Victorian Christmas 2014

It is fantastic to be able to dress up in fun clothes, get drunk, and harass Santa.  

This year I made Victorian skirt from scratch.

 

One of the best parts was the pocket I put in to the bumroll that may or may not fit a flask.

At the end of the night, I had to gird my loins to leave.

Eventually I'll get a good picture of the skirt and add it to this post.

Rocky Horror Tail Coat

Tail coats aren't normally shaped for people shaped like Dan.  Since he was playing the narrator at this year's Rocky, I got him a 1940's french tuxedo pattern.  The pattern isn't difficult, per sé, but definitely different.  It came with three small squares and a bunch of "tape measures" that correspond to chest circumferences so that the same pattern can be scaled to any size, including dolls.

You anchor the small square on to your craft paper and draw points at certain distances marked on the schematic, then connect all the points.  The pattern does not come with seam allowances or markers of any type, so it took me a bit of staring to figure out which piece was which and how they were all linked.

After transferring to the muslin, I laid out the body pieces to figure out which seams are which and lined them up.

I had to take out four inches on either side of the back instead of the minor darts it requested.

The outside was a cotton blend and the lining was a linen blend in order to have a bit of stretch and not over heat.  Herb was helping me transfer.

Most of the body together.

Of course I forgot to take good pictures once I was done.

While I was at it, I made Riff Raff some wrap around pants for his stilts.

[recipe] Brownie Cheesecake Bites

Welp, I made four dozen of these, and they kind of disappeared in one night.  I'm glad I managed to remember to take a picture before we ate the last two!  I made them for Q's birthday and even the non-diety people enjoyed them.  It was such a blast to have Isilzha over and NanoNuki in town again.

BROWNIE BASE

1/2 cup Butter (one stick)

2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate

1 cup almond meal
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup Splenda
2 tbsp vanilla
2 large eggs
1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Melt butter and chocolate in 30 second microwave bursts, or over a water bath.  Mix in all the powders and vanilla, then the eggs once the butter has cooled down enough to not cook them.  Spoon in to mini cupcake tins and flatten down to fill base.  Bake for 5 minutes at 325F.

CHEESECAKE FILLING

1 lb full fat cream cheese (two standard 8 oz boxes)

1/2 cup Splenda

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp vanilla

2 large eggs

1/4 cup cinnamon (optional)

Beat all together until fluffy and spoon into the prebaked brownie cups.  Bake for 15 minutes at 300F.  Stick in fridge to set, or as long as you can tolerate not burning yourself.

The original recipe from All Day I Dream About Food is written for a 9" buttered springform pan, but cupcakes are always more entertaining ^_^  My other big change was to add the cinnamon.  Of course, this is completely optional, but it made them divine.  And since there is never enough cinnamon for Dan, he made a fantastic sauce to bathe them in.

CINNAMON SAUCE

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 cup Splenda

1 cup cinnamon

Next time I really want to try and make this caramel sauce from Blondie's Paleo and Keto Journey.  I am such a sucker for caramel!

Bigger Blacker Cock

My life normally plays out like a game of Cards Against Humanity.  This weekend I finally had my play, for which I finally made my first puppet, a moose.  It was beyond hell trying to get the antlers to stay in position (yes, I tried multiple kinds of wire.  No, dowels would be too fragile/heavy), so I ended up tacking them to the plack.  Unfortunately, he has now been married to Tooey, and I doubt I'll be getting him back.

I freehanded a pattern and made him mostly out of recycled bottle felt.  The antlers are headliner foam, the eyes were a catnip ball clamshell package.

I miss my moose.

[recipe] Cranberry Muffins

I am so mad at Dave right now.  He asked me to make him cranberry muffins for breakfast with this recipe I found.  The bater was orgasmically good and the muffins are just taunting me.  Do I break keto?  Do I give a flying rat's ass?  THEY SMELL SO GOOD INTERROBANG

Also, I'm fat, and I have to be half naked in a play in four weeks...

[recipe] SF Keto Flax Brownies

I've been playing around with this recipe for Miracle Brownies a few times to completely different results.  They are good, and pretty easy to make.

FIRST ITERATION

When reading the recipe, I realized it asked for three full cups of sweetener, one cup liquid, one stick butter, four eggs, and two cups flax meal.  I was horrified by this amount of sweetener, so I only used one cup of erythritol with some baking splenda mixed in.  Dan loved them, but I couldn't get past how sweet they still were, and the texture of the flax meal reminded me a lot of wheat bran or corn hulls.

SECOND ITERATION

Like most weekends, I woke up wanting to bake something at random, and Dan requested flax brownies again.  We were out or low in a few ingredients, so I substituted.  I only used 1/4 C erythritol total, used extra cocoa powder instead of baker's chocolate, and subbed the last half cup of flax meal with a mixture of hemp and coconut flour.  I frekin loved these!  They had the same texture as the carbomb cupcakes I'd made the week before for Isilza, though a bit dry.  I want to make them like this again but add more cream next time.  There was one tray of mini cupcakes (15 minutes) and one of big cupcakes (20 minutes).  Dan found them not sweet enough.

THIRD ITERATION

This morning followed the same procedure.  This time I had all the ingredients, but the stove was in the dishwasher, so I had to add the baker's chocolate shaved instead of melted.  I upped the sweetener to 1/4 C erythritol and 1/4 C baking splenda, which was a good level of sweet.  Again in one tray of minis and one tray of regular cupcakes, but something made them really fluff up!  Dan loved them and deemed them the best batch.  I didn't like them nearly as much as last month's because they had the hully texture again, but it got better after they cooled.  A lot more fluffy like cake than moist and chewy like a brownie.  There's a bit of tinny aftertaste from the sweetener.

MY IDEAL NEXT ITERATION

I want to keep the sweetener from batch 3, but the solids from batch 2.  Maybe do 1.5 parts cocoa powder and 0.5 parts baker's chocolate, and twice as much cream.

[recipe] All-of-the-dairy-in-the-house and Broccoli Soup

1/2 C Grated mozzarella

1/2 C Grated cheddar

1/2 C Grated parmesan

1/2 C Full fat ricotta

1/4 lb Cream Cheese

1/4 lb Butter (1 stick)

1/2 C Heavy cream

1 lt Chicken broth

1 lb Broccoli (frozen works)

1/2 C Bacon crumbles

Blend or process all the cheeses and butter until homogeneous.  Slowly incorporate the heavy cream and then some of the broth.  Transfer to a pot on medium heat and slowly add the rest of the broth until soupy and warm, making sure you stir it so that it doesn't separate.

If necessary, heat up the broccoli in a pan before adding to the soup, along with bacon.  Season to taste with garlic, onion, pepper or chilis.

A dollop of sour cream makes for an awesome garnish.