In January, me and Cupcake Rachel had an idea on the Gchats, inspired by an especially chocolatey round of baking which she was kind enough to share with me:
1:07 PM me: The cookies are whispering to me!They want me to eat them all!Now!1:09 PM Rachel: I can always make more!1:10 PM You’d better do as they say, or they’ll feel rejected, become cookie hermits, and then flee the tin on a murderous rampage!1:11 PM me: I wish you’d do that as an illustrated series.1:13 PM It could be Achewood for baked goods…Cakewood!1:15 PM Rachel: Gasp!GENIUS!!!1:16 PM me: I thought of that while eating a cookie, so it’s definitely the will of the cookie hermits, and something you should do forthwith!1:20 PM Rachel: I knew Nigella was good, but I never expected her to come up with sentient telepathic cookies!
It took a while to understand where this inspiration was headed, but when our Achewood-loving, cheesecake-devouring friend Joel announced that he was moving to London to pursue the shining star of men’s lifestyle journalism, we finally knew. Cakewood was born…
First, gather a shitload of fats and carbs:
Next, make your otter mold:
Philippe’s cute little otter bod is basically two straight lines with a domed skull, so we curved a piece of cardboard and wedged it into place in a roasting tin.
Smash biscuits, melt butter, blend cream cheese and sugar and lemon and lime (basically, do everything this recipe says – we went fridge rather than baked owing to the flammable mold), and leave it in the fridge for a day to make sure it’s completely set.
Meanwhile, make your gingerbread coke-head squirrels. Knead the dough:
Roll and cut (I found a squirrel shaped cookie cutter in ace kid’s shop Enkla, who I won’t link to because it seems wrong to associate them with hard-drug guzzling animals):
Bake those mean little bastards:
And leave to cool. A couple of hours before you want to serve them, cover in melted dark chocolate to get that authentic malevolent black silhouette:
Philippe should be thoroughly firmed up by now. Draw his happy little face and red trousers on some rice paper, cut to fit, and apply to cheesecake. Next: with GREAT CARE and a HUGE SENSE OF SELF-SATISFACTION transfer your Philippe to the leaving party, and present to your host:
No hugs for you, Philippe. Only digestion.
And to think the coke-guzzling squirrels looked like harmless hearts in a previous post. I baked a topical iced cake for a performance of The Vagina Monologues once. A lot of my male friends are still traumatised.