Halloween special: Edible outhouse

This may be childish but just a week from Halloween and you can't help yourself. Incidentally, this desert is also a good test of friendship. The dinner was in part an homage to my Swedish heritage - most country houses have outhouses and they all have the same iconic design sporting a heart-shaped ventilation hole and slanted roof. We'll challenge you to figure out which of the outhouses below is wooden vs. edible :)

Making this is straightforward to anyone who's made a gingerbread house - the difference here is that the house has a filling and that you made need some practice to ensure the heart on the outhouse door turns out right. Make your own cardboard design, use your favorite sweet short pastry recipe and assemble with molten sugar.

Again, this is not for the faint-hearted: Fill the outhouse with a gooey mixture of chocolate mousse, peanut butter and finely chopped strawberries for added consistency. Cover in dark chocolate sauce if you want. Place a small bucket of Sauternes in the middle - the dish needs yellow. Garnish with juniper twigs for pastoral look and slight chemical smell. 

Eat, drink and be merry. (btw, if you liked this you may like last year's life-sized edible mummy)

Submitted by: @olofster

Edible ashcloud & volcano dinner - #ashtag

In honor of Eyjafjallajökull and the temporarily displaced. While Iceland's volcano disrupted air travel across the globe she also gave rise to something quite benign: at least one song and a collection of short stories. Now she's inspired a dish.

Assembling this feast is surprisingly easy - once you've figured out how to build the ashcloud and rocky mountain sides. Cotton candy makes for tasty ashclouds. Mix squid ink with cream cheese and spread on lavash bread  - inseparable from volcanic rock! (And interestingly the squid ink doesn't really add any flavor). Tabouleh makes for great soil on the sides of the mountain. Hide a Middle Eastern salad under the lavash bread - smoky baba ghanoush, falafel, etc. - and when you eat this, use the rock (i.e. the cream cheese covered lavash bread) instead of pita to make your own scrumptious roll.

We'll get back to you with more details on the how-to shortly.

Last time she erupted (1821) she went on for 2 years so perhaps this dinner will prove itself relevant well into the decade.

 

Notice the airplane ducking the cloud:)

(Thanks to @amandahesser, @starkness, @joshuakeay and Joanna Zawieja for the pics)


Submitted by: @olofster