This month's movie was the classic Tom Hanks film Big. In this film, a twelve-year old boy who is embarrassed about his height makes a wish at the carnival to be "big." His wish is granted in a way he doesn't expect as he becomes a full grown adult. The rest of the film is full of awkward comedy as a child with a man's body tries to navigate adulthood.For dinner, I focused on fair/carnival type foods. There's a lot of different things that you can do with that. I decided on Coney Island style hotdogs and also chicken legs that were meant to represent the smoked turkey legs I get almost every time I go to a fair.
For the chicken, I marinated it in the same spice blend that I used on my chicken wings when we watched The Labyrinth. I chose this blend because of it's rich and smokey flavor. I baked the chicken at 425°F for around 55 minutes. It came out juicy and flavorful, just as I anticipated. While the chicken cooked, I also baked some frozen fries and hotdogs. Those don't take as long to cook, so I rotated between them on the top rack while the chicken cooked on the center rack.
Dinner was clearly a hit. I was afraid that I had made too much food, but we ended up going through most of it. During dinner, I had the cotton candy machine running that I bought for the Muppet Movie. It's been awhile since I've used, but it was a hit as well. Guests had fun seeing how it works and once I demonstrated, a few of them were able to make their own.
The cotton candy, though fun, was not the dessert of the night. As always, I serve dessert at intermission. There were a few potential options for this film. There's a scene early on where Hanks eats a simple sundae that seemed to be just vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and a cherry. There is also a scene closer to the end of the film where Hanks has a birthday and a two-tier circular birthday cake. At first, I was planning to go one of these routes, but then a more unique idea came to me.
Halfway through the film, there is a famous dinner party scene where Hanks awkwardly navigates the buffet table which is full of expensive, exotic dishes that he was unfamiliar with. While brainstorming, a friend suggested finger foods like mini-cheesecake. This gave me a great idea. In the dinner party scene, Hanks reacts strongly to eating some beluga caviar. It appears to have been served on a cracker with cream cheese. The mini-cheesecake idea made me think that I could create a mini-cheesecake that looks a lot like cream cheese on a cracker and could top it with fruit pearls that look like caviar. Below is the recipe.
Faux Caviar, Cheese, & Cracker Dessert
Makes 12. Before you begin making this, put some vegetable oil in the freezer.
This dessert that resembles caviar and cream cheese on a cracker is made up of fruit pearls, cheesecake, and graham cracker. It is created in three parts and does take a bit of time, but in the end you end up with a pretty tasty and fancy looking dessert. Plus, it's actually not that technically hard to make. I suggest making this in advance so everything has plenty of time to set.
To make this dish, you will need a mini-muffin tin with a removable bottom or something similar. I used the rubber molds that I bought for
the Running Man dessert. They are safe to bake up to 450°F. The main thing is that you need to be able to gently remove the mini-cheesecakes after they are done.
Graham Cracker Crust
Ingredients:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease the inside of the tin.
2. Melt the butter and mix evenly with crumbs and sugar.
3. Separate evenly among the molds and pack firmly. I used a plastic measuring cup to help me pack the crust.
4. Bake for 10 minutes.
5. Begin working on the cheesecake filling.
Cheesecake Filling
Ingredients:
16 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1. Change oven temp to 250°F.
2. Using a mixer and paddle attachment, blend cream cheese on low until soft and creamy. Do not blend too fast or with a whisk otherwise you will add unwanted oxygen and make it fluffy. If it's fluffy, you risk the cream cheese cake sinking after it bakes.
3. Blend in sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl regularly to make sure everything gets mixed evenly.
4. Pour the cheesecake mixture evenly amongst the 12 cups. It should be pretty liquidy.
5. Bake for approximately 25 minutes.
6. After baking, remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature while you move on to the fruit caviar topping.
Fruit Caviar
This part is the most technical. It's still not difficult, but it can be time consuming. You can buy something called fruit pearls or popping pearls which is essentially the same thing and will save you the time and trouble. Most grocery stores don't carry this, but you can order them online. Another option is to check your local frozen yogurt place. They will sometimes carry these as a topping option and if your frozen yogurt place is the type where you make your own and they charge you by weight, you could just get a cup of fruit pearls and pay by weight. I was not completely confident that my homemade pearls, so I bought some blueberry pearls from my local frozen yogurt place. The beluga caviar in the movie is dark, so if you are going for authenticity choose a dark color/flavor.
To make this, you will need a tall container and a dropper. I used a graduated cylinder and a squeeze bottle like you would use with ketchup. You could also use a syringe. A candy thermometer would also be helpful.
Ingredients:
vegetable oil (needs to be put in freezer several hours earlier, preferably the previous day)
1 1/2 cups fruit juice
2 tbsp or packets of gelatin
1. Combine 1 cup of fruit juice and both packets of gelatin in a pan. Your caviar will taste like the juice, so feel free to add sugar or flavoring if you want to change the flavor.
2. Bring to boil and stir.
3. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of juice to start the cooling process. You want the gelatin mixture to be just a bit warmer than room temperature before proceeding to the next step. If you have a candy thermometer, I would suggest waiting until it's under 90°F.
4. This next step only works if the oil is sufficiently cold. You should notice that your oil is viscous and cloudy. You need the oil to stay cold during the next process. The way that I did this was setting up an ice bath where I put my graduated cylinder in a bowl full of ice. Take your oil out of the freezer and pour into your tall container. Leave space at the top. I suggest filling only 2/3 of the way.
5. Fill your dropper with your gelatin mixture and slowly drip it into your tall container of freezing cold oil. Each drip will form a sphere as it sinks to the bottom of the container and the coldness of the oil will cause them to solidify as that sphere while it sinks. By the time it hits the bottom, it should be a solid sphere and no longer a liquid. To make larger spheres, make two or three drips quickly in the same spot.
6. Continue making gelatin orbs until you run out of room in the container, run out of liquid, or the oil has gotten too warm. Gently pour the oil into a separate container and the caviar into a bowl of cold water. The oil can be reused for cooking.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you are out of gelatin liquid.
8. Next step is to clean the caviar. You should notice that when the caviar was put in cold water, an oil residue appear at the surface. Stir and rinse caviar under cool water until an oil residue no longer appears.
9. Once the caviar is clean, put it in the fridge or leave at room temperature. When I did this, I poured the water out first and put the eggs in the fridge. When cold, the spheres started sticking together. I suspect that if I had left them sitting out or left them in water while in the fridge, that probably wouldn't have happened and they would have remained individual eggs. If you want the caviar to be more vibrantly colored, you can let them soak in the original juice. The flavor is unlikely to change, but the gelatin will stain the eggs.
And that's basically it. When you are ready to serve, gently remove the cheesecake from the tin, scoop some fruit caviar on top and serve. My guests were really impressed with this snack. It both looked and tasted great.
Overall, the entire night was a success. The movie was great, food was great, and everything felt very much on theme.
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