This weekend I had a "girl's night" with women from my Thursday Night Outreach Group. I had planned on making a variety of cookies for dessert but one thing led to another and I was so far behind by the time Saturday rolled around that the only thing I'd managed to make ahead was a sad looking ice box cake.
The ice box cake was originally going to be chocolatey and yummy, like smitten kitchen's, but I couldn't find the chocolate wafers. Instead I found Anna's Ginger Thins (total aside, but, for a little anna's fun, you can take their cookie quiz). I also saw a tip from kitchn lifted from the LA Times that suggested using a food processor for making whipped cream that stayed stiff. A few more googled attempts and I decided on a maple flavored cream to go with the ginger flavor. Once it finally came time to make the whipped cream I decided to add a little brandy too.
The problem was I haven't really ever made whipped cream before and the directions from the Times and Kitchn weren't really step by step. . . my cream was not really whipped in the end, but it was a nice flavor. It didn't really fill the bowl well though for layering. My boy stepped in with our new whipped cream maker, but it only takes half a pint at a time and each use requires a new nitrogen cartridge so that seemed pricey and useless after two tries. I knew that the cream was going to sink over night, but it was a pathetic little "cake" that greeted us the next day. Since we'd been given the trifle bowl from one of the women coming, I was determined to sit my super sad looking pile of goo out. Luckily, the flavors worked well and the women are the super supportive kind!
As the week heading toward Saturday progressed and I hadn't prepped any food nor made a move toward cleaning my house, I remembered that palmiers we're fairly simple to make and that a blogger I love, Joy the Baker, had written about them awhile ago. The blogosphere blew up about them briefly just before Valentine's day ruining any attempt at originality I might have had, but I've already mentioned who I was cooking for, so it wasn't a huge deal :). To dress up my palmiers I used a little raspberry jam and shaved on some chocolate (using a microplane we also got for our wedding -- I LOVE that tool) . I am not sure that you could taste the chocolate but people seemed impressed by the palmiers.
Instead of the original 13 women I'd planned on, in the end there were only six of us. Four of the women brought another dessert to share. Chocolate chip cookies, brownies, a red velvet cake and flourless chocolate torte all came to keep my contributions company. I may not have been successful at providing a cookie buffet, but we certainly had plenty to feast on.
I was thinking about all of this today when I saw this blog post on Serious Eats. They apparently got the idea for cookie stuffed cookies from this blog, but then they took it so much farther! I wasn't sure how I felt about the cookie stuffed cookie idea, but it did remind me of this salon article about cookies and pizza . I was horrified about the idea at first when I thought they were combined, but apparently they are only packaged together, like a killer lunchable.
Anyway, there's a fairly lengthy blog post for you on basically nothing, but I'd totally welcome your thoughts on cookie stuffed cookies or even DiGiorno pizza and cookies. Heck, I'd take your thoughts on any subject really, it's just good to be getting back into the blogger swing of things.
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