It all started with Skittlebrau: Beer with skittles floating in it. (It’s the combination that Homer Simpson invents on the spot after mistakenly thinking it already exists.)
I admire that kind of rackish culinary innovation and wanted to try making it myself, just to see what it would taste like. Then I got to pondering all the different foods mentioned in The Simpsons. Suddenly, I was planning a party.
Why have my partner Tim and myself alone in a room drinking beer with lollies floating in it, when a group of people gives me the excuse I need to try making a giant donut?
Having made it all happen, I’d like to pass on five handy tricks for throwing your own Simpsons Food Party. Notice it’s a food party – aside from one of our friends in a fetching Ms Krabapple ensemble, no-one dressed up, but mostly because we only gave everyone about three days’ notice.
1) Give your guests options
On the invite I had a list of things we were providing, and a list of things guests might like to provide. People generally want to help, and it can be stressful trying to do the whole thing on your own. A good start is to ask people to bring beer for Skittlebrau – however, this show is so rich in references that it’s almost impossible for guests to double up on what they’re bringing.
2) Know your limits
One of my favourite Simpsons quotes is “we take a chocolate bar, dip it in honey, sprinkle it in three different kinds of sugar and then cover it in rich, creamery butter”. I really wanted to make some kind of approximation of this – perhaps a palm-muscovado-brown sugar salted honey caramel brown butter slice – but after a late night of making floor pie, a giant donut, and chilli, I abandoned it. Going to bed before 1am on the night before your party is preferable to reckless behaviour leading to you sniffling on your kitchen floor with spilt honey in your hair.
3) Search deep
The Simpsons has been exhaustively documented online, years before the internet even became particularly mainstream. This makes it easy to search for food inspiration. I found this archive (http://www.snpp.com/guides/foods.html) particularly useful.
4) Weekdays!
Don’t leave your party till the weekend. Lots of people have to get up early the next day, but it’s nice to have something to look forward to on an otherwise stupid Tuesday and people are more likely to have time to commit.
5) Be as lateral or literal as you like
Yes, a tinfoil roasting tray with a kilo of crumbed fish fillets isn’t quite an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, and a pan of vegan chilli isn’t that which sent Homer on a hallucinogenic quest, but it’s all about the suggestion. On the other hand, we literally made Nuts’n’Gum (“together at last!”) by mixing still-wrapped sticks of gum with roasted peanuts in a bowl, and the aforementioned Skittlebrau (oddly compelling but overly sweet towards the end, FYI). In Simpsons-themed food parties as in life: pick your battles.
So, with these handy hints you can easily embiggen your next party. Let me help you get things started with my Giant Donut recipe.
Decent donuts are hard to find in New Zealand and I didn’t fancy my deep-frying skills, so this was my solution to providing that most obvious food from the Simpsons – plus, I love getting novelty-sized with my baking.
It’s not the real thing texture-wise, but the vanilla and cinnamon are reminiscent of that which it imitates and it looks unbelievably splendid with its crown of pink icing and sprinkles. This recipe is dairy-free, and I bet you could make it vegan by removing the eggs and adding a little more oil. Note that it goes stale quite quickly.
Giant Donut Recipe
- 200g flour
- 1 sachet dried yeast
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons vanilla essence
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons plain oil – I use rice bran.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, yeast, and sugar, then tip in the warm (not hot!) water, flavourings and eggs, and mix together to a sticky dough.
Cover with gladwrap and leave to rise for half an hour. Stir in the oil at this point, then arrange it in a well-greased, floured ring tin. Cover with gladwrap and leave to rise again till doubled in size and puffy.
I left it overnight in the fridge to rise slowly – if you do this make sure it’s out of the fridge for an hour or so before baking to lose its chill.
Sprinkle with a little more sugar and bake for 15-20 minutes at 200 C till golden.
Once cool, invert onto a plate. Mine took some careful levering with a knife, so don’t stress if it doesn’t slide out right away.
Mix together icing sugar, a little water and some red food colouring to make a shiny pink icing. Best still is if you have some raspberry flavouring to add to it – it’s sold with the other colourings and essences in the supermarket and has a gloriously nostalgic top-of-sticky-bun taste to it. Carefully and evenly spread this across the top of your donut, allowing it to drip down the side.
Cover with rainbow hail, and serve with pride.
Laura Vincent is the author of food blog
Hungry and
Frozen.