DIY: Death Caps and Arsenic Cake

As featured in a previous post, I made death caps and arsenic cake for my Mad Tea Party. Now I'm going to reveal the recipes.

Death caps are made of eggs, covered with a carved tomato. The instruction said one should use mayonnaise to make them stick together and make the little white spots on top, but I forgot to buy it, so I just used pieces of cocktail sticks. I broke one in half and it kept the death cap in fine condition.

The middle layer

The arsenic cake is a lemon cheesecake-ish variation I made. To make it one needs a packet of some cookies (200g) and butter (100g or something), to mix and make the bottom part. One just crushes the cookies and melts the butter, mixes them and makes a flat layer in the baking tin.

Then 2 deciliters of whipped cream (before the whipping part) and two packs (2dl) of fromage frais / curd (do not know the terminology of baking in English) of lemon or another flavor one might prefer. and 4 leafs of gelatin. And of coarse, to make that beautiful color of imaginary arsenic, green food color. 

Candy worms

Not for least, I added some worm-shaped candy at the bottom. The maggoty wine gum tasted really nice. On top I added some skull-shaped candy too.

It is quite possible I added some freshly squished lemon juice in it too, but can't remember. But I did squish three lemons to make the darker green topping for the cake, and there I added some sugar and a lot more of the green color. I used about 5 gelatin leafs to it. Unfortunately the baking tin I used was one of those you can remove the bottom, so of coarse liquid like the topping just run down and on the table. -_- Luckily a part of it remained, so the cake was not completely ruined.

Cake, before the topping started to run away on the table.

Now, my main point with this post is, that if one has a basic recipe for something, one can alter it to be more gothic or to be suitable for a theme party. My basic recipe is the cookie bottom and the whipped cream + curd + gelatin. After that everything else is optional.

There is plenty of green color left over after this party, so I am planning on a next opportunity to use it. At the moment the party idea is something like "Decadence <3 Absinthe: Grab your top hat and hide a bottle of the Green Fairy in your pocket and join the frantic rampage on the edge of degradation!"

The cake, already half eaten.

Mad Tea Party 2013

This is a magical day indeed! A wonderful lady Vanessa from A Fanciful Twist is hosting her sixth annual Mad Tea Party. Tea and Alice in Wonderland are delightful things, even if it might be rather a jaded era we are living here. More accustomed are we with Edgar Allan Poe and his grim tales, so with a dash of The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart of Poe mixed with Alice's Adventures from Carroll I sent some invitations to my dear friends.

You are cordially invited to Mad Tea Party

Please join me and enjoy 

Tea, hot and sweet as Death 

and Tender Arsenic Cake 

with some Luscious Death Caps 

So many friends came, some grinning like the Cheshire Cat. 

But alas, poor March Hare was not his talkative self that day! 

Many a young lady was wearing the fashionable color.

Other details of ornaments were too beautiful!

Tea was indeed sweet and hot, so warm golden color and velvety feel on one's tongue!

My dear guests were delighted with a new experience of Arsenic, the lemon-like freshness of poisonous delicacy! It was almost half eaten before I had the chance to exclaim "Off with their heads!"

Tea time passed, but Madness continued, so we opened a nice bottle of wine. 

Evening proceeded pleasantly and later, when everyone had had their death cap, we became a bit dandy and decided to gamble a bit. 

So off I went to fetch a game called Biribi, a lotto-like French game from the 18th century.  

Oh, the excitement! Winnings and losings were grand, but the rivals stayed benevolent towards each other.

We had such a nice little tea party, we did not stop to look at the time. Finally my old clock started to feel  abandoned!

So, with Lady Time irritated, we had to end our Mad Tea Party. With some good luck, we might get her on good humor again, hopefully before next year's Mad Tea Party!

Mad Tea Party approaching!

Vanessa from A Fanciful Twist is hosting her 6th annual Mad Tea Party and I am sure many goths, among lolitas and others, will find that a happy and interesting blogging event. Besides, it is a nice way to cheer up ones private life with some good friends. I have already thought about my own tea party and what kind of gothic twist I am going to make, shall I offer my guests a maggoty cake or some death caps (made of non-lethal ingredients of coarse)? I shall tell my making of process with tips for gothing up a tea party in another post, shortly after the post about the actual party.

Come and join the fun, if you have time! Obviously it is not required to host the party in real life on that strict date, but the post about the party is to be made on 13th July.