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| Which side will you choose? |
This originally started out as a take on the red velvet churros that have been circulating the internet. And, to be honest, that's what the Sith weaponry here are, minus the filling and plus some chocolate hilts, as described later. The Jedi sabers, though, were a bit more difficult than the path to the dark side. That's what you'll see played out here.
If you're ready to build your lightsaber, you can proceed.
Equipment:
- 4qt Sauce Pot
- Electric Hand Mixer
- If you want to cross into the wrong universe here and summon your inner Hulk to tackle the dough that's going to be coming out of this, go right ahead. Just make sure that Disney doesn't get the crossover contagion from you, okay?
- Stir Spoon
- Piping Bag
- You could also likely get away with a large zipper bag by cutting off one of the corners, but I can tell you right now, that if you use a cheap bag, it's going to suffer a blowout.
- Star Tip
- I used a Wilton 6B tip
- Small Round Tip
- Coupler (optional)
- Deep Fryer with Lid
- Cooling Rack
- Cookie Sheet
- Parchment Paper
- Microwave Safe Bowl --OR-- Fondue Pot
Ingredients:
- 1 Box Pilsbury Extra Moist Vanilla Cake Mix
- The original recipe called for 1c of cake mix, and with red velvet, that worked. But somehow this wind up taking the whole thing to get the right consistency. Oh well, whatever.
- 2 Eggs
- 2c Water
- 1/4c White Granulated Sugar
- 4tbsp butter
- Or your favorite not-butter. I used a vegetable spread. Just do a quick check to make sure that it doesn't have cornstarch in it. That'll cause all kinds of problems.
- 1c All Purpose Flour
- Food Coloring
- Almond Bark or Wilton Candy Melts
- Black Frosting
- Just save yourself the trouble and buy this pre-made. Black frosting is nearly impossible to get right. Plus, if you get the Wilton-branded squeeze tubes, you can just add the tip onto the end with a standard-sized coupler ring and minimize cleanup.
Start out with the butter, water, and sugar in the sauce pot, and get them to a boiling point, making sure to stir constantly, because sugar likes to scorch. This is also the point of the show where you'll want to add your food coloring in, as it'll become MUCH harder to do later. Those of you that actually follow along with the Star Wars lore know *exactly* what color you want to use.
When the boiling happens, pull the pan off the heat and break out the electric mixer, being careful not to melt the cord. Mix in the eggs, cake mix, and flour. You're aiming for a middle-thickness dough. Kind of like thick frosting. Make sure everything's all mixed in though, and if your dough winds up a bit on the thin side, feel free to incrementally add more flour.
Let that cool for a bit, to where it's cool enough to handle, but still a bit warm. Now, this next bit is going to rely a bit on some icing skills. If you're unfamiliar, Crafy Baking looks to have a pretty good tutorial, but be aware that they use a disposable piping bag.
Load the dough into the piping bag, pre-fitted with the star tip and corresponding coupler. Not all of the dough is going to fit at once... you can always refill the bag, but not if you detonate it from overloading. Pack the dough fairly tightly to avoid air bubbles, but be aware that you can get dough going straight out the open tip end and wind up tie-dying your feet.
Then, on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, slowly pipe out tubes of dough. You can get these about 6in long or so before it starts causing a problem, but the biggest factor is going to be the size of your deep fryer. This is ultimately the point of the show where you decide if you're going to jump on the Kylo train or not, but again, just remember that you're going to have to fry whatever you draw. So keep that in mind.
Pop the cookie sheet with your fresh lightsaber blades into the freezer for an hour (the original recipe called for half an hour, but maybe I have a wimpy freezer). You want them to be quite stiff when they come out. If you can touch the ruffles and make them go down without a lot of pressure, they're not stiff enough.
[Editor's note: check ahead of time that the cookie sheet that you're using will actually fit in your freezer. This particularly applies if you're using industrial-sized cookie sheets, or have a French-door style freezer-fridge unit. Or if you're like the folks here and fall into *both* categories. Yay extremes!]
When the saber blades are finished, they should pull right off the parchment paper with no real problems. You'll want to deep fry them a few at a time, placing the ones remaining uncooked ones back in the freezer between fryer rounds. When the blades start puffing up really big and ripping open a little bit, they're done. Take them out and let the drain.
While the frying is going on, you can work on getting the candy dip for the hilts ready. Follow whatever instructions come with the melty stuff you bought. Luckily I a nice little fondue pot to help. Okay, it's really more of a cute little baby crockpot, but still.
You'll want to shoot for something gray, which, in my case, was produced by mixing Wilton Candy Melts of the bright white and black varieties, as adding liquid food coloring to melty candy stuffs can cause it to have all kinds of problems. Just take it easy with the black. You can always add more, and the darkside is quite powerful.
From here, just dunk one end of the fried saber blade into the candy dip, and remove. I usually save the pointy end as the end that *doesn't* go in the candy dip, because the pointy end of a blade is what you have aimed at your adversaries, not yourself. Blades 101. Set the dipped saber on a fresh sheet of parchment paper to let the hilt form.
Optional step: If you want to roll the churros in cinnamon sugar mix, do so before adding the icing accents, but after the hilt has hardened. Be sure to get only the blade in the cinnamon sugar, as getting it on the hilt will make the decorative icing not stick.
All that's left to do is get to doodling with the black accent icing. Add buttons, grips, whatever. But most importantly, have fun. And remember, it's perfectly normal to have to attempt lightsaber construction several times before a successful one is built.
General commentary: the dough made with Pilsbury white cake came out a bit thinner than the red velvet dough, even though the Pilsbury took an entire box, and the red velvet only took one cup. While the laws of the physics governing this elude me, the thinner dough enabled a fatter blade. However, the red velvet generally cooked more evenly with less ripping open in the fryer. Either way, both were delicious.
[Editor's note: Star Wars, Lightsaber, Hulk, Marvel, and pretty much everything else are, through whatever arrangement of companies is the current structure, a property of Disney. Although, if they've got to send someone after us, please at least make it the army of anthropomorphic brooms. I'd love for someone else to do the cleaning around here.]
When the boiling happens, pull the pan off the heat and break out the electric mixer, being careful not to melt the cord. Mix in the eggs, cake mix, and flour. You're aiming for a middle-thickness dough. Kind of like thick frosting. Make sure everything's all mixed in though, and if your dough winds up a bit on the thin side, feel free to incrementally add more flour.
 |
| Turns out the red velvet looks about like meat paste |
Let that cool for a bit, to where it's cool enough to handle, but still a bit warm. Now, this next bit is going to rely a bit on some icing skills. If you're unfamiliar, Crafy Baking looks to have a pretty good tutorial, but be aware that they use a disposable piping bag.
Load the dough into the piping bag, pre-fitted with the star tip and corresponding coupler. Not all of the dough is going to fit at once... you can always refill the bag, but not if you detonate it from overloading. Pack the dough fairly tightly to avoid air bubbles, but be aware that you can get dough going straight out the open tip end and wind up tie-dying your feet.
 |
Pop the cookie sheet with your fresh lightsaber blades into the freezer for an hour (the original recipe called for half an hour, but maybe I have a wimpy freezer). You want them to be quite stiff when they come out. If you can touch the ruffles and make them go down without a lot of pressure, they're not stiff enough.
[Editor's note: check ahead of time that the cookie sheet that you're using will actually fit in your freezer. This particularly applies if you're using industrial-sized cookie sheets, or have a French-door style freezer-fridge unit. Or if you're like the folks here and fall into *both* categories. Yay extremes!]
When the saber blades are finished, they should pull right off the parchment paper with no real problems. You'll want to deep fry them a few at a time, placing the ones remaining uncooked ones back in the freezer between fryer rounds. When the blades start puffing up really big and ripping open a little bit, they're done. Take them out and let the drain.
While the frying is going on, you can work on getting the candy dip for the hilts ready. Follow whatever instructions come with the melty stuff you bought. Luckily I a nice little fondue pot to help. Okay, it's really more of a cute little baby crockpot, but still.
 |
| Not paint. This is not paint. |
You'll want to shoot for something gray, which, in my case, was produced by mixing Wilton Candy Melts of the bright white and black varieties, as adding liquid food coloring to melty candy stuffs can cause it to have all kinds of problems. Just take it easy with the black. You can always add more, and the darkside is quite powerful.
From here, just dunk one end of the fried saber blade into the candy dip, and remove. I usually save the pointy end as the end that *doesn't* go in the candy dip, because the pointy end of a blade is what you have aimed at your adversaries, not yourself. Blades 101. Set the dipped saber on a fresh sheet of parchment paper to let the hilt form.
Optional step: If you want to roll the churros in cinnamon sugar mix, do so before adding the icing accents, but after the hilt has hardened. Be sure to get only the blade in the cinnamon sugar, as getting it on the hilt will make the decorative icing not stick.
All that's left to do is get to doodling with the black accent icing. Add buttons, grips, whatever. But most importantly, have fun. And remember, it's perfectly normal to have to attempt lightsaber construction several times before a successful one is built.
General commentary: the dough made with Pilsbury white cake came out a bit thinner than the red velvet dough, even though the Pilsbury took an entire box, and the red velvet only took one cup. While the laws of the physics governing this elude me, the thinner dough enabled a fatter blade. However, the red velvet generally cooked more evenly with less ripping open in the fryer. Either way, both were delicious.
[Editor's note: Star Wars, Lightsaber, Hulk, Marvel, and pretty much everything else are, through whatever arrangement of companies is the current structure, a property of Disney. Although, if they've got to send someone after us, please at least make it the army of anthropomorphic brooms. I'd love for someone else to do the cleaning around here.]
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