Jeff Grand Varnier Mousse

Dessert, Survivor: Cambodia - Second Chance, Sweets

Over the span of four episodes Jeff Varner has been dominating the game and setting the tone of the season however that two-bit floozy slash my Survivor nemesis Tasha (she cock-blocked my attempts to woo Joe pre-game) was able to wrangle Abi for two successive votes and boot out our dear friend and biggest non-idol-owning-or-person-named-Joe threat, Varner.

We have been friends with Varner for a long time, having met during the filming of Survivor: The Australian Outback where Annelie flew plane in the opening and I supplied Kel with my beef jerky. Much to Probst’s chagrin (we were not friends yet) we loitered around Ponderosa and joined the pre-jury trip where we bonded with Jeff over our mutual hatred for Colby (he had stolen Probst’s heart, obviously).

There was a brief stint following All Stars where we lost contact (we may have leaked spoilers AND blamed it on Varner) however we reconnected while working for Martha Stewert … where Annelie and I had nothing to do with her jail sentence. Trust us and please buy it, Martha can’t know anything.

Varner really took the fan vote to heart and turned up in Cambodia to play hard and reward everyone for his votes and even in an episode with Probsty’s wet dream, aka the DILFs glistening in underwear challenge, Varner was a star, battling hard in his final tribal council and walking into our open arms in Ponderosa with his head held high.

We tried to send a bug flying into Tasha during tribal to force a medivac but sadly it was Varner we were entertaining at Loser Lodge with a big vat of our Jeff Grand Varnier Mousse; well, what Probst left us – he wandered out of the kitchen repeating his commentary from the DILF challenge, Dietz, big and long, it will take some experimenting (hopefully we can join whatever he has planned).

Like Varner’s short stint on the island, the mousse packs a punch with the Grand Marnier cutting through the velvety dark chocolate to woo even the staunchest of Jaffa critics over to the choc-orange side.

Enjoy – like we will when Varner gets his inevitable third chance!

Jeff Grand Varnier Mousse
Serves: 6(ish).

Ingredients
6 eggs, at room temperature
350g (at least) 70% dark chocolate, preferably Valrhona
75g butter, cold
75g sugar
a good dash of Grand Marnier
a pinch of cream of tartar

Method
Separate the eggs, I prefer by hand for some visceral reason about connecting with your food however do it the easiest way you know, placing the yolks in a small bowl to the side and the whites in a large clean, dry bowl for a stand mixer.

Leave the eggs just hanging out on the bench and get to work melting the chocolate using a double boiler method (aka large bowl over boiling water – just make sure to avoid the bowl touching the water or it may cook rather than melt). Once the chocolate has melted, remove it from the heat and stir in the cold butter. Once the butter is fully combined, add a good dash (about a 2 tbsp, depending ultimately on how much orange flavour you want) Grand Marnier and 4 of the egg yolks. Leave to cool slightly.

Start beating the egg whites on medium in a stand mixer, adding the sugar and a pinch of cream of tartar the egg whites when they start to foam and continue to beat the until they form stiff peaks. Add in the two remaining egg yolks and beat until combined.

When the chocolate cream has cooled slightly, fold through the egg whites in three goes, gently folding through each addition. Spoon the mousse into cups/serving dishes – I went with ceramic mugs and espresso cups – and refrigerate overnight.

Devour and enjoy, with or without what Probst has planned with his share.

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Apple Cinnamon Hilary Duffins

Cake, Dessert, Snack, Sweets

Well this week’s visit sure provided us with some shocks! We were under the impression that Hilary was just making a quick trip over to discuss collaborating on a new album and/or to do a guest stint on Younger, but her real reason was far more telenovela.

Wait for it…Annelie and I are actually Duffs!

Yes, you read that correctly – Annelie and I are both long lost Duff siblings! I have always had an inkling that I was older than I thought, given my penchant for pre-5PM dinners, but I never thought for a second that I was Haylie Duff’s seven minutes younger and far prettier twin.

I was in smug shock thinking about how glorious our debut album as Up the Duffs’ would be (probably in stores next fall) that I almost fell off my chair when Hizza dropped the bomb that Annelie was not only a Duff, but Hilary’s twin.

Hilary was so pleased to have received an anonymous tip-off that her mother gave two of her children up, and even more so when she discovered that those children were her best friends and the writer/creators of Lizzie McGuire.

So excited that she even ignored the fact we sided with Stifler’s Mom in the violent and deadly A Cinderella Story feud … and poisoned Chad Michael Murray against her during our on set fling!

Oh and that time we got Haylie fired from 7th Heaven likening her to the second coming of Shannen Doherty so that I could sleep with Simon (we thought the show was a documentary and our alcoholism was blinding our judgement when Matt was clearly the superior son).

While Annelie eventually came clean that she gave Hizza the anonymous tip-off and that she falsified the DNA results, it was so nice reconnecting as family as opposed to friends over our Apple Cinnamon Hilary Duffins. I don’t know we will ever be able to tell her the truth (I wouldn’t anyway, that would ruin Annelie’s long-winded scam).

Like Hilary the muffins are a sweet, sugar coated delight but like her and Haylie’s respective twins they have enough spice to keep it interesting.

Or that is how we sold it to her – enjoy!

Apple Cinnamon Hilary Duffins
Makes: 8.

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
250g butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup maple syrup
4 eggs
5 granny smith apples, finely diced
2 tsp ground cinnamon, extra
½ cup caster sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.

Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a bowl to combine, before adding the butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, eggs and apple. Mix thoroughly to combine.

Divide the mixture evenly amongst 8 Texas muffin tins and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Combine the extra cinnamon and caster sugar in a bowl.

Immediately remove the muffins from the tin and toss the cakes in the sugar. Cool and devour.

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Charros

Dessert, Snack, Sweets

I tell you, Charo is an absolute miracle worker on the soul!

After a tumultuous month with Annelie engaged in a legal battle with Brandi Glanville after giving her the information which lead to Fish-Cooch-gate, foiling Kelly Rutherford’s attempts to gain back custody of her children and blocking Bryan Adam’s next album from seeing the light of day, and where I was involved in a non-deliberate-or-scam-related hit and run (the car hit, I ran … to a bar), we have been feeling a bit down, despondent and in need of a lift. Charo, petite as she may be, had us soaring higher than her flamenco riffs at the end of our catch-up.

Charo is a rarity amongst our friendships, in that we have never once been engaged in a fight, legal battle or had an ill word to say of one another in our five decade friendship. Some would argue that the mutual secrets of our actual ages make us scared to cross each other, but I would argue that her Spanish charm is too infectious. I mean, come on, she’s Charo!

Even during our time working on The Love Boat, where Annelie and I were heavily addicted to crack cocaine and invented the drug Bath Salts in the Captain’s Suite with Shirley Jones, Charo embraced us with warmth and tried to help us achieve our best.

Charo walked into Annelie’s place and could tell we were both down (Bryan’s album still had a release date and I realised I forgot to get the details of the man who legitimately ran me down), immediately breaking into an epic four and a half hour flamenco guitar solo about hope, despair and perseverance which turned our frowns upside down.

The only way to repay our dear friend, mentor and role-model and celebrate her multiple birthdays, was to whip up the biggest batch of Charros possible, while we plotted ways that Ben could win back JVDB’s love after he ruined a Beek Jeans event three years ago.

While Charros are good with a nice thick, chilli chocolate sauce our personal favourite accompaniment is Dulce de Nick Lachey. It is thick, sweet and makes you want to smack your hands/face in it until Charo can teach you the sign language for it / work you out of your funk.

Enjoy!

Charros
Serves: 3 friends plotting to woo back JVDB.

Ingredients
¼ cup caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup boiled water
corn or vegetable oil, for-a deep-fryin’

Method
Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a wide, shallow dish and place aside (this is for the coatin’).

In a large, heatproof bowl combine the flour and the baking powder, and then beat in the olive oil and boiled water. Keep mixing until the dough comes together, it will be warm and sticking so don’t let that scare you. Leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes, while you heat the oil over low/medium heat in a medium saucepan (the oil should come up a third of the way, remember I am pretty scared of deep fryin’).

When the oil appears hot enough, toss in a cube of bread and see if it sizzles and browns. If it browns in about 30 seconds, you’re good to go. Keep watch on the hot oil pan at all times, you never know when it can go nuts.

Preheat the oven to 80°C.

Load up a piping bag with a large star shaped nozzle (if you don’t have a star nozzle, like me, a plain one won’t matter. They will just look like strange little nuggets that taste delicious) and fill it with the dough. Squeeze lengths, about 6-8cm long, of dough into the hot oil, snipping them off with a pair of scissors as you go. You could do them long, but that would require some serious deep-fryin’ which I am just not emotionally ready to commit to. Cook about 3 or 4 at a time. Once they are browned, remove to paper towels with a slotted spoon and then place on a lined baking sheet. While you work through cooking all the churros, keep them in the oven to retain their heat.

Once all done, keep in the warm oven for about 10 minutes to help them finish cooking through before coating in the cinnamon sugar and serving with a generous amount of Dulce de Nick Lachey, preferably on Nick Lachey.

This may be all about Charo, but she isn’t the only one bringing the spice, no?

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Candy Apple Spelling

Carnival Week, Dessert, Sweets

High society folk like us have many ways of making friends – some admittedly more glamorous than others. While I’d love to say Ben and I met our greatest gal-pals during our prep-school education at Chilton, we actually spent our teenage years at 267th best public school in the United States – Beverly Hills High.

It was on these sacred grounds that we first met the delightful Candy Marer, more commonly known as Candy Spelling. We spent our high school days generally sass-mouthing ugly children and behaving like a self-proclaimed mean girl clique. It was glorious, and Candy was our queen.

Fast-forward a few years and Ben and I were the most dazzling bridesmaids ever as Candy Marer became Candy Spelling. Aaron was quite the handsy fellow at the wedding, a handsy-ness we enjoyed and encouraged and would ultimately mark the demise of our great friendship with Candy.

After Aaron’s death in 2006, Candy turned to her closest BFFs for comfort only to find out that we were aggressively pursuing the estate for the contents of the wrapping room. While we obtained the most luxurious gift wrap supply known to man, our relationship with Candy was destroyed.

As it turns out, we really miss Candy and it is time to make amends. What says here is a sweetener to bring you back into our lives?

After all, nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like a piece of impaled fruit covered with jaw-breaking, blood red candy.

Candy Apple Spelling
Serves: 6

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup glucose syrup
1-2 teaspoons red food colouring
6 medium granny smith apple
6 extra thick barbecue skewers

Method
Wash and dry the apples and firmly skewer through the core with a barbecue skewer. Line a tray with non-stick baking paper.

Combine water, sugar and glucose syrup in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, without stirring for 20 minutes or until a candy thermometer registers 150 degrees celsius (hard crack stage). Add food colouring, tipping the saucepan gently to mix.

Working quickly, dip skewered apples into candy mixture until coated. Set aside on baking paper until firm and cool.

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BanAnna Chlumsky Split

Carnival Week, Dessert, Party Food, Sweets

It is probably quite hard to comprehend, but there was once a time when Annelie and I were not on the A-List. I know, crazy.

We first met our friend Anna Chlumsky when we were all extras on Uncle Buck while we were just struggling child stars. Obviously smelling success, Annelie and I hitched our wagon to Macaulay Culkin and commenced a decade long struggle with sobriety as part of his entourage.

But now I’ve gone too far. Two years following our time working together on Uncle Buck, we were reunited on the set of My Girl and formed a close bond with Annie Chlum.

While she disapproved of our addiction and dealing, she was greatly appreciative of our vision quest inspired script re-writes killing off Mac and making her the star. Not to mention writing her the most heartbreaking moment of any movie ever (until that moment in Inside Outside, obviously).

While we wrote the script for My Girl 2, we briefly lost touch on account of our countless deportations and stints in rehab after we failed to snag our first Oscars. Thankfully fate found a way to keep us together and reunited us when we were hired to write aggressive, expletive ridden insults for Armando Iannucci’s scripts and have been extremely close ever since.

Anna thought it best to pop over and relax before the Emmy Awards and visit the Ekka, which she has heard so much about in Hollywood. (Plus, getting her picture with us in Brisbane is a sure way to snag last minute votes).

Wanting to take her back to the innocent(ish) time we shared on the My Girl sets we made our famous BanAnna Chlumsky Split, which was the only thing that could cheer her up after a harrowing day filming Thomas J’s funeral.

While splits are a pretty simple dessert to whip up, we were inspired by Magnolia Bakery’s famous Banana Pudding and found a way to make it, well, better.

We opt out of the ice cream and cream and instead go with the pudding mix two ways. Trust us, you will never go back. With that, we have kindly borrowed the recipe for the mix from Magnolia as there is no way we could ever top it.

Enjoy!

BanAnna Chlumsky Split
Serves: 4, with pudding leftover to boot.

Ingredients
4 bananas, peeled and sliced in half
¼ to ½ cup salted peanuts, roughly chopped
8 maraschino cherries
coconut oil, for frying

Pudding
1 ½ cups water
⅔ cup instant vanilla pudding mix
1 395g can sweetened condensed milk
3 cups heavy cream

Hot Fudge Sauce
⅔ cup double cream
½ cup Golden Syrup
⅓ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
175g dark chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method
Pudding
Mix together the water, pudding mix and condensed milk until smooth, and refrigerate for about four hours.

Four hours later, whip the double cream until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the pudding mixture in thirds, until well incorporated. Transfer half of the pudding mixture into an airtight container and freeze for about six hours, placing the remaining pudding back in the fridge. Covered with cling, obviously.

Hot Fudge Sauce
Bring the cream, syrup, sugar, cocoa, salt and half of the chocolate to boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer, and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining chocolate, butter, and vanilla extract, until smooth. Let to cool for 20 minutes.

(If you don’t use all of the fudge, which you probably won’t, store in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week).

Bananas and assembly
Preheat a griddle until nice and hot, and lightly oil the pan with coconut oil. While the pan in heating, removing the pudding from both the freezer and the fridge.

Place the banana halves on the hot pan, flat side down and fry for 1-2 minutes. Now, sometimes I ace the next part and other times I just shouldn’t bother. Using a flat spatula, flip the bananas and fry on the other side for a minute or until lightly caramelised. Repeat until all bananas are cooked.

Sometimes the banana gets soft, so don’t worry too much if you make a mess.

Now get to work on with the plating by placing two halves of the bananas in a bowl. Top with two or three generous scoops of the frozen pudding. Drizzle, again generously, with hot fudge sauce and scatter, you guessed it … generously, the peanuts on top.

Then top complete the majesty, dollop on a large scoop of the refrigerated pudding aka pudding, and top with a couple of maraschino cherries.

Devour, messily.

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Linda Bundt Cake

Cake, Dessert, Sweets

We often discuss how haters and the cynical would likely assume our friendships are all fake and for attention or to better position ourselves, but hands-on-our-hearts these people are truly our friends (we aren’t Real Housewives here guys) and none are closer to us, than dearest Linda Hunt.

So close, that Linda doesn’t trust anyone but us to cut her hair. We first took over the role of hairdresser the weekend of the ‘84 Oscars; we were on an epic coke binge the night before the show, which was the style of the time. Linds noticed she needed a trim before her moment in the spotlight, so Annelie and I stepped up to the plate and her signature hairstyle was born.

While we have been known to miss the mark on occasion, Linda has never held our relapses that result in Gale-in-Scream 3-esque fringes against us.

The last couple of days have just been a dream; touring the city, gossiping about Mel and Chris and reminiscing about all the good times we have shared. We needed something sweet to cap off her stay, so went with a delicious Linda Bundt Cake.

I am an absolute fiend for peanut butter and chocolate, so first made the filling as a test of how compatible Linda, Annelie and I were for friendship. Between the salty goodness of the peanut butter and the creamy sweetness of the chocolate, they passed with flying colours and the cake became tradition.

Enjoy!

Linda Bundt Cake
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
Chocolate peanut butter filling
75g plain flour
30g soft unsalted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
150g crunchy peanut butter
125g chocolate, melted

Cake
300g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g soft unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
250ml sour cream
icing sugar, to garnish

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Generously grease a 23cm bundt tin and place to the side.

First, start on the filling by mixing together the flour and butter with a fork, until you end up with a wet sand looking mixture that clumps together. Then mix in the cinnamon, peanut butter and melted chocolate, to form a sticky, claggy paste. Set aside, it can hang with the bundt tin and bond.

Now on to the cake batter! Combine the flour, baking powder and bicarb into a bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and pale in an electric mixer, then beat in 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture, then 1 egg. Then beat in another tablespoonful of flour mixture, you guessed it, followed by the remaining egg. With the mixer still running, add the rest of the flour mixture, once combined add the sour cream and mix until you have a light, thick batter. That isn’t very long, btw.

Spoon roughly half the cake batter into the bundt tin, pushing the mixture up the sides and the middle to create a coating of batter on the sides with a trough in the middle, otherwise you will have some filling leakage and that would be awkward.

With that, spoon the gooey filling into the through in the batter. Cover the filling with the remaining batter, smooth the top and place in the oven to bake for 40 minutes, checking with a cake tester after 30 minutes.

Once done aka the cake tester comes out clean where it hits the sponge, let the cake cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes in its tin before trying to turn out. After the waiting time, loosen the edges including the centre part and turn the cake out onto the rack.

When cooled completely, lightly dust with icing sugar and devour. Or just eat when slightly warm and let the still gooey centre fill you with joy.

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Al CapPacino Cake

Cake, Dessert, Sweets

It has been way too long between drinks, of coffee, with our dear friend Al!

Our catch-ups have been few and far between in the post-Vittoria years, with us avoiding him out of guilt and he avoiding us until he had moved past the deep, deep shame.

Thankfully he realised the commercials were far less shameful than starring in Gigli or Jack and Jill, and our friendship is returning to normal. It didn’t help that we have remained vigilant in trashing Bevs D’Ang in the tabloids to help ensure custody issues remain resolved.

Al was in town wanting to talk smack about Chris O’Donnell and help sabotage the filming of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Like us, he also hates Depp for taking roles that should be going to our love/his dear friend, Keanu. As such, an Al CapPacino Cake with a tongue planted firmly in cheek was required to give us the energy we needed.

While we sadly weren’t able to shut-down production of Pirates 17: Depp the Douche … yet (we are truly sorry everyone), the cake was moist, fluffy and had the perfect whack of coffee.

All in all, it was a win. Enjoy!

Al CapPacino Cake
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
225g caster sugar
225g soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)
200g plain flour
50g ground almonds
4 tsp instant espresso powder
2 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate soda
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk

Icing
160g white chocolate
¼ cup unsalted butter
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sour cream
1 ½-2 cups icing sugar, sifted
Cocoa powder

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter a 23cm cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.

Combine flour, ground almonds, espresso powder, baking powder and bicarbonate soda in a bowl. Place this baby to the side (don’t worry, just for a bit…nobody puts baby in the corner … permanently).

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Stop, add one egg, mix to combine. Stop, add a third of the flour mixture, mix to combine. Continue until the eggs and flour are gone.

With the mixer running, add vanilla extract and milk to slightly loosen the mixture. Trust your gut, you may not need all the milk, you may need more. It should be loose and light enough to drop easily off a spoon.

Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes, or until the sponge has risen and feels springy to the touch. Cool in the tin on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, before turning out onto the rack and peeling off the baking parchment.

When cool, literally and metaphorically, you can make the icing.

Icing
Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler, and set aside to cool slightly before stirring in the sour cream. Using a whisk, gradually beat in the sifted icing sugar. Add as much sugar as feels right to get the consistency you like, if thin, add more and if too thick add a little bit of hot water. Spread roughly, generously and playfully over the top of the cake. Dust lightly with cocoa, slice, serve and devour.

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Fiona Apple Pie

Americana Week, Dessert, Snack, Sweets

Annelie and I love Chipotle – nearly as much as In-n-Out Burger, definitely more than Five Guys. So when Chipotle contacted us to find a suitable set of pipes for their advertisement on ~~YVAN EHT NIOJ~~ factory farming, we gravitated toward our old friend Fiona Apple. Despite our deep-seated love for meat and Fiona’s passionate veganism, we were united by the most important of causes – Chipotle’s commercial success. I suppose animal rights were somewhat important too.

As you can imagine, our history with Fiona is checkered and colourful. In the mid 1990’s Annelie was busy trying to convince David Blaine he was her biological father in the hope he would write her into his will, as it would only be a matter of time that one of his stunts went horribly wrong. Fiona, Annelie’s stepmother-to-be, didn’t want to split the inevitable fortune and instead indoctrinated Annelie and Ben into her pagan religion, Wicca-ty Wak.

Despite the odd human sacrifice, the maintenance of Fiona’s gigantic gemstone collection and the excessive daisy chain making, life in Wicca-ty Wak wasn’t all bad. In 1999, Annelie and Ben were chosen to title Fiona’s upcoming studio album as a thank you for their devotion to Wicca-ty Wak. Logically, they went with When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right with Ben and Annelie as your friends as they are the greatest human beings of all time.

For some reason, Fiona exhiled us from Wicca-ty Wak shortly thereafter. She also chose to break up with David Blaine just as he was planning another potentially-life-ending stunt thus confirming her insanity.

Fiona has just released a new album and is keen to catch up with her old friends, no doubt due to our A-lister status. What can we make that will bring her back down to earth and realise that we are the true success story in this friendship? A good old slice of humble pie perhaps.

The Fiona Apple pie is like an edible hug. The filling is sweet yet tart and spicy, and is enclosed in perfectly flaky, buttery pastry.

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Fiona Apple Pie
Serves: 8

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
230g cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
20g butter
1/3 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
10 medium granny smith apples, peeled, sliced
2 tsp caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten

Method
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter and rub into the dry ingredients between your fingertips until the mixture resembles wet sand.

Sprinkle with 1/4 cup ice water and mix together with your hands until it holds together when squeezed with fingers (if necessary, add up to 1/4 cup more water, 1 tablespoon at a time). To help ensure a flaky crust, do not go overboard.

Transfer half of dough onto a piece of plastic wrap. Form dough into a disk 3/4 inch thick and wrap tightly in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, about an hour. Repeat with remaining dough to make two disks.

Meanwhile, place brown sugar, syrup and butter in a large saucepan. Stir on low until melted and smooth. Simmer for 2 mins. Place flour and spices in a large bowl. Add apple, toss to coat. Add to syrup. Stir to coat. Simmer for 20 mins stirring occasionally until apples are just tender.

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan. Roll out one of the disks between two sheets of baking paper until roughly 5mm thick, place in pie dish and trim edges. Line shell with baking paper, fill with baking weights and blind bake for 15 mins. Remove weights and baking paper and bake for a further 5 mins.

Spoon apple mixture into the pastry shell.

Roll out remaining disk of pastry an cut into 1-1.5cm strips. Carefully place strips in parallel lines about 1-1.5cm apart. Now it get tricky. Fold every second strip of pastry half-way down and lay a strip of pastry across the pie, perpendicular to the other strips.

Unfold the folded strips, fold back the other strips and lay a another strip of pastry to form a lattice. Confused? Same. Just go here and follow this process as it is what I follow!

Trim the strips and join to the edge of the pie (this can be difficult following the blind baking so you can skip that step, but I’m always too scared it will be soggy so deal with the lattice coming off here and there). Brush pastry lightly with beaten egg and sprinkle over caster sugar. Bake for 30-40 mins until golden and crisp.

Serve pie with ice cream or cream or whatever, really. Ice cream while it is still warm is amazing though.

Alexander Smarsbård Cake

Dessert

I can not believe that it has finally happened – turns out dreams really do come true! For you, our dear readers, that dream was (we assume), to enjoy our Hollywood tales and witness us reach our fiftieth recipe and for us that dream was for each of us to be ravaged by Skarsy.

While neither of us kiss and tell, we definitely enjoyed our times with Alex (and I am definitely calling him again behind Annelie’s back, I didn’t like having to time share him between our houses).

Alex has long been someone I longed for … which turned into a sweet obsession, which became creepy stalking and then resulted in the ugly period where we couldn’t visit our friend Anna Paquin on set. While I tried to make amends with Al, he never seemed to take my apologies seriously. (Can you blame him?)

However Annelie reminded me that our dear friend Cyndi once wrote a song for us about perseverance, so time after time I apologised and thankfully, I finally wore him down and he agreed to drop the charges and come over to make peace of our relationships.

He arrived two days ago, late in the afternoon. The sun was starting to set and there was a light breeze rustling through the trees as he pulled into my garage (literally, not figuratively). Skarsy embraced us both as he entered … the house and was quick to clear the air and let us know that the past was forgiven and our friendship was moving forward.

Then we got to clearing the air of the sexual tension. It was his idea, honestly.

After such a rigorous, celebratory catch-up there was only one thing to do and that was to sit down for a large piece of our Alexander Smarsbård Cake.

I will not lie, this cake is a fair bit of work and takes a while to make, however like Alex it is well worth the wait. Plus, it takes a while but is super easy.

The richness of the salted caramel mousse and ganache is cut by the delicate and light chocolate cake. Add the Mars Bar slice truffles/nuggets and naked Skarsgård on the top and you have a cake that you can’t help but have a second slice.

Thanks for dropping by Alexander, it was a pleasure. A real pleasure. Oh … and thank you readers for sticking with us. But mainly thank you Skarsy. For everything you did to us.

While being on the other side of fifty is general not looked at favourably in Hollywood, we know that things are only going to get better for us here at Fame Hungry … just look at Meryl Streep, Betty White and Helen Mirren as proof.

We really must give them a buzz soon!

Alexander Smarsbård Cake
Serves: 3…or 12.

Ingredients
Chocolate Cake (all at room temperature)
300 grams plain flour
300 grams caster sugar
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
50g cocoa powder
50g dark chocolate, melted
265g soft unsalted butter
3 large eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
225ml sour cream

Salted Caramel Mousse
200g raw caster sugar
85g unsalted butter at room temperature, diced
½ cup heavy cream at room temperature
2 tsp sea salt flakes
1 ½ tsp powdered gelatin
2 tbsp cold water
1½ cups cold heavy cream

Mars Bar Slice
3 cups rice bubbles
3 X 52g Mars Bars, chopped
75g butter
1 tsp golden syrup
200g milk chocolate

Ganache
250g dark cooking chocolate, chopped
1/3 cup cream

Method
Chocolate Cake
Preheat the oven to 180°C and line three 20cm sandwich tins.

Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb and cocoa into a bowl. Combine vanilla and sour cream in a different bowl.

Place butter and sugar in an electric mixer on medium speed and cream until light and fluffy.

With the mixer still on, crack in one of the eggs and add a third of the sour cream/vanilla combo. Turn off the mixer (mainly because I always make a mess if I don’t) and fold in a third of the flour/etc mixture (I remove the paddle attachment and quickly combine by hand and return it to the mixer. More time consuming, less messy). Return mixer to medium speed and combine.

Repeat the process again…and then again, until all combined. Oh, then add the melted dark chocolate and mix until the batter is combined (that shouldn’t be long).

Divide the batter into the prepared tins, smooth out the top and bake for about 20-30 minutes, or until cake tester comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes, turn cakes out of the tins and leave to cool on the wire rack.

Move onto the mousse.

Salted Caramel Mousse
Place sugar in a medium heavy saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat and whisk as it melts. Once all the sugar has melted, stop whisking and continue to cook. Insert a sugar thermometer into the pan if you have one and swirl the pan occasionally to stop it from burning.

Cook sugar until it turns amber in colour and the thermometer reads about 180°C. Careful not to overcook, as I did. Not once, not twice but thrice.

Add butter immediately to the pan, remove it from the heat and whisk it to combine.

Add the ½ cup of room temperature cream to the pan and whisk until combined. Set aside to cool, then add sea salt flakes to taste.

Mix gelatin and cold water in a small bowl and set aside to soften for about a minute, then whisk into the warm salted caramel mixture until gelatin is completely dissolved.

Place the cold cream in a large mixing bowl and whisk with an electric mixer on high until it reaches stiff peaks. Add salted caramel mixture to the bowl and gently fold in until combined. Place in fridge to chill.

Mars Bar Slice
Melt butter, two of the Mars Bars and golden syrup on low heat in a saucepan. Mix until smooth. Stir in the rice bubbles and the third Mars Bar (chopped).

Form 6-8 little balls/truffles/nuggets and place on a lined baking sheet and place in the fridge. Remove mousse from the fridge and fold through the remaining mixture. Return to fridge until you’re ready to assemble.

Ganache
Combine chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir with a metal spoon until smooth. Remove bowl from heat.

Set aside and start assembling the cake

Assembly
The aesthetic is modelled on the cakes at Momofuku Milk Bar (if you are ever near one, go straight in and order a bagel bomb, a volcano, a cereal milk and any cake. Your life will then be complete), although our method is slightly more ghetto.

If you don’t have a 20cm cake ring, you can remove the base of a springform cake tin and then use a combination of cardboard, manilla folders and baking paper to boost the height. Like this, see, ghetto.

Remove the mousse from the fridge.

Choose your serving plate/tray (make sure it will fit in the fridge), then place one of the three cooled cakes on the base and place cake ring around.

Spoon a third of the mousse mixture on top and roughly smooth out. Don’t worry too much, it will flatten out itself. Add second cake pressing firmly into the, add a second layer of mousse. Repeat the process with the third cake and remaining mousse. Smooth the mousse.

Pour ganache over the top of the cake and smooth. Place the cake (on serving plate) in the fridge to firm up, it should take a couple of hours.

Once cake is set, remove from the fridge, remove the ring and garnish with the pieces of mars bar slice however seems fit. I just broke them up and tried to make it look tolerable. I think I failed.

CheeseKate Middleton

Dessert, Sweets

After spending years trying to bring down the Middleton clan through convincing Pippa to write a book/releasing James’ frat-boy nudes we were hoping some post-pregnancy pudge would finally give us the upper hand and get us into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where we belong.

It was truly disappointing to arrive at the Lindo wing only to find our friend Cath had already shed all the baby weight and waltzed herself home looking fresh-as-a-daisy less than 10 hours after birthing the delightful Princess ~~Annelie Benita Diana Nigella Hilary Kate Winslet~~ Vanilla Boring Pompous Traditional Blah Blah Blah. We had so hoped to arrive and capitalise on Cath’s pain and exhaustion through some kind of crazed cathartic release.

Not to worry! With Cath coming home skinny and gorgeous, there is only one solution – stuff her full of the most calorie-dense, artery clogging food known to man. Better yet, shove her full of two of them in glorious synchronicity. Yes, we are talking about the muffin-top inducing cookie dough cheesecake.

CheeseKate Middleton
Serves: 16

Ingredients
Cheesecake layer:
500g cream cheese, softened (we told Kate it was reduced fat but obvs wasn’t!)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Base layer:
2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
180g butter, softened
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Method
Heat oven to 160C. Line and grease a rectangular brownie tray.

Beat together butter, caster sugar and brown sugar until pale and thick. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt and add chocolate chips. Mix until just combined and divide mixture into thirds.

Spoon two thirds of cookie mixture into the brownie tray and gently pat to form an even base. Bake for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar together until smooth. Stir in eggs and sour cream until combined.

Pour cheesecake mixture over cookie base and top with spoonfuls of remaining cookie dough. Bake for another 25-30 minutes or until cheesecake is set and cookie dough is golden.

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