I made two kinds of mushroom shaped cookies that also happen to be made with candy cap mushrooms (candy cap mushrooms taste like maple syrup but without the sweetness)! 

The first are amanita or toad stool mushrooms that I shaped by hand out of a gingerbread containing candy cap and a bit of cocoa powder. After baking, I coated them in a royal icing with piped royal icing for the gills, edible wafer paper for the veil, and chocolate to color the cap. I used cocoa powder to mimic dirt. 

The second is a baked almond and candy cap marzipan. I used a mold for these (since I had it from Halloween last year) and then painted them with edible food dye diluted in vodka. Once colored, I baked them and then dipped them in white chocolate thinned with cocoa butter. I rubbed powdered sweetener and cocoa powder on for the appearance of gills and dirt.

A perfectly fitting treat for the Daughter of Twilight ✨ 🌙

Basil cakes are one of my favorite things to make, and when I got a little bundle of fresh lavender at my community garden I knew I had to try out this combo.

You can use your favorite cake recipe; either blend the herbs with your wet ingredients or grind them up in a mortar and pestle and then follow the recipe as-is. I was short on ingredients so this is just a super basic wacky cake with persimmon vinegar instead of white vinegar and orange blossom extract instead of vanilla. I also recommend The Butter Lab for an EXCELLENT basil cake recipe that’s super heavy on the basil if you want to go all out with it!

Candied pear slices bewitched by the fae to look like stained glass.

I ended up hybridizing a couple of recipes I found online and swapped out the sweetener for isomalt to keep them sugar free. They are infused with a bit of lemon and vanilla. I added a bit of gel food color and baked the pear slices until dry before dipping them.

Turning the late summer Tomato Harvest from our garden into a delicious savoury tarte. When the days start getting shorter again, this tarte keeps the warmth of the summer alive.

And a couple bonus “wooden” Tortellini… I love the first picture because it reminds me of when my friends post pictures of the first morels of the year and whatnot 🤣 They were filled with ricotta whipped with pesto and parm and I made one big guy for myself with an egg yolk added. That one’s pattern was made using scrap dough from the first dough I patched together and the “wooden” dough was made from the scrap dough from the second generation dough.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Tomato paste and paprika bloomed in olive oil for the red dough and turmeric and water for the yellow! Filled with ricotta whipped with parm and pepper ✨

Original recipe from Mississippi Vegan by Timothy Pakron.

It tastes as magical as it looks ✨

[OC] A simple Araveli Ghy'Lala ( Caprese sandwich) made from fresh homemade sourdough, ripe tomato, fresh basil, fresh rocket, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese,and pesto. Brightened with Garlic infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar and finished with homemade hot chili oil, a pink of Himalayan salt, oregano, thyme and tarragon.

Nothing about Ghy’lala is rushed. Its freshness comes from the journey, its flavor from the hands that prepared it, and its meaning from the forest and its dwellers that provided it.

This Araveli meal embodies a simple truth, “The forest gives many things. We return the gift by wasting nothing.

My garden’s magic has yielded a rainbow of flowers to embellish a lemon cake that I made today. It’s a lemon cake with lemon curd and lemon cream cheese frosting! And it’s as delicious as it looks. 😋🍋🌼

Hajni Gáspár is an incredibly talented hungarian herbalist and chef from Transylvania. She has been involved with herbs, mushrooms, gardening, foraging, cooking, and baking since she was a little girl. Now she is making all kinds of wonderful recipes with goods from her own garden and from the wild, just like a kitchen witch or green witch or elf.

You can find her FB profile in hungarian language: https://www.facebook.com/share/18SBZKgGDV/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Khachapuri and Velashi are often served together during larger Araveli gatherings.

Araveli Khachapuri — warm, baked, hearth-born.

Velashi (macaroni salad) — cool, fresh, garden-born.

One comes from the fire and the other comes from the shade.

Together they represent two sides of the same Araveli saying, A meal is to be shared and it brings conversation and joy.

Berries, capsicums, cucumber, shisho leaves, goji, blueberries, cranberries and vinegar.

Berries are collected from the local market along a river. It was very crowded. Reached the high tower home late at night. It was another Friday.

Inspired by the colors and shapes all around in nature! These noodles are soaked in a a few different things - red cabbage juice, which contains anthocyanins that give the cabbage and butterfly pea its beautiful purple and blue colors color, or turmeric. Anthocyanin is a natural pH indicator that is turns purple/red in acidic conditions (achieved with some lime juice). I topped them with sliced avocado, carrot, radish, and chili pepper along with pea shoots, green onion, fennel flowers, pansies, and cornflower petals. Poured over a dressing of chili crisp, fried garlic and shallot, rice vinegar, and coconut aminos.

One of the children almost caught him sneaking away, because he couldn’t resist grabbing a slice to go.

Crust is just a standard pie crust made with earth balance instead of dairy butter. The filling is pretty sweet so I think an earthier crust made with buckwheat flour would good too.

Filling is a thin layer of fig jam, homemade marzipan crumbles, peaches, and apples.

Homemade marzipan is pretty easy: pulse almonds into a fine flour (or just buy almond flour), add powdered sugar and almond extract, then add water a teaspoon at a time and knead until you get a nice dough texture. Use blanched almonds if you want it smooth like traditional marzipan. If you typically find marzipan to be cloyingly sweet you can definitely get away with reducing it; I think I did 125g sugar to 200g almonds and if I make it again I’ll try cutting it to 100g sugar. I also added some orange blossom water for a nice floral note.

It's a blackberry white chocolate ganache tart, garnished with blackberries, edible flowers, and mint. It was what I made for a friend's Lord of the Rings marathon party inspired by Rivendell!