Actor

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.

 

Alexander Smarsbard Cake_1

 

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_2

 

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.

Thank you for being a friend

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Firstly, we would like to start by thanking the Academy. For our future awards and affording us the opportunity to host in 2023 where we are described in Variety as “worse than Hathaway and Franco by a country mile.”

We also want to thank all the people in our lives, except for those that we despise (particular mention to Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, you still know what you did that summer).

Thank you to forty-nine of our dear celebrity friends, your desire to stay relevant and reignite your fame by dropping by for a documented meal has been humbling, arousing (mentally and physically, of course), irritating, enlightening and joyous.

To Alexander Skarsgård, for agreeing to drop the restraining order you had against me and coming over to celebrate the upcoming milestone fiftieth recipe with Annelie and I is a dream come true. In my case, obviously, that is a wet dream you stone fox.

Trying to come up with a recipe worthy of such a momentous occasion, that would also be an aphrodisiac, has been difficult and hard (particularly when I think of you Al), but I think we are almost there. Now I just need to find my most erotic outfit. What to wear, what to wear?

Picture source: HBO.

Cobert Downey Jr.

Party Food, Snack

While they are always a horrible choice, some people pull off coloured-lensed glasses, like RDJ, and some people don’t (we’re looking at you Bono). We tried to convince Bobs (we also call RDJ, Bobs) of this fact during our shared 90s rehab stint, but his look sold it to us.

Over the years we have acted as Bobs’ closest confidantes and despite some disagreements (we advised that he never work with Katie Holmes…on the advice of our friend, her daughter Suri), the friendship has been emotionally and professionally fulfilling.

Yes, we wanted him to fulfil us sexually…but that just seems to be how it goes with our friends, so it has never been an issue.

Bobs dropped over between the Australian and US release of Avengers 2: Age of Hard-On (it was definitely title and if not, I had one for Cap anyway), to discuss his work and provide him with crucial advice for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I reiterate, he really values our opinion.

For one of the highest earning actors, RDJ is so humble, kind and was terrified we would give him a bad review (the movie was magnificent, FYI) and cast him aside (it would never happen).

To celebrate his cinematic triumph and the fact we finally convinced him to push Marvel to sign us as we-can’t-tell-yet superheroes (it is in Phase 4), we whipped up a quick Cobert Downey Jr and discussed our enduringly loving friendship.

 

Cobert Downey Jr_1

 

You could never say a negative word about cob dip, nor you could put anything wrong inside a cob (well you can, but that is another arrest for another time). While I opted for the (comparatively) lighter spinach and vegie dip, nothing quite says Bunheads marathon like a cheesy bacon option.

Enjoy!

 

Cobert Downey Jr_2

 

Cobert Downey Jr
Serves: 4-8 if you’re social, 2 if you’re watching Netflix and 1 if you’re watching Netflix and emotional.

Ingredients
1 packet frozen chopped spinach, drained
300ml tub sour cream
250g cream cheese
1 packet spring vegetable soup
2 cob loaves

Method
Pre-heat oven to 180°C.

Cut one of the cobs up into 1 inch dice and lay out flat on a large baking sheet. Cut the top off the second cob loaf, dicing it into large chunks and hollow out cob, ripping it into large-ish chunks. Lay both sets of the aforementioned chunks and the empty cob on a second baking sheet.

Put both baking sheets into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden.

Meanwhile, mash cream cheese in a large bowl, and mix through sour cream, soup mix and spinach.

When cob is out of the oven, decant the dip into the hollowed cob and place on a serving dish. Whack the chunks of bread in a bowl, on a plate…where ever really. Then devour.

Celebrifriends: Age of Hard-On

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

It would come as no surprise to anyone, that we became close with Robert Downey Jr while on a stint in rehab.

We met on the set of Less Than Zero (the same place we met our dear friend Jami Gertz) where Annelie was part of McCarthy’s entourage and I was hired to advise RDJ (obvs, that is what we call him) on how to be a street hustler.

We became close, despite some unpleasantness following when I tried to convince him to go method for the sex scenes, after he helped us when we wound up in rehab together.

RDJ has long respected our opinions and nerd credentials and as such, wanted to drop by for our opinion on the new Avengers.

What says your acting can still take my breath away and your beauty can still assemble something in my pants?

Picture source: WENN.com.

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake

Dessert

At the risk of sounding like I’ve softened (and that I am potentially repeating myself), Christopher Knight is a gentleman, a scholar and a saint, and the last almost-fifty years of friendship have meant the world to us.

Now that the niceties are out of the way, let me take you back. We first met Chris and all of the Brady kids through our friendship with the Jackson 5. You see, we were choreographing for the Jacksons (and later invented the moonwalk, but I digress) and Michael introduced us to his girlfriend Maureen who got us auditions for two new roles in Season 5 of The Brady Bunch.

We nailed the auditions and came on board as twin cousins of the Bradys and were so universally despised by the audience that the show was put on hiatus after our first episode and retooled to include a different cousin (with all copies of our episodes and scripts burnt to ensure we were forgotten).

Yes, we were a worse option than Cousin Oliver.

After our unceremonious axing, we stayed close with all of the Bradys (family is family, after all) however it was Chris and Mo that were always our closest.

In honour of the celebratory catch-up, we whipped up a quick Christoffee Knight Cheesecake, (fun fact, it is the cake he made to cheer us up after our axing), to devour as we caught up on each others lives.

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_1

 

The bleeding (well melting, but it kinda looks like it is bleeding so I’ll stick with that) toffee cuts through the delicate cake/cheese and with the added crunch of the nuts (nothing suss) you have no other option but to face-plant into the cake and devour.

Or maybe that is just us?

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake_2

 

Christoffee Knight Cheesecake
Serves: Well 3 in this case, 6-8 for normal people.

Ingredients
1 cup butternut snap biscuits (something equivalent), crumbed
2 tbsp butter, melted
500g cream cheese
½ raw caster sugar
½ cup thickened cream
3 tsp gelatine powder, dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water
100g peanut brittle, broken into smallish pieces.

Method
Combine the biscuit crumbs and melted butter, and press into the base of a 20cm springform pan and refrigerate while you make the filling.

In an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, add in the sugar, cream and gelatine until smooth and combined.

Fold through most of the peanut brittle. Pour mixture into the chilling pan (obviously remove it from the fridge, yeah) and return to the fridge for a few hours to set.

Remove from fridge about twenty minutes prior to serving and garnish with reserved brittle.

Here’s the story

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

During our dear friend Mo’s time in the South African, quote-unquote, jungle we took over the role of informing her fellow Brady Kids as to what she was getting up to (they hadn’t heard of a VPN) and enforcing their support in voting for her.

Being a huge fan of reality TV, Christopher Knight was crucial in helping us (almost) get Maureen into the finals … similar to how we helped him out when he and Adrianne broke up.

That is another story for another time.

Anyway, with our renewed closeness we invited Chris over to celebrate our job well done. (Thanks for all the help Susan, probs won’t be seeing you at the see-saw).

What to make, what to (not) bake?

Picture source: ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images.

George Takeios

Main

It is always difficult to maintain a friendship with someone you share an unbridled sexual chemistry with … thankfully, it has kind of become our thing.

We stayed close with George following our unplanned stint in the jungle and he and his husband Brad, have had us stay countless times (sadly, we stayed in guest rooms) and he even got us jobs as Julia Roberts’ and Tom Hanks’ stunt doubles on the film Larry Crowne.

George dropped by sulusolo however sadly he wasn’t there to share himself with us … just his congratulatory regards.

You see, buzz is building about this current catch-up project of ours in Hollywood and studios/networks are plotting to sign us any way they can! Don’t tell, but we would likely go with Netflix (unless Les is willing to give us the shared role of Probst’s on location assistants, and you know which location we will be on).

George excitedly shared what he had heard while we caught-up over a banquet of our George Takeios.

 

George Takeios_1

 

The Takeios, unlike our solo retreats to our respective bedrooms, were hot, spicy and were so tasty they make you weak at the knees. Enjoy!

Now to recalibrate the time machine to go back to Shatner’s big bash …

 

George Takeios_2

 

George Takeios
Serves: 6.

Ingredients
1 onion, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
1 green capsicum, diced
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, sliced
A pinch of paprika
1½ tsp cumin
1 tablespoon chilli powder
500g minced beef
250ml beef stock
12 corn taco shells
Grated cheese and lettuce, to serve

Salsa
2 tomatoes, roughly chopped
Juice of ½ lime
1 shallot, finely sliced
1 tbsp coriander, roughly chopped

Guacamole
2 avocados
Juice of ½ lime
2 tbsp sour cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Soften the onion and capsicum in the olive oil in a large pan over a low heat. Add the garlic, paprika and cumin and cook for 1–2 minutes. Add the beef and stir until it has browned. Pour in the stock, cover and cook for 45 minutes.

Mix the tomatoes with the lime juice, shallot and coriander, then season carefully to taste.

Mash the avocados with a fork, squeeze in the lime juice, add the sour cream, season and mix it all up.

Spread the taco shells out on a baking tray and place in the oven for 3–4 minutes until crisp.

Fill the shells with the meat, salsa, guacamole, cheese and lettuce or lay everything out and let everyone help themselves.

Beaming up my Scotty

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Picture it: Tweed Heads, 2008. Annelie and I were on the run from the law (and another scandal) after being pulled over by the police/RBT cameras. Thanks to our close friendships with Bear Grylls, Christopher McCandless and Aron Ralston we were able to survive in the bush for three weeks before stumbling upon the set of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here where we met George Takei.

Seeing we were clearly in distress, George hid us from the cameras and took care of us until we were well enough to return to the world and again, go to rehab.

We have been close with George ever since and he is actually the reason we invented time-travel (he turned down all of my advances due to his husband, so I had to travel back in time for a mind blowing night on his enterprise).

George gave us a call over the weekend as he wanted to share something with us. Needless to say, I’ve got a (not-even) short list of things he will share with me and my hopes are very high.

What says thank you for your kindness, support, loyal friendship and that one wild night at Shatner’s pool party in the 70s?

Actually screw being coy, what says oh my, can you tak my ei, again?

Picture source: Unknown.

Impossible Quiche Richards

Easter Meggstravaganza, Main

In amongst all the frivolity and grandeur that marking the torturous death of a religious figure brings upon us, Ben and I decided that for the good of humanity, and in line with our peyote induced visions, we would honour someone who, by divine intervention or other means, miraculously keeps on kicking.

Yes, Keith Richards is the perfect candidate for step four of our Meggstravaganza ritual.

A pal of ours since our days in the boys soprano trio (aka a barbershop quartet minus one) at Dartford Tech, Keith Richards was undeniably the talentless hack of the group. Ben and I had no choice but to force him out of the prestigious trio and lo and behold he landed directly in the arms of Mick Jagger.

Our relationship with Keith was rocky in the years that passed from the glory quartet-minus-one days. We comforted him after his survivor-esque fall from a coconut tree. We connected over the death of his father, and encouraged him to find comfort in the snorting of his ashes. Yet, he never truly forgave us for ruining the happiest days of his life at Dartford.

How is he still alive? In order to find out the secret to his longevity and give him the opportunity to piggyback off our resurgent fame and Meg’s soon-to-occur-comeback, we decided to invite Keith over for a hearty and nourishing, eggy dinner.

quiche 2

Our choice of meal was, like its namesake, a miracle of modern science – the Impossible Quiche Richards.

quiche 5

Impossible Quiche Richards
Serves: 6

Ingredients

6 eggs
300ml cream
½ cup self raising flour
¼ cup finely chopped chives
400g butternut pumpkin, diced into 1cm cubes
125g smoked ham, roughly chopped
½ cup green peas
1 ½  cups grated cheddar, divided

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line a large baking tray with greased baking paper and roast diced pumpkin for 20 minutes or until tender and golden.

Whisk together eggs, cream, flour and one cup cheese and season to taste. In the bottom of a large quiche dish, scatter half the pumpkin, ham and peas. Pour over half of egg mixture and repeat with remaining dry ingredients and remaining egg mixture. Top with cheese.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until set and golden.

Adam Scottch Eggs

Easter Meggstravaganza, Party Food, Snack

Step three is probably the easiest of Easter Meggstravaganza to follow through with; they aren’t struggling or near death and they aren’t overwhelmed by their hero status.

They are just a TV star (go to 4:08, JLD gets it), after all. Plus, Adam Scott is obsessively in love with both Annelie and I, and would do anything for us.

We first met Adam during our BAT period (Before Amy and Tina) when we were trying to Catfish Amy Poehler into befriending us. Well actually, we were aiming to enter into a polygamist marriage with her, but friendship would have been great. While this particular scheme didn’t bring us to Ames, it did bring us to Adam.

You see, Adam Scott was also catfishing us hoping that he could sleep his way to the top with our persona Anneljamin Juddailes: Record Producer, Hip-Hop Mogul and multiple Academy Award Winner.

It was a messy time for all of us, but after working through our feelings on a scrapped episode of TV Catfish (I refused to both put on pants and be pixellated) we became close friends and well, Adam fell for the people behind the masks.

With Parks and Rec recently finishing Adam called us to let us know that he, and I quote “had some time on his hands and wanted to put them to use,” which was the perfect opportunity for us to all whip up a batch of our famous post-coitus snack, Adam Scottch Eggs and help Meg return to greatness.

 

Adam Scottch Eggs_1

 

Scotch Eggs have a reputation for being quite simplistic or unrefined, but with the right blend of herbs and the addition of hot sauce they become the perfect accompaniment for a beer with a generous dollop of Coolaioli. Enjoy!

 

Adam Scottch Eggs_2

 

Adam Scottch Eggs
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
10 eggs
800g good pork sausages, skins removed
1 small onion, finely diced
1 small clove garlic
handful of chives, finely chopped
handful of parsley, finely chopped
generous pinch nutmeg
1 tbsp English Mustard
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp Tabasco, or to taste
150g breadcrumbs
1-2 cups plain flour
vegetable oil, for frying

Method
Preheat oven to 160°C.

Place eight of the eggs into a pot of cold water and boil for 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl of cold water, peel when cooled and leave aside to dry.

Put the sausage meat into a large bowl with the herbs, nutmeg, mustard, paprika and tabasco and season with salt and pepper. Mix it all together well and separate into eight patties.

One at a time, flatten out the patties, place an egg inside and wrap the patty around until it is completely coated. Leave aside.

Get three small bowls out and place flour in one, breadcrumbs in another and beat the two eggs in the third.

Again, one at a time, roll each sausage/egg ball in flour, followed by the egg and then the breadcrumbs until they are all crumbed and ready to go.

Pour vegetable oil into a large pan until it is roughly 2cm deep and place on stove over medium-high heat. When the oil has come to heat, cook them in batches until the crumb is crisp and golden and then transfer to a lined baking sheet.

When all eggs have been lightly fried, place tray in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the eggs are browned and cooked through.

Devour.