher arms/hands.
7. Eye: Peanut butter cup glued with ganache to head, with white chocolate button affixed with ganache
8. Antenna: Stack of white chocolate buttons held together with one melted white chocolate button. I then made a little hole in the top with a toothpick to support the candle.
9. Buttons and lights: Peanut butter cup for dial, malt balls for decoration, affixed with ganache.
10. Congratulations. You’ve reached the end. I passed out the extra cupcakes and candy mainly so I could have more cake to myself :) It was delicious and will serve at least twenty. Cutting it up is the fun part because everyone can pick which part they want to eat.

Poop Cookies

My oven recently stopped working and I was hit by a serious life threatening need for something chocolate the other night and I had all of the ingredients on hand to make 'poop' cookies. My friend Andrea Wiggins first made them for me and I took down her recipe which has come in handy quite a few times over the years.





They are a dense lump of peanutbuttery-chocolatey-oatmealy-fudge-like excellence that you can make in a pinch. I will not apologize for the name as it is funny and true: they look like little piles of poo, but they taste like little bites of nirvana. WARNING: If you are in need for an immediate sugar fix, note that these need to be refrigerated for about an hour before eating BUT the act of making them and a few licks of the spoon seem to be enough to tide you over until they are set. You can throw them in the freezer to speed things up.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

4 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)

3-3 1/2 cups dry quick-cooking oats

2 teaspoons vanilla

Wax paper & cookie sheet


1. In a saucepan over medium heat, bring milk, sugar, butter, cocoa to a low boil for about a minute.

2. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, oats, and vanilla

3. Drop mixture by 2 TBSPs on waxed paper covered cookie sheet

4. Refrigerate until firm, about one hour. Quick chill in freezer until firm to touch.

These cookies are easy to make and clean up after and definitely quell the sugar jones.

Soon to come: I am working on perfecting the Microwave Mug Cake. Results so far- 'above meh'.