u/Anastarfish

When discussing this theme on the Discord, u/mentaina mentioned that a calico cat is also known as a gatto tricolore in Italian. I love calico cats, and had just met a really friendly 23 year old (!) calico just down the road from me so felt inspired to make something to celebrate this beautiful coat patterning. I’ve made calico cat cookies for a previous baking theme, so wanted to do something a little bit different so u/Kauyon_Kais suggested making them into ice cream sandwiches. I thought this would be a really fun idea, and I could also use the famously three-coloured Neapolitan ice cream too.

I used this recipe for the cookies and dyed a small amount orange with food colouring, and a small amount brown using cocoa powder. I then rolled out the cookies and used little pieces of the orange and brown doughs and cut out cats using my set of cat cookie cutters. I decided that I needed a firm set on my ice cream and my no-churn recipe is quite soft, so I bought a tub of Neapolitan, left it to soften slightly before refreezing in narrower layers in a loaf tin. After the cookies were baked, I cut out slices of my Neapolitan ice cream and then stamped out cat shapes with my cookie cutters. The whole thing felt a bit like an assembly line, stamping out precise blocks and stacking together like LEGO blocks.

When assembling the ice cream sandwiches I realised that you could barely tell that the filling was also tricoloured, so I also put a couple of Neapolitan ice cream cats on the plate as well - luckily I took a picture quickly because they rapidly started to melt. These were good but I would probably use a different cookie next time. I chose a sugar cookie for the precision of cutting out into cat shapes, but I think a chewier, thicker cookie is a bit nicer in an ice cream sandwich.

Ever since I was little, I have loved penguins. I have always wanted to visit Antarctica to see the dramatic, stark landscape and penguins in their natural habitat. In my 20s, I even saved up most of the money for an Antarctic cruise. When I told my now-husband, he called that idea "irresponsible". At first, I thought he meant the financial cost of blowing my life savings, but he was actually referring to the ethical cost of Antarctic tourism. It was a bit of a wake-up call - I hadn’t considered my own carbon footprint or the irony of contributing to the climate change that threatens the very animals I wanted to see.

As Antarctica doesn’t really lend itself to any specific dish, I decided to represent the abomination that climate change is inflicting on this environment. This board features:

- the residents: fiddly penguins made from olives filled with cream cheese, with carrot beaks, carrot feet, and black sesame seed eyes.

- the landscape: white sesame artisan crackers (adapted from this recipe), rolled thin and baked at a low temperature, then broken into jagged shards to mimic the craggy, mountainous terrain.

- the icebergs: a landscape of Brie, Wensleydale, Chavroux (soft goat’s cheese), and Parlick (a hard sheep's cheese).

I deliberately placed one penguin on a tiny, precarious iceberg of Parlick to illustrate the imminent risk these creatures face as sea levels rise and glaciers retreat.

Creating this was a delicious, if sobering, way to ‘explore’ my top bucket-list destination. While I’ve accepted that I likely won’t ever set foot on the Great White Continent, I can still appreciate its beauty from afar - and through the medium of cheese. It doesn’t hurt to dream!

Schnecken are popular in Germany and they translate to mean snails. They are actually sweet buns with a swirled filling. I made Himbeerschnecken which have a raspberry filling, but common other fillings include nuts and poppy seeds.

This is a yeasted dough that gets a quick lamination before filling with blended fresh raspberries, then rolling and cutting into swirls. After baking you add a lemon glaze, and I also added some lemon zest. I also scattered some pearl sugar before baking which gave a wonderful texture.

These were lovely and great with a big cup of coffee for breakfast. It's very much a "trust the process" kind of recipe as the rolling and cutting gets extremely messy, but I highly recommend this recipe.