Username: She-Ra of Etheria Preference List: Ginko, Direwolf, Devilsaur, Megalo Foods Title: Dino Dropping Delights Inspiration: Pile of Triceratops poop in Jurassic Park Entry:
Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc: Gather all your ingredients and pre-measure them, placing the dry ingredients on napkins or in bowls is a good idea as speed is of the essence with this recipe. Place 1/4 cup butter, 2 cups white sugar and 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons milk in a pan. Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Add 3 cups oatmeal, 5 Tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 1/2 cups coconut and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Stir in thoroughly. If mixture is runny add a bit more coconut. Mixture should be soft but not runny, solid enough to scoop up with a spoon, hold it sideways and it stick and then slowly slide off. Working quickly, as the mixture will set in the pan and be impossible to get out, scoop up about 1 Tablespoon worth at a time, place the mixture on parchment paper lined baking sheets. You can make the Dino Dropping Delights as big or small as you want them. Allow Dino Dropping Delights to set for about an hour. Place Dino Dropping Delights on a plate and enjoy!
Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:39 pm
Username: Sesshiyasha Preference List: Gingko "Living Fossil" Lady, Direwolf, Bronze Devilsaur, Megaloceros Foods Title: Tar pit of ages Fossil Cake Inspiration: I started thinking about what I wanted to bake for this contest and it all sorta came together... to be honest it started with "Let's bake a cake" and then my mind went "I wanna put fossils IN THE CAKE.... but they have to be edible... I wonder if it would be possible for me to put CAKE fossils in the CAKE" So thus... my silly attempts at Fossil Cake. I will be honest, this is like three desserts in one. Since as I was thinking about how to decorate the top (Easy...DIRT ALL THE DIRT) I was like "Hmm... I could make the Top a sort of Dirt Cake... and then it would be soft and squishy like a reverse lava cake" So then I decided to do the "Tar Pit top!" out of Dirt cake, so it's a cake... on top of a cake... and then it just all came together.... <3 Except I was still at a loss of what to do in order to hold the "Tar Pit" in place and realized I had cookie dough.... So the boulders surrounding the Tar Pit then became cookie boulders <3 So yeah... as I thought more and more it just kept evolving... Weird I know... but hey... it is prehistoric >.> Entry:
Newest Picture!
Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc: ok so this is a hard one, but I will do my best to detail out everything. You might wanna grab some popcorn >.> I'm sure it's bound to get funny or amusing at some point.... Maybe? It is long though.... So maybe a drink too... I'm sorry... I should have come better prepared for you v.v I will try and keep it somewhat short? Maybe? Possibly? Probably not v.v Sorry >.<
-Sticks this all under a spoiler- You shall thank me later >.>
-Get chocolate cake mix (I used a fudgey mix with little bits of fudge and pudding in it because it looked more dirt and rocky, but use whatever you like!) put all the wet ingredients together and then add the dry. Mix until you are satisfied/it's all mixed and there is no powder left! (Remember to clean up after yourself! <3) -Pour Chocolate mix into two different circular pans (You can use squares if you prefer! <3) then put your bowl in the sink and put some water in it! <3 Then set the pans of chocolate aside for now. -Now take the yellow cake mix and mix it together (You will have MORE than you need so feel free to make another slightly smaller Yellow cake with it! <3 TWO FOR ONE DEAL!) Adding the dry ingredients to the wet ones. -Once Yellow cake is mixed take a spoon and go back to your chocolate cakes in the pans. Now... GO TO TOWN DOODLING.... MAYBE EVEN THROW IN A METEOR!! WHO KNOWS?! HAVE FUN WITH IT!!! <3 ENJOY YOUR NEW FOSSIL CREATIONS!! (I KNOW I DID!! <3 TRILOBITES <3) -Once you are done doodling and you are satisfied with your Fossils, preheat your oven to 325 Degrees. After it preheats go ahead and stick your cakes in the oven! <3 -Let them cook for about 35 minutes (I found this a good time to check them and then adjust a few minute more or they were done!) -At the 35 minute mark check on them and see how they are doing.... Are they done? (If Yes, GREAT MOVE ON TO THE NEXT STEP! <3 If No, Give them a few more minutes... Fossils aren't made overnight you know! <3) -Pull them out and set them on the stove, they need to cool before you ice and do everything else with them. -Grab your Cookie Dough! You can do this one one of two ways.... IF YOU WILL BE REFRIGERATING YOUR CAKE then you may use raw cookie dough and make some boulders! <3 (I choose the cookie dough option for the safety of the cake (We have lots of ants -.-) and so it lasts longer) -If you decided to cook your cookie dough, this is where you will put your cookie dough boulders into the oven to cook! (If not SKIP THIS STEP!) Let them stay in there about 20 minutes and then give them a look, usually around here they are pretty good! <3 -Pull your cookie boulders out and let them cool! -Now then, you should have your cakes nice and cool! Go ahead and stack them on top of each other on a clean plate or whatever plate you wish to use! (I used a themed Fossily plate, you can't really see it in pictures, but the leaves and such are all indented into the plate!!) -Grab your Icing! Dirty Ice the whole cake, it doesn't have to be smooth just get a bit of frosting on there so that things will stick to it and the cake is sufficiently covered! -Now that your cake is covered in frosting you are set to continue! <3 Go ahead and grab your oreos! Pull out a few and crush them up all nice and good! (This can be an awesome way to knock out any horrible frustrations you might have had >.> You know from possibly doing one of the cakes wrong and having it turn out wrong... and having to have your other half run out to the store and get more cake mix so you can try again >.> But details....) -Once oreos have been crushed up, go ahead and start putting the crushed up pieces on the sides of your cake! Ignore the top, that is where the dirt cake is going to go! <3 We will get to that in a minute! -Once that is complete move on to the cookies <3 They should (In theory) be cool by now... Grab some of those boulders and place them around the outside of the cake! <3 MAKE SURE THEY TOUCH OTHERWISE THE PUDDING WILL SLIDE OUT THE SIDES WE DON'T WANT THAT >.< -Push the boulders down to make sure they are secured in their places <3 We don't want an avalanche >.> (It happens... Trust me.... >.>) -Now that the boulders are secure... Go ahead and check for holes... you will wanna frost the inside of any holes you might find >.> The less chance that pudding can slide around the better >.> -Alrighty now that our ship is secure... >.> Let's add a layer of Crushed oreo to separate the Pudding from the Icing! <3 Did you add it? Yes... Ok good! <3 Don't want our chocolate things touching each other now do we? -Now that we have a good bed of crushed oreos, let's grab that pudding! <3 Pour the pudding in the "Tar Pit" but be careful that you don't put too much in... That could be bad >.> We don't want to have it running over the sides of the cake... So keep it below the tops of the Cookie boulders! <3 -Alright!! WE HAVE OUR TAR PIT STARTED!! WE ARE ALMOST DONE CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! No.... Neither can I -.- I'm sorry.... Go ahead and add some Crushed oreos to the top of the tar pit! <3 -Now that you have your oreo topping on the tar pit, grab your BLACK icing tube! <3 THIS IS THE FUN PART!!! Go ahead and color in the top of your Tar pit... it will go over the Oreos and make the oreos look like they actually are Tar... See... Isn't that awesome?! <3 YEAH!! I THOUGHT SO!! <3 -Alrighty now this is what I hope, is the last step... Go ahead and grab your dinosaurs... Now... Create a story for them... is one of them a baby? Is one the mom? Is mom slowly sinking into the tar pit as her baby helplessly looks on in horror crying for his mom who will never be able to nuzzle him again? >.> Well.... that is one course of action... OR IT COULD BE THAT ONE OF THEM TRICKED THE OTHER INTO FALLING INTO IT AND IS NOW LAUGHING HISTERICALLY LIKE "HAHAHAHA YOU FELL FOR IT!! SUCKER!!!" >.> Have some fun with this part... really <3 Your friends will love or hate you for it! <3 -OPTIONAL STEP- If you would like, Go ahead and take a few crushed oreos and put them around the outside top of your Tar pit, to create that over all dirt feel! <3 GET DOWN AND DIRTY!!! ^.^ -YOU ARE DONE!!! LOOK AT THAT YOU HAVE LIKE THREE DESERTS IN ONE!! <3 ^.^ ENJOY!!! Now don't die when you eat it!! <3 ^.^
DISCLAIMER: I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANYTHING YOU DO OR DO NOT DO WITH THIS CAKE >.> OR ANY POTENTIAL FEELS INDUCING HORRORS YOU MIGHT UNLEASH UPON YOUR FRIENDS!!! <3
Second disclaimer: Please refrain from dying if you do happen to eat this monstrosity >.> I have been told it's extremely like death in every way possible >.> I have warned you >.>
Username: Nisshou H Preference List: Gingko lady, Direwolf, devilsaur, I’d really rather you reroll at this point so he can go to someone who will really appreciate him but if that’s not an option without costing me my freebie then I’ll take the megaloceros Foods Title: Fabulous Fossil Fudge Inspiration: Roni’s dino dig and flipping through my cookbook for ideas for this contest Entry:
Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc: This contains three basic recipes and many many steps so it’s a bit long. I’ve put it under spoiler tags!
Prepping my sculpting fondant: My first step was to make some no bake fondant so that I could actually sculpt my bones. For that you need: 1/3 cup softened butter 1/3 cup light corn syrup 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp salt And a LOT of powdered sugar. I was in the 6 cup range by the time I got it to a good working consistency but the recipe only calls for 1 ½ cups. With that much I found it too sticky to work with.
With the fondant you mix together everything but the powdered sugar in a bowl until well blended. I used a wooden mixing spoon for this. After that you just add powdered sugar until you can easily mold it into balls. To color and flavor it I added a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder (this also made it less sticky).
The main fudgy event: After putting the fondant away in the fridge (not necessary but it does make it even easier to work with) I got together my ingredients for the fudge. You need: 2 Cups sugar ¾ cup milk 2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate cut up into bits 1 teaspoon light corn syrup 2 tablespoons margarine 1 teaspoon vanilla
You also need a saucepan, a candy thermometer, and a dish lined with foil (to put the fudge in after cooking).
To start you butter the saucepan and the foil lined dish (the foil itself). After that you add the sugar, milk, chocolate, and corn syrup to the sauce pan. Then you stir the mix on medium-high heat until it comes to a boil. In Colorado this took about 25 minutes, at lower altitudes it should be faster. (Yay for high elevation cooking!!! It’s science, art, and guesswork rolled into one! Keeps life exciting!)
Once it boils you reduce the heat to medium low and clip on your candy thermometer. Make sure it’s in the mix but not touching the bottom of the pan or you’ll get a bad read! Then you keep stirring until it gets up to 234 degrees Fahrenheit. For high elevation you cook it to 222-225 degrees instead stirring constantly. This took a whopping 53 minutes! I timed it and everything. (Thankfully my mother was present to talk and take pictures so I wasn’t bored.)
As soon as the chocolate mixture gets to temperature you remove it from the heat but do not remove the candy thermometer. Add the margarine and vanilla but don’t stir them in! Then you wait until it cools down to 110 degrees Fahrenheit! (This can take a couple hours as you can’t stir it while cooling.)
Back to the bare bones: While waiting for my fudge to cool I prepped a coloring book page to serve as my bone building guide. To do this I taped wax paper on it. Fancy right? Then I brought out my fondant again, kneaded it a few times until it was pliable then set to work building up the bones by hand.
I decided to do only parts of the skeleton for aesthetic and logical reasons. It is rare to find a complete skeleton in a fossil dig and also it looked cool only having bone fragments here and there. It took me about 30 minutes to get them all sculpted out, mostly because they’re tiny and I have clumsy fingers.
The re-fudgening: When the fudge finally cools off you take the candy thermometer of and give it a good stirring. Once it loses its “I’m beautiful chocolate” sheen and starts to look more like your standard chocolate buttercream frosting it goes into the greased, foil lined pan to cool some more!
Speaking of frosting: To ensure that the bones would stick I decided to make some chocolate frosting to go with the chocolate bones and chocolate fudge. (Sensing a theme here?) For this I made my personal favorite chocolate butter cream frosting. For this you need: ½ cup margarine 4 ½ cups powdered sugar ¼ cup water or milk 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla ½ cup cocoa powder
You beat the margarine and butter together until it’s fluffy. Then you add 2 cups of powdered sugar carefully and slowly because it tends to explode if you aren’t careful. Add in the water/milk and vanilla then add the last of the powdered sugar just as slowly as before.
I added a single drop of black food coloring to mine to make it a darker blackish-brown so that my bones would pop against it!
Bringing it all together: With all the components prepared it was time to make the Fabulous Fossil Fudge. I popped the fudge out of the foil lined dish and set it on one of the nicer plates I own. Then I got my frosting out and put a nice, thin layer of it on top of my fudge. Once that was done I started arranging my bones. As it turned out I couldn’t get the skeleton to fit the way I’d arranged it on the wax paper so I flipped the back half over so now we get TWO incomplete specimens! It’s like a bonus sale! Two for the price of one!
Then I paused to take a quick fudge photo up before cleaning everything up. I swear the clean-up took longer than making the fudge itself.
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 8:18 pm
Username: StrawberryRoseTea Preference List: Megaloceros, Gingko "Living Fossil" Lady, Dire Wolf, Bronze Devilsaur Foods Title: Strawberry Chocolate Tar Pit Cake Inspiration: I've always been interested in the tar pits where multiple fossils have been found. Our household is currently eating paleo and I discovered a recipe for paleo chocolate syrup that was thick and dark and reminded me of the tar pits. I decided to create a chocolate cake as a base and make a tar pit on it with bones. The rocks and vegetation ideas came to me as I was trying to rearrange the fridge to make room to chill the cake. Entry: Images link to higher res versions
Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc:
I followed strawberry chocolate cake recipe I had found on a paleo blog. Ingredients were Medjool Dates Strawberries eggs coconut milk coconut oil cocoa powder baking soda salt Wet ingredients went into the blender until smooth then were folded into the dry ingredients. The cake was baked in a 9'' round for 40 minutes at 350 F ingredients , prebake , postbake
While the cake baked I reduced some honey, water, salt, cocoa powder, cinnamon and vanilla on the stove top to create the tar. ingredients , finished
I left those two things to cool overnight.
To create the meringue bone fossils I whipped up 3 egg whites and 1/2 cup honey. Then used a ziploc bag with the corner cut off to pipe the topping into shapes on cookie sheets. They baked at 200 F for 2 hours. ingredients , whip , bones . bones
While the bones were baking I whipped together separated cream from full fat coconut milk with honey, vanilla, and cocoa powder to create frosting which I then let chill to make it a bit more stiff. ingredients , frosting
I frosted the cake and rolled some strawberries and blueberries in cocoa powder to create the '"rocks" around the tar pit. Once the rocks were in place the tar was spooned into the depression I had left in the frosting. Then came garnishing with the bones. Once the bones were down I added the finishing touches of mint sprigs to add a little more color and give the effect of growing greenery. rocks
This turned out to be a delightfully fudgey treat, the cake moist and crumbly, with just a hint of the strawberries in the cake batter. The occasional crunch of meringue giving it the pleasure of a varied texture in contrast to the fluffy smoothness of the frosting and silky stickiness of the chocolate honey syrup.
Username: belloblossom Preference List: Gingko "Living Fossil" Lady, Dire Wolf, Bronze Devilsaur, Megaloceros Foods Title: Dinosaur Cheesecake Surprise Inspiration: An Archeological Dig Site Entry: The cheesecake is ready! But wait a second... This just looks list a pile of dirt! Maybe if we scrape off the top a little. Omg, there's something in the dirt! Let's just clear off a little more here and... Hoooooooly-
To see what was in the cheesecake before it was covered in dirt -->
Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc: Process is pretty long, so I hid it in a spoiler.
There are two stages to this: making the chocolate ganache which the fossil is made out of, and the no-bake cheesecake. Let's start with the ganache.
With a 1:1 cream to chocolate chip ratio (I used heavy whipping cream and semi-sweet) melt the two itogether using a double broiler (or a ceramic bowl over a pot works just as well.) when they are blended, put it in the fridge to cool and thicken. While the ganache is cooling, print out a t-rex skull or desired fossil outline and place it on a cookie sheet, with plastic on top (do NOT use parchment paper, the ganache will stick to it like glue.) When the ganache has cooled, put it into a pastry bag and pipe it into the outline. Use a toothpick or scribe tool to fill in the outline fully. Now you'll put that in the freezer and let it set for two hours.
Time to work on the no-bake cheesecake! In a small bowl, combine crushed graham crackers (1 1/2 cups), cinnamon (a teaspoon), and packed brown sugar (1/2 cup.) When they are mixed, add melted butter (1/3 cup). Now, taking a springform pan (8-10 inch pans work nicely) press the crust evenly around the bottom. Chill in the fridge and start the cheesecake batter. For the batter, you will need cream cheese (2 eight ounce packages), lemon juice (2 teaspoons), heavy cream (1 pint), and white sugar (1/3 cup.) Beat them together until stiff. Remove the chilled crust from the fridge and fill half the batter into the crust pan and then back into the fridge it goes for another hour or two until firm.
Next, take the partially finished cheesecake from the fridge. Remove the ganache from the freezer and set on top of the half filled cheesecake pan and set on top. Fill with the remaining cheesecake filling. Add crushed graham crackers on top for a sandy appearance and set back in the fridge for several hours. When the cheesecake is finished, remove from fridge and pan. Serve it chilled and excavate with spoons or desired excavation tools. Time to dig in!
Note: I recommend making the ganache the night prior and light warming lightly the next day. This saves on cooking time (including set time) which is roughly 10 hours. Totally worth it though!
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:13 pm
Username: Teh Cheryl Preference List: None! Unless there is a surprise familiar, this is for funsies and to share this recipe with others. Foods Title: Paleo Razzleberry Pie (topped with a Trixi!) Inspiration: Going with the prehistoric theme, I wanted to do something a bit more into the theme on top of adding a dino as decoration. While I don't normally ascribe to the Paleo diet, I am familiar with it and it fit the theme quiet nicely! Mixed berries, like those that might have been scavenged in the wild, made with an all-paleo crust and then topped with a little dino just to round it out. Entry:
Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc:
Paleo Pie Crust Recipe
2 cup almond flour 1 cup coconut flour 1 cup arrowroot powder, plus extra for rolling out dough 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup butter, cut into cubes and frozen for an hour 1/4 cup lard, frozen 2 egg 1 egg plus 1 teaspoon water to make egg wash
Sift together the almond flour, coconut flour, arrowroot powder, and salt.
Using pastry blender, add the butter and lard to dry ingredients, blending until butter-flour-mix-thing is the size of small peas. Leave bits of butter pieces into the dough as that is what will give the crust it's flaky texture.
Add eggs into picture and blend until dough. (You can alternately use a food processor instead of a dough blender, but it's harder to control your butter lumps with a food processor and you might lose some of the flakiness.)
Form the dough into two ball, flatten into a disks, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
Transfer one disc of dough to a work surface (preferably parchment paper or something else that can be picked up) covered in arrowroot powder or tapioca powder.
Lightly dust the top of the disk with arrowroot powder and roll out to the size of a pie dish. I had trouble with the the dough sticking to the pin roller, so I ended up patting it down with just my hands.
Carefully transfer the dough to the oiled or floured pie dish. Again, there were issues with the dough cracking during this process, so setting the pie dish over the dough and then flipping the whole thing over seemed to be the best method. Smooth out any cracks with your fingers.
Refrigerate until ready. Time to prep the filling!
Razzleberry Pie Filling
18 ounces raspberries 18 ounces blackberries 10 ounce blueberries 1/8 cup of instant tapioca 1 teaspoon lemon juice ¼ teaspoon salt
In a large bowl combine the raspberries and blackberries and smash them up a bit until about 1/3 of the berries are mashed. I used my hands but a fork works just as well. (Frozen berries work just as well as fresh and are often cheaper! If using frozen, let sit out to defrost before you start mashing.)
Add the blueberries and 1/2 cup sugar. Let sit for 30 to 60 minutes.
If excessively juicy, strain the berry mix, saving 1/4 cup of the juice. (I have never had this much juice before so I usually don't strain.)
Add the saved berry juice, lemon juice, instant tapioca, and salt to the berry mixture.
Add ½ cup to 1 cup of sugar to taste, depending on the natural sweetness of the berries.
Pour the berry mixture into the pie crust.
Remove the extra disc of die from the refrigerator. Roll out as earlier instructed and carefully cut into strips using a knife. Weave the strips into a lattice on top of the pie. Because of the brittle nature of the dough (being a paleo dough), this may or may not work as easily as on normal dough. I faked a true lattice top by cutting the strips whenever they were suppose to go "under" its cross strip and then just tucked the ends under to hide the ugly lol. (Alternately, you can just roll out the dough and set it on top of the pie. However, berry pies need more holes in the upper crust to allow a lot of the water to evaporate or you risk a soggy, sad pie.) Fold excess dough under and pinch for a pretty edge.
Take any leftover pie crust and form into one ball. Add 1-2 drops of food coloring directly onto the dough. Knead it by hand until the color is completely spread through. Roll and cut with cookie cutters as desired. Please over lattice crust in whatever pattern you want, using some egg wash as a glue. You can freeze the cut dough for 10-20 minutes if it falls apart when you try to move the pieces.
Combine one egg with a teaspoon of water. Brush liberally over the entire pie.
Bake at 375 degF for 20 minutes. Remove briefly from oven to cover edges with tin foil to prevent them from burning. Return to oven for another 20-30 minutes. Pie is ready when the crust is a golden brown and the filling is bubbling.
Let cool for 1-2 hours before serving!
Teh Cheryl
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Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:44 pm
Username: xX Green Tea Tree Xx Preference List: Megaloceros, Gingko "Living Fossil" Lady, Direwolf, Bronze Devilsaur Foods Title: Raspberry Pistachio Dino Egg Inspiration: Dinosaur eggs Entry:
Ingredients/Tools: Kitchen mixer 4 9" cake pans Bowls Whisk (or a fork; you do you)
6 cups flour, plus more for pans 2 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon kosher salt 2 cup milk 1 cup seedless raspberry jam 1 – 2 teaspoon raspberry extract (optional) red food coloring (optional, amounts will vary depending on the color you want) *Note: if you plan on using this, I reccomend buying gel food color as it's much stronger and you don't need to use as much to get the color you want. 3 1/2 cups sugar 2 cup canola oil 2 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 eggs 8 ounces cream cheese, softened 24 ounces marscarpone cheese 4 – 8 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted 1 cup shelled pistachios, chopped 1 stick butter (for prepping baking pans) *Note: I doubled the recipe to make a four layer cake. Feel free to divide it in half if you want something smaller.
Holy Mother of Process
Preheat your oven to 350F, grease and flour your baking pans and get ready for a ride. Whisk together your flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl till all ingredients are incorporated. Then, in a medium sized bowl combine raspberry jelly, milk, raspberry extract and food coloring till the jelly is mostly dissolved (having a few tiny bits is fine, just no big chunks should be swimming in there) and set that baby aside. Beat together eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla extract in a mixer on medium-high speed till it is smooth and a nice pale (almost butter-like) color. How it should all look.
This cake is gonna be delicious just you wait.
Now that you have your delicious components, add half of your dry mix into the sugar-egg mixture and set your mixer to stir and then gradually build it up to around medium speed. Once they have been combined, pour in your entire bowl of jam-packed raspberry flavor (ahahah, see what i did there?) and mix it all together. For a third (and final) time, add in the remaining half of your dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and mix until you have a cake batter consistency. It should be pink and wonderful (if you used the food dye). Like so.
Now divide your batter between your cake pans, smooth the surface and pop them bad boys into your preheated oven! Ba-da Bing. Cook those babies for ~40 minutes and remove them when a tooth pick comes out clean after sticking it in the middle of your cakes. Awwwww Yis. Wait till they're cool enough to pop out of your pans and then let them cool on a baking rack for 15 minutes.You got other things to do before you're ready to sit down and enjoy.
While your delicious mounds of cake-y goodness are baking, it's time to work on making your icing! I personally dislike most store brand prepared icings/frostings, so I try to make my own. Clean out your mixer bowl nice and good, 'cause you're gonna need it again. Is it squeaky clean? Perfect.
In your mixer bowl, combine marscapone and cream cheese and beat it together on medium-high speed. You want them to become smooth and fluffy. It should have a butter-like color to it. Now that it's well on it's way to achieving awesomeness, add in your confectioner's sugar and mix it all together until you have a icing-like consistency. Ba-da Boom. Remember you're frosting a cake with this delicious bowl of sweet cheesy goodness, you need it to have some durability so it should be a little stiff. I used around 4 1/2 cups of confectioner's sugar to achieve the consistency and sweetness I wanted.
You think you're done with your icing don't you? Nope! Get your pistachios ready and fold them into your frosting. We're making a raspberry pistachio cake here, they had to come in at some point. Bam. Let your icing sit in your fridge for a few minutes to it can chill. It's primarily soft cheese so it will get incredibly soft while waiting on your counter for the cakes it's destined to be on top of. I made the mistake of not doing so and had to fight with my icing as I smothered my cake in it.
By this point your cakes should be cool enough for you to start stacking and shaping them. I admit to not being the best at shaping cakes (I don't do it all that often), but in the spirit of things I attempted to cut and trim my cakes into an egg shape. I sadly goofed up around here with my pictures and didn't document the process of me trimming and cutting away at the cake to try and get my dino egg formed. You'll need your trashcan at the ready and a plate to put your scraps on to make throwing them away a little bit easier. Once you've achieved your desired egg-shape,it's time to start actually frosting. Deconstruct your cake and get ready. Place one cake upside down on a cake stand, and spread a thin layer of raspberry jam and 1/3 frosting over top. Cover with second cake, top side up and repeat the same layering process for the final two cakes; frost top and sides of cakes with remaining frosting and garnish your cake with raspberries and pistachios. I recommend buying a large container of raspberries so you can create an edible nest around your egg.
Enjoy your light and scrumptious raspberry pistachio dino egg!
Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 6:19 pm
Username: Kyribird Preference List: Gingko, Dire Wolf, Megaloceros, Bronze Devilsaur Foods Title: Dino Egg Cake Inspiration: Every easter I make easter egg versions of these with bright colors and designs. It's really fun to eat, peeling the egg shell back to get to the delicious cake on the inside. And, bonus, if you lose on of these suckers when hiding them, they don't smell bad after a week. Also, it's hilarious to watch someone expecting an egg to get cake instead.
I thought I could easily replicate that with a dino-egg theme. The head, feet and tails poking out are made from home made gumpaste and hand painted with food coloring. Entry: Tiny funnel to get the batter into the shells The cake always does the bubble out ugly thing. You gently wipe it away to clean up the shell for painting. Sculpting the head ^ Work in progress model Cooking time, process, oven temp, etc:
Cook Time: 25 Minutes Oven Temp: 325
Cake:
1 3/4 cup flour 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp coarse kosher salt 1/2 tsp caradmom 1/2 cup honey 1/2 Cup whole milk 1/2 cup oil 2 eggs 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp lemon zest
Whisk together dry ingredients in one bowl, in another one honey, milk and oil. In a third bowl, eggs, brown sugar and zest until thickened. Add in honey mixture, and then slowly add in dry ingredients. Once mixed, funnel it into the empty egg shells.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Gumpaste:
4 cups powdered sugar 1/4 c water 1 tbsp unflavored gelatin 1 tbsp corn syrup
Let gelatin bloom for 5 minutes in water add corn syrup Mix over low heat until dissolved add in powdered sugar mix until you can't mix anymore. Knead until no longer sticky with food coloring
Everything is painted with fd&c dyes for a wash and then darker details are done with gel food coloring.
Kyribird
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Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:14 am
Okay.. after much deliberation and asking multiple guest judges (ryuu, kara and a couple others who wish to remain nameless + an IRL chef friend) I've finally got my winners! Congrats to the following! These are actually in no particular order - it was hard for me to narrow it down further but it just so happened that you all had different first picks in your prefs so it wasn't necessary. huzzah!
Junglerunner
This layered cake was gorgeous. The cakes looked perfectly cooked and light and fluffy. It was iced simply but it was beautiful. I wanted to eat it and the little dinos on top were super cute. Please mail me a slice *o* You win The Direwolf!
StrawberryRoseTea
Pro-tip for those bones - at first glance a few judges thought they were plastic so you did a really good job there. Everything about this cake was so pretty - even the mint leaves acting as bushes. ;; Also chocolate /screams/ You win Megaloceros
Kyribird
THIS IS THE COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. I am definitely going to be doing this at Easter or Christmas or.. whenever I want because holy heck this is such a unique and cute idea. the little dinos sticking out of the egg were so cute. Congrats you win the Gingko Fossil Lady
There were a lot of amazing entries and please don't feel bad if you weren't picked - it really came down to minute details and I had to pull in more judges than I had originally planned. XD Please stay tuned for the rolling of the fourth prize!
LOLTERNATIVE generated a random number between
1 and 9 ...
7!
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:15 am
Zempre techabyte Tara de Draiocht Tiger_Kisa699 She-Ra of Etheria Sesshiyasha Nisshou H belloblossom xX Green Tea Tree Xx
