Medusa Cheeseball

We were inspired to create this Medusa cheeseball after we made the SPA MASK CHEESE BALL that we fell in love with from the Hungry Happenings site. Someone commented on our blog saying that their son was having a mythology birthday theme party (how cool is that by the way) and they were going to make the spa mask into Medusa.

Genius!

We immediately thought of Halloween.

I started thinking of all the things that Sue and I could use for Medusa's snake hair. Weiners cut into strips, jello worms, spaghetti/pasta, bread. 

We decided to go with bread because we had more control over how long and how skinny we wanted the snakes to be.

If you would like the recipe for the bread we used then please click HERE. It is the recipe we used for the MUMMY BREAD and the BREAD CORNUCOPIA.

Medusa Cheese Ball with bread snakes

Ingredients

2 X 8 oz blocks cream cheese, softened

1 generous cup of aged cheddar cheese, shredded

1 generous cup of Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded

1 – 2 Tbsp of Taco seasoning (to your own taste, we used 2 Tbsp this time)

2 roasted red pepper

2 avocados, ripe, mashed

Dark tortilla chips

Recipe for BREAD DOUGH

Directions

Take your mask / face mold and fill it with tin foil. Pack it tightly to fit the mold as this is what you will use to bake your bread snakes on. Place the tin foil mold onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Pack tin foil into mask as firmly as possible.

Mix cream cheese, cheddar cheese, Monterrey Jack cheese, and Taco seasons together until well blended.

Press into mask lined with plastic wrap. Chill until firm.

Preheat your oven to 375.

While your cheese ball is chilling in the fridge you can now make up the dough.

After your dough has been made and has rested for 15 minutes you can now start rolling out your snakes. Pinch off golf ball sized bits of dough and roll them into thin ropes. As you roll them place them around the tin foil mask mold you created earlier. You can lay them however you would like around and over the mask, just remember that you need to be able to lift them off the tin foil after they have been baked so your cheese ball can go in there afterwards.

Ready to go in the oven.



I made little balls/bridges of tinfoil and placed them randomly so the snakes would look like they had more movement and dimension. There is no need to let your dough proof. After you are happy with the placement of your snakes just pop it in the oven.

Bake at 375 until the bread is golden brown.

Just out of the oven.

Let dough cool completely on cookie tray. Do not try to remove it from the tin foil while it is still warm - you will end up breaking your snakes. After is has cooled, ( I left mine on the cookie tray, covered with a tea towel, overnight) gently remove tin foil molds and balls/bridges.

After removing all the tin foil.

Now you can invert your cheese ball mask onto the serving tray you are going to use.

Use the roasted red peppers to cut out eyes and lips and place them on the cheese ball.

Spread the mashed avocado evenly over the face, right up to the edges of the eyes and lips. Don't worry about your avocao going brown - the uglier the color, the better your medusa will look!

I used a toothpick and black food dye to give the snakes eyes :)

Gently place your bread snakes onto Medusa's face. You can use a toothpick and black food dye to give your snakes eyes, if you wish.

Surround your cheese ball with tortilla chips/taco chips (preferably dark), and enjoy!.



We would have prefered a darker platter to serve her on but, unfortunately, with Sue just having moved all of her Halloween trays were hidden away. We used my large cookie tray instead. Not as spooky but it got the job done.

I also would have prefered to use a little green food coloring in the bread dough to give the snakes a bit of color but, unfortunately, I found out too late that I ran out of food coloring. Dag-nab-it!

Thanks again to Beth Jackson Klosterboer over at Hungry Happenings for the inspiration. If you haven't checked out her blog, you really REALLY should. She is amazingly creative!!

And thanks as well to our anonymous blog reader who also helped inspire us to create Medusa. :)

Be sure to stop by Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons for some cool food and crafting links!