California

Rachel Bilsonta Hats

12 Days of Chrismukkah, Baking, Cake, Dessert, Snack, Sweets

You can’t celebrate the 12 Days of Chrismukkah without my dear friend, the pocket-rocket portrayer of the gloriously rage-filled Summer Roberts … Rachel Bilson.

Deep breath – what a freaking (long/terrible) sentence, amirite?

I first met Rach – and spotted her talent – in early 2003 on the set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I was part of SMG’s entourage at the time but was taken in by Rachel’s spunk. As soon as I saw her perform, I knew that she was the only person that could play the role of Summer and do just to her season 1 catch-phrase “ew.”

While we had a brief falling out after I tried to set her trailer on fire after she began dating Adam Brody (I had fantasised about us becoming a twincesty couple), she understood my complete lack of logic/basis in reality and forgave me within a week.

The girl, it needs to be said, is a damn saint.

(Her sweet, forgiving nature is the only way I could forgive her for marrying Hayden Christensen, who broke my heart on the set of Life as a House when he wouldn’t play sweet dixie with my behind… but that is another story for another time. Plus I worked that line into Hart of Dixie, so how could I stay mad?).

I haven’t been able to see much of Rachel since Hart of Dixie was egregiously axed – which is actually about my life as a small town Alabama doctor falling for a myriad of similar looking men – given how busy she is with my dear god-daughter Briar Rose Christensen, so it was such a treat to be able to reconnect over some festively appropriate Rachel Bilsonta Hats!

 

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Sweet, delicious, kind-healthy (yay whole strawberry!) and completely kitsch, these little babies are the perfect festive bake for those dreaded office Christmas morning teas.

Or as a gift for people you actually like. Like the Bilson-Christensens – enjoy!

 

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Rachel Bilsonta Hats
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
¼ cup valrhona cocoa
1 tsp bicarb soda
1 ½ cups raw caster sugar
¾ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp cloves
¼ tsp allspice
1 cup buttermilk
200g unsalted butter, melted
2 eggs
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp red food colouring
Icing
500g cream cheese, at room temperature
2 cups icing sugar
120g butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
strawberries, tops sliced off

Method
Preheat oven to 170°C and line muffin muffin pans with paper cases – quantity will depend on the size you want, but I can make 8 Texans.

Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk the wet ingredients in a large jug until combined.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and stir through the wet ingredients until just combined. Then stir through the food colouring. You can use a stand mixer – like I do, because I’m lazy – but just remember that the best muffins are the ones that are barely mixed, so just do it on the lowest setting and only for as long as it needs.

Divide the mixture among your pans and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Remove from the oven, transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

While they are getting chill, combine the icing ingredients – sans strawbs – in a stand mixer and beat until smooth and fluffy.

To assemble, smear each cupcake generously with icing, top with an upturned strawberry and top said strawberry with a dollop of icing. Ta dah – bilsonta hats!

Devour.

 

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Chillijamin McKenzie

12 Days of Chrismukkah, Condiment, Dip, Sauce, Sweets

Can you believe we almost survived 2016 – huzzahs all round! While the year has been the absolute pits, I’m still hoping to salvage it with the ultimate festive celebration with my he-bros, gals and gentiles of The O.C.

Given my close relationship with the cast, I’ve had many a sleepless night over the last few weeks, trying to perfect my Chrismukkah catch-up schedule that a) won’t offend anyone – you know that Tate can be a bit of a diva – is b) festively appropriate and most importantly is c) culturally appropriate.

With those criteria in mind, there was only one person I could select to open up our 12 Days of Chrismukkah celebrations – the incomparable Ryan Atwood … aka Ben McKenzie ak-to me-a Benny Mac.

I’m an old family friend of the Schenkkans – oh FYI, McKenzie is totally his stage name – having worked with Ben’s grandfather and President Lyndon Johnson to pass the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. While I had a falling out with Presi Jo after he discovered my many scandals and personal foibles, Ben’s grandfather took me in and raised me as his own … and I’m sure you can put it all together and see that Ben was named after me.

Anyway, my career and addictions took off and took me away from the family for an extended period of time but when we needed a brooding unknown to play the classic character Ryan Atwood, I knew that my pseudo-nephew and namesake was the only person capable of playing the part.

After Ben was done reenacting the scene when Ryan and Marissa meet with fans in my driveway – don’t tell him but those people that just happened to be waiting for us when we got back from the airport are fans that purchased an O.C. experience for an exorbitant amount of cash – Ben was thrilled to be able to relax, catch-up and celebrate the start of our festive fun by helping in my sweatshopkitchen to make a generous batch of an edible gift, in the form of my Chillijamin McKenzie.

 

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Like Ryan, the jam is deceptively sweet with a good kick of heat, spice and heart.

And obviously you want to drizzle him all over your meat … or cheese (but that is less smutty, unless … ).

 

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Chillijamin McKenzie
Makes: 1.5L.

Ingredients
lug of olive oil
1 onion, peeled and blitzed in a food processor
3 cloves garlic, blitzed in the aforementioned food processor with the onion
pinch of salt
150g fresh hot red chilli peppers, tips removed
150g capsicum, cored, deseeded and roughly chopped
1kg jam sugar
600ml cider vinegar

Method
Heat a small lug of olive oil in a small saucepan over low heat and cook the onion, garlic and salt for about ten minutes, or until fragrant, sweet and soft.

Place the chilli and capsicum in the food processor and blitz until they are finely chopped into delicate flecks. Or fleeks. This is totes on fleek – you girls keep me young!

Combine the sugar and vinegar in a large saucepan over low heat and cook, sans stirring, until dissolved. Add in the chillis, onion and garlic and stir to combine.

Turn the heat up to medium-high, bring to the boil and cook for about ten minutes with minimal stirring – less is better, but I won’t judge.

Take the pan off the heat  and allow to cool for half an hour, in which time sterilise some jars.

After the half hour the jam should have started to thicken and be suspending the flecks throughout the mixture. Decant into the jars, seal tightly and allow to cool.

Refrigerate after opening.

 

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12 Days of Chrismukkah

12 Days of Chrismukkah, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Finally the moment you’ve all been waiting for is here – the grand unveiling of the Fame Hungry Annual Christmas Celebration! While it is hard to top the festive grandeur of Survivor and the Kardashians, I am confident that our 12 Days of Chrismukkah will be the best ever.

It is well known that I played an integral part in the development of The O.C. and was responsible for the casting of my closest friends, however you may not be aware that I am the one that invented Chrismukkah.

In addition to post-its.

Now I know – because I invented it – that Chrismukkah is usually celebrated as eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents … but there is no way I can play favourites with this cast, so we’re going with the more Chrisma- 12 days, ok?

So get ready California, here I come. Right where Chrismukkah is from.

It’s gonna be a California, California – 12 Days of Chrismukaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Picture source: Screenshot from The OC.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.