Reviews
I would make this again, but probably wouldn’t feed it to anyone. Not decadent enough.
Highly recommended for midsummer afternoon sugar cravings, though.
Fruit
Weird: Chocolate Pancake Made with Powdered Chocolate Mousse Mix
Not bad.
Ingredients:
Egg
Powdered chocolate mousse mix
Flour
Baking powder
Dried coconut
Toppings:
Cream cheese
More dried coconut
Almonds, walnuts, raisins
SYYYRRRUUPPPP
Chocolate Banana Mousse Ice Cream in the Food Processor
Not to be confused with this banana ice cream, which got the “CRAP!” tag. This version is delicious.
Reviews:
“That looks so good!”
– Lara
“I have six dozen bananas in my freezer”
– Mom
Ingredients:
2 frozen solid, very ripe bananas
Dash of vanilla extract
~4 tbsp instant chocolate mousse (or pudding) mix
2 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp milk
Banana tips for great success!
- They should be brown and spotty when you freeze them.
- Peeling frozen bananas is one of the most miserable kitchen tasks you will ever attempt. So instead, take the peels off before you freeze them, and put the naked ‘naners in a freezer bag. Really. It’s worth the extra 20 seconds.
Procedure
Break up the bananas into chunks and deposit them into the food processor. Run it on high just long enough to break them into evenly-sized, grainy, still-frozen bits. No more than 5-6 seconds. (The goal is to not let them melt.)
Add the rest of the ingredients and spin it on high until it’s the consistency of ice cream. You’ll probably have to stop once or twice and scrape the sides of the bowl down. As soon as it looks like ice cream, STOP. Do not overprocess, or it will turn into a thick partially-melted smoothie.
Put it into a tupperware with a tight-sealing lid, and stash it in the freezer for 15-30 minutes to firm up a little. I recommend stirring before you eat.
Banana Cream Pie
For when everyone is requesting one.
Recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/12151/banana-cream-pie-i/
Changes:
- Replace pie crust with graham cracker crust:
- 1 1/4 c graham cracker crumbs
- 1 stick butter
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Add a layer of chocolate weirdness to the bottom of the crust after it’s baked and cooled:
- 4 oz melted semisweet chocolate
- 2 tbsp cream cheese
- some milk to thin it
- vanilla
- mix everything together and spread on the crust (without tearing it)
- Add 2 oz of cream cheese to the pudding while it’s still warm and stir.
- Don’t bake 15 mins at the end. (why is this necessary)
- Whipped cream.
Photo arrangements by mom
Apple Pie Cheesecake
From Pinterest to your table.
Reviews:
“Mmmm, it smells good”
– Lara
“Why does it smell like apples”
– Mom
“Fabulous and cracked”
– Dad
“Can I have another piece”
– Katrina
Ingredients:
1 block neufchatel
1 block cream cheese
1/4 c sour cream
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 c maple syrup
1/3 c brown sugar
1/4 c white sugar
3 tbsp green bottle lemon juice
heavy pinch salt
5 eggs
Crust:
1 1/4 c graham cracker crumbs
2 tbsp white sugar
1 stick butter
Apple topping:
3 chopped apples
3 tablespoons brown sugar
big squirt fresh lime juice
cinnamon
nutmeg
10 cloves
handful of chopped pecans
2 tbsp white wine
1-2 tsp corn starch (if you’re in a rush)
2 tsp vanilla extract
Tip: count how many cloves you put in the apple topping, because you’ll have to pick them out before you put it on the cake.
Banana Ice Cream with No Cream (CRAP)
I’ve done this many times, but it turns out a lot better when you have peanut butter.
Two bananas + four strawberries.
+ Yogurt + honey + brown sugar + vanilla + salt. Let it run to combine and it’ll form a really ultra thick fruit smoothie.
Then add three heaping tablespoons of cocoa and pulse again.
The healthy-but-lame alternative to ice cream. I promise that it’s actually very tasty when you do it with peanut butter instead of yogurt.
Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake (Crappy)
Third chocolate dish in a row. This was for a baking competition at work, which was held in honor of someone’s birthday. The requirements:
a) “Jared doesn’t like dulce de leche”
b) “Jared likes blueberries”
I am not fond of blueberry desserts, and dulce de leche is my secret weapon for making any dessert more awesome. So I’m justifying my defeat by suggesting that this was a battle I just wasn’t meant to win.
It could also be karma. I may have tried to “cheat” a bit by giving Jared of survey of my potential dessert ideas. It looked like this:
Chocolate – yes or no? (yes)
Cheesecake – yes or no? (yes)
Coffee cake – yes or no? (yes)
Cinnamon – yes or no? (“meh”)
Lemon – yes or no? (“meh”)
Danish – yes or no? (“meh”)
Favorite Argentine supermarket cookie? Toddy.
So thus my idea for a blueberry-lemon cheesecake danish went out the window and was replaced with a repulsively disgusting terrible idea: mix all the positive responses together in one dessert! AND…to avoid the risk of overcooking the cheesecake, let’s make it no-bake!
WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!
I did it anyway. What was I thinking.
Reviews
“What’s in the crust?”
– Archer from client management
“What’s in the marquise?”
– Kortney from HR
“What’s in the blueberry sauce?”
– Helen from sales
(**I think I got a lot of questions about what was in this because no one could figure out what the hell kind of weird creation they were eating)
The Horrifying Recipe
It’s this famous cheesecake recipe, with the following additions/substitutions:
Crust
Replace graham cracker crumbs with crushed Toddy cookies and graham-cracker-esque cookies
Filling
Add ~2/3 cup sifted cocoa powder plus 150g (like 1/2 cup?) of cooled chocolate ganache. The result will be a filling that tastes like cocoa powder and not much else.
Blueberry Topping
Cook a pint of blueberries in a saucepan until they’re soft, then add about 1/4 cup of sugar and several tablespoons of lemon juice plus a pinch of lemon zest. Then taste it and pucker because you added way too much lemon juice. So balance out the lemon with some frozen emergency berries from the freezer (lucky save) and extra sugar. It will taste weird but passable.
Lesson learned: a recipe that works because of it’s simplicity will cease to impress if you try to make it more complicated.
