I Have a Big Head and Little Arms

Disney Classic # 47 - Meet the Robinsons

Note: I apologise for the quality of the photographs on this and the next post. My camera died and was sent in for repair so I was using my phone/Angel's phone camera. Sorry!
Meet the Robinsons was another of the Disney films released in the 2000s which I hadn't seen before, so it's not surprising it ended up being the last movie I came up with an idea for. And to be honest, I didn't really come up with the idea. How it happened:

Scene: My living room, Fantasia 2000 Disney Night, sitting drinking tea before the film starts.
Me: OK guys, before I start the film I really need your help. I've now got ideas for all but one of the films, but I cannot for the life of me think of a cake to make for Meet The Robinsons
Craig: I've not seen it...
Me: Neither have I!
Mike: What about a T-Rex cake?
Me: Is there a T-Rex in the film?
Mike and Angel: Yup
Me: OK, fantastic, T-Rex cake it is!




So, with a lot of help from Angel, I set out to build a t-rex out of Rice Krispies, marshmallows and chocolate! We started off by building a skeleton out of cake dowels, which we were very pleased with!

Unfortunately, the day that we were making this cake was the hottest day since records began* so our marshmallow krispie Dino body wouldn't stick to the skeleton or set!

* Not based on any actual records, but on the fact that it was so hot that we almost forgot we were in the UK and wonder when and how we'd reached Africa. Seriously... it was THAT hot.

So we moved on to plan number two - truffle-rex! The truffle initially worked MUCH better than the krispies, until we added the torso, which was much too heavy for the frame and our poor Dino went extinct once more.

So we decided to have one last attempt - again we turned to the Rice Krispies, but this time we ditched the skeleton and decided to mould/model each body part, wrap it in cling film and leave it in the fridge to set. Once all of our Dino-parts were completely set we would just construct them using cake wire and cocktail sticks and hey presto... we'd have our T-Rex!

And this one almost, almost worked. Our only problem was that once the firm Dino-parts left the fridge for 30 seconds, they completely melted and were firm no more...

Angel didn't know whether to laugh or cry

So when watching Meet the Robinsons we ate chocolate Rice Krispies chunks and truffles and sighed at our lack of dinosaur. I let out another sigh when I realised that had I watched the film before I could and would have made a PBJ based dessert... considering that's Lewis' thing.

Anyways, when it came to writing the blog (the day after our Dino-disaster) I decided that I didn't work so damn hard to find a dessert for every Disney Classic so far to then churn out a dessert-less post for number 47... so I decided to make some PBJ sandwiches - cake style! (Which would be served when we met to watch Bolt... a bit of a peanut-butter overload but tasty nonetheless!)

I decided to make Angel food cake for the sponge, as the colour and consistency looks more like bread than normal vanilla sponge, and used a recipe found here. The "jelly" part of my sandwich was a simple layer of mixed fruit jam, and I made peanut-butter frosting by using my standard butter-cream recipe, but substituting the butter for 1/2 peanut-butter and 1/2 shortening. (My rational for this was that peanut-butter is runnier than normal butter, but shortening is stiffer, so combining the two in theory should leave me with a similar consistency the butter-cream... it made sense in my head and worked in practise so all good!)

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Serves: 10
Ingredients:

60g plain flour
190g caster sugar
6 medium egg whites
half teaspoon of cream of tartar
half teaspoon of vanilla extract
half teaspoon of lemon juice
2 tbsp mixed fruit jam
50g shortening
100g crunchy peanut butter
250g icing sugar
Milk, as required

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 and line a square baking pan with greaseproof paper (but do not grease!)
2. Sift the flour into a bowl and stir in half of the sugar, set to one side.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until thick and fluffy. Add the remaining sugar to the egg white a little at a time, beating continuously until the mixture is glossy.
4. Fold in the lemon juice, vanilla and flour mixture, then pour the mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until springy. Place on a wire rack to cool.
5. Whilst cooling, prepare the peanut butter frosting. In a large bowl, beat together the shortening and peanut butter. Add the icing sugar and beat until combined, adding as much milk as required to reach the desired consistency.
6. Once cooled, cut the cake in half down the middle. Spread the jam over one of the halves and place the other sponge half on top. Spread a generous amount of peanut butter frosting over the top of the cake, cut into fingers slices and serve!

Next time we're watching Bolt, and I'll be making some doggy biscuits!

Happy Thoughts
x