Welcome back, Dresden Files fans!
Last weekend I hosted my third annual Wizards’ Wingding — a party celebrating all things magical for those of us who never received our Hogwarts letter. Today’s recipe, though, I want to highlight the world of another modern-day wizard named Harry. Harry Dresden, that is, with a recipe for THREE DIFFERENT KINDS of chocolate spread skulls inspired by Bob the skull-trapped air spirit of knowledge and NSFW sarcasm.
Click here to skip the recipe for Bob the Chocolate Skulls.
Spirit of Air and Dark Humor
For those unfamiliar with Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, the books are a modern noir-style urban fantasy where professional wizard Harry Dresden solves crimes in Chicago’s supernatural community with the grace of a pyromaniac moose in a glass bottle factory.
I know. With the convenience that modern technology affords, why would anyone need a professional wizard? Butcher solves that through a simple yet effective fact in this universe: magic and technology do not mix. Anything newer than good ole’ diesel-fueled mechanics tends to overload or explode in the presence of magic.
That’s where Bob the Skull comes in. With libraries and chain bookstores strongly lacking reliable books of the occult, and the internet being completely inaccessible, Dresden consults with Bob. To reiterate, Bob is an air spirit of knowledge. He lives in a skull.
If you were picturing Murray from The Curse of Monkey Island, you would have the voice in my head when I first read this series. To me, that is canon, not some sexy British dude that they cast in the TV series. I digress though.
Bob, having served Dresden’s evil uncle Justin Dumorne as well as a number of other wizards over the years, holds centuries of magical knowledge from potion-making to demon summoning. He certainly has a personality of his own, however. But the interesting thing is that being an air spirit, he tends to absorb the personality aspects from whoever keeps him.
So that’s why I wanted to introduce three different flavor profiles for my chocolate skulls inspired by three of the keeper personalities we’ve seen: Dresden, Kemmler, and Butters.
Flavor Shades of Bob
I love chocolate and its creamy, bittersweet bite. I especially love how it flirts and bonds with other flavors to create transformative tasting experiences. That’s why I chose it as my medium to represent Bob. That, and I’ve already done skull-shaped cheese balls on the blog. This recipe, however, is like a giant version of those bourbon chocolate truffles often served at family gatherings.
The Wizard’s Companion
It was easy enough figuring out Bob’s flavor profile inspired by his time with Dresden. With Chicago’s warden wizard, Bob is sarcastic, spicy, and a perverted sucker for a pretty woman. You can even say Bob’s personality is an overamplified version of Dresden. So with that, I used rose extract and petals to signify his love of dirty romance novels, and smoked paprika and red pepper flakes for Dresden’s fire-focused magic.
I should probably mention one of my favorite stories from Jim Butcher at this point. He mentioned at a book signing in Atlanta that when he was writing the first Dresden book, he was at a writing workshop. He said he talked with the instructor about “designing a character whose fundamental function was to have conversations with Dresden about the nature of magic so that the readers could all understand what was going on. “
“Sounds fine,” said the instructor, “But whatever you do, don’t create some kind of talking head.”
Butcher then submitted the next draft, introducing our favorite wisecracking pervy skull friend.
“Very funny…”
The Aromantic Necromancer
We see Bob’s Kemmler personality briefly in Dead Beat when asked to recall knowledge of when he served him. Heinrich Kemmler, Bob’s previous owner, was the most powerful necromancer in the world and ravaged the world with the undead during both World Wars. Kemmler’s Bob (or “Evil Bob”) is cold, devoid of humor, disdainful of others, and terrifyingly powerful.
For his flavor profile, I emphasized the coldness with peppermint extract and spearmint leaves. Then I used Chinese five-spice powder and star anise since cinnamon and myrrh were used in ancient Egyptian embalming practices. Myrrh is not all that edible, but its scent is very similar to anise.
The Nutty Doctor
Finally, for the time that Bob spends with Waldo Butters, he mostly acts like his Dresden-influenced perverted self due to Butters’ memory of the wizard. We see another side of him, though, one of strong, upstanding competence. Butters, the Jewish, once-cowardly medical examiner grows through the Dresden Files series into an individual “cursed with a sense of honesty, a measure of integrity, and enough moral courage to make him act on it.” I feel Bob shares that warrior spirit when he and Butters fight for and defend Dresden in Butcher’s Ghost Story.
So for Butter’s Bob-skull, I thought of a rugelach cookie. This flaky pastry originated in the Jewish communities in Poland and often contained nuts and various dried fruits. Since our polka-playing knight of the cross is both sweet and a little nutty, it seemed fitting to incorporate apricot, walnut, and vanilla into his flavor profile.
Sing for Your Supper!
If you plan to cook the recipe off the site, keep scrolling. However, while access to recipes on the blog will always be free, I now have printable PDF recipe cards and thematic cook-along Spotify playlists as rewards for those who choose to support the blog.
The printable recipe cards and playlist for Bob the Chocolate Skulls will be available as a $2 donor reward on my Ko-Fi page until Sunday, November 24th, 2019, at 8 pm EST.
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recipe
What’s up, Boss?
Bob, the Chocolate Skulls
Equipment: Stand mixer, Williams-Sonoma Skull Cakelet Pan, three small mixing bowls, plastic wrap, freezer, spatulas, and a small bowl.
Ingredients:
Base:
- 5 Tb whiskey
- 6 Tb melted hot fudge topping
- large pinch of kosher salt
- 16 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa butter plus more for dusting
- Gingersnaps for serving
Dresden Skull:
- 1/4 tsp rose extract
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- pinch kosher salt
- 1 tsp dried rose petals
- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
Kemmler Skull:
- 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
- 1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
- 1 tsp dried spearmint leaves
- 2 star anise
Butters Skull:
- 1 Tb apricot jam
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 cup crushed walnuts plus more for decoration
- 2 dried apricots
Instructions:
Make the Base
- Pour the whiskey and fudge topping into the bowl of the stand mixer. Add a pinch of salt and blend for a minute on low. Turn off the mixer and add the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder.
- Stir on low until the dry ingredients combine with the wet, then raise the speed to whip the mixture until smooth. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Divide the mix between the three small mixing bowls.
Flavor the Skulls
- Line three of the skull depressions on the pan with generously large layers of plastic wrap then set aside.
- Add rose extract, smoked paprika, and a pinch of kosher salt to the first bowl and stir until thoroughly combined. Scrape the mixture into one of the skull depressions. Twist the wrap so that the mixture goes into the nooks and crannies.
- Mix the peppermint extract and five-spice powder into the second mixing bowl using a clean spoon or spatula. Scrape this mixture into another plastic-lined skull and repeat the same process as you did with the first skull.
- Scoop the jam and nuts into the third bowl and add the vanilla extract. Blend until combined, then repeat the process with the pan as you did with the first two skulls. Freeze the pan overnight.
Decorate and Serve the Skulls
- Add a couple of spoonfuls of cocoa powder to a dish. One at a time, unwrap each skull and place it face up in the bowl. Toss the cocoa powder on the skull to coat, then carefully place it on your serving dish.
- Decorate the Dresden skull with rose petals and red pepper flakes in the eye and nose sockets, cheekbone hollows, and teeth. Place the star anise on the eye sockets of the Kemmler Skull and decorate the remaining hollows with spearmint leaves. Tear the dried apricots into pieces to fill the hollows on the Butters skull and add walnut pieces where desired.
- Serve with gingersnaps and vanilla cookies.
