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In Episode 24, we get into some Thermomix Halloween recipes!
All of our recipes this week are from Thermomix Tarif Defterim who has some great ideas of how to use the Thermomix for Halloween-inspired recipes. BUT the recipes also have components that you could use at any time of the year.
Recipe #1 – Spiders
The body of the spiders is made of chocolate brownie. Dense, gooey, chocolate brownie. We had to cook the brownie for an extra 5 minutes so that it wasn’t TOO gooey in the middle, but so as not to burn the top, we covered it with another pan. After taking it out of the oven, we let it cool somewhat, took any crispy bits off (store them to put with ice-cream later!) and the used the ‘body’ of the brownie to roll and put into ‘spider bodies’. They looked a lot like rissoles.
Next step (or while the brownies are in the oven), cut lengths of licorice to be used as spider legs. We bought straps of licorice.
The tricky bit was attaching the licorice legs to the ‘already hard / cooled’ spider bodies. We used the melted chocolate as ‘glue’ to stick the legs to the body, with the support of a cupcake wrapper. Another option that we will try next time is sticking the licorice into the body when the body / brownie is still warm.
Instead of melting the chocolate using the bain-marie method as mentioned in the recipe, we grated the chocolate on Speed 7 for 7 seconds, then did 4 minutes, 50 degrees, Speed 2-3.
Note – not keen on spiders? Give the brownie a whirl anyway! We made it using gluten-free flour and got very positive feedback!
Recipe #2 – Witch Fingers
As ghoulish as these look, they are really just shortbread with an almond and some strawberry jam! Pretty easy, and fun to make!
Firstly, make the dough, then set aside in the fridge / freezer until cooled completely.
Using a knife, cut them into rectangular prisms roughly the size of an index finger. Roll them slightly so they are rounded, then lightly cut the wrinkles of the finger into them. Press a blanched almond in the place of the the fingernail. While the recipe suggested baking in a 180 degree oven for 30-40 minutes, ours were ready in 20 minutes. We didn’t want them to be too dry.
After baking (and cooling), remove the almonds (they will come away easily), and put some strawberry jam in the ‘nail bed’ before returning the almond. Spread some more jam at the bottom of the finger (as pictured).
Note – too gross to eat? Try the same dough recipe, roll out flat and use a cookie cutter to make biscuits, which you can then decorate.
Recipe #3 – Bloodshot Eyeballs (note – scroll down quite a while to reach the recipe)
Firstly, make the inside of the eyeball by melting some of the white chocolate and then adding the biscuits (we used Milk Arrowroot) and ricotta cheese and blending until homogenous.
Put into a bowl and leave to cool completely in the fridge.
Make eyeball sized balls of the dough and place on a tray with baking paper over it. You may want to use clean wet hands to smooth the surface of the eyeballs. Freeze for 30 minutes.
Prepare the white chocolate covering by grating / melting. Cover the eyeball in white chocolate using two forks (so that you can lift they eyeball and drain away the excess white chocolate). It’s a good idea to leave as much white chocolate in the TM bowl as you can, so that you re-melt as necessary. Pop a Smartie on as the iris and leave to cool on the bench / fridge. We put ours straight back in the freezer which led to a bit of cracking due to the sudden temperature change. When cooled, cut any excess white chocolate away from the ball.
Create a pupil for the eyeballs by grating / melting chocolate (you’ll be a pro at this by the end of these recipes) and piping them on to the Smartie. We use a mini ziplock bag with a tiny hole cut in the bottom corner.
After making the icing according to the recipe provided in the blog, we also put this in a mini ziplock bag with a tiny hole cut in the bottom corner to create the capillaries of the eye.
Note: You can re-fashion this recipe into chocolate truffles for Christmas! Try covering with coconut or 100s & 1000s.
Catch you next week!