Throwback Post: Muse, Thy Name is Chocolate

Hello all! Time for a Christmas special throwback post! I got about 90% through writing this post back in June so I finished it up and now you get to enjoy a somewhat harrowing kitchen adventure. This time, we return to an oldie but a goodie: the Death by Chocolate cookbook. Do you even remember the last time I made a recipe from that cookbook? I can't either! But I know it was delicious! In fact, I've never made a bad recipe from that book. So, to reground my baking efforts, I return to my tried and true love: chocolate.

Ok, maybe it wasn't an effort to reground my baking efforts. Maybe it was more like I had to bake a birthday cake for my husband's birthday dinner and I stupidly handed him a random cookbook and said "Pick a cake!" So I suppose it's my own fault that he picked the Chocolate Espresso Fudge Cake from the Death By Chocolate cookbook. So there I was, the morning of the dinner with both our families and I had to a) bake a cake b) prepare for a chicken parm dinner for seven people and c) clean my house because it was a complete disaster mess. Oh yeah, did I mention that my husband picked a cake that takes around five hours to make? Ready, Set, Go!

At about 7:30 in the morning, I headed to my friendly neighborhood Big Y to pick up the ingredients. I checked my supplies in advance so I only needed a few things. Or so I thought. I started out with melting a bunch of chocolate in my double boiler. This cookbook always recommends covering the top of the double boiler with plastic wrap to melt the chocolate, which is a nice trick that I usually forget. Only problem is that sometimes the edges of the plastic wrap sort of melt onto the double boiler itself. Oops. Not too big a deal though - just a burn-y smell and a bigger pain to clean. While that was melting, I commenced creaming the butter and brown sugar. One problem. My brown sugar hardened. Like, a lot. I keep it in a big container with a brown sugar terra cotta bear that usually keeps it soft so I didn't even think about it. But there it was, in a hardened brick in my container. It was so hard, I couldn't even chip at it with a knife. Hmm.

Creative solution time! I wasn't about to go out to the store because that's nonsense. Instead, I covered my plastic container back up and started to run hot water over the sides to try to soften it away. While this was happening, I prepared my baking pans for the cake. The recipe wanted me to use melted butter to grease the pans and then flour the pans with cake flour. I was so pissed about the brown sugar that I was already ready to defy the recipe and just used Crisco. It took probably half the time to do that and I doubt it made any difference. So for the next half hour, I alternated heating the brown sugar and chipping pieces away with a spoon. When I finally got what I thought was enough brown sugar for the recipe, I put it in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel and microwaved it for about 30 seconds. This softened it up perfectly. Except I had totally only gotten enough for half of the brown sugar I needed. UGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! Recommencing heating brown sugar container.

So things didn't start well. But after I got all my brown sugar (and a sore hand), I creamed the sugar and butter, added the eggs, then added the melted chocolate and vanilla. Not too hard. I then had to boil a cup of water to add to the recipe (that's another pot to clean, fyi) and add the cake flour and other dry ingredients. Oh yeah, and sour cream. Can't forget that. That's the secret to moist cakes, after all! Put in pans, put in oven, bing, bang, boom. Wash tools and get to work on the next phase.

The next phase includes making a chocolate espresso buttercream and an espresso ganache. Halfway through making this recipe, I decided to read the margin notes. My, how I love this cookbook and the author who waxes poetic about everything. Here are some excerpts from the margin notes for this recipe: "My olfactory senses have been put in high gear by walking by espresso bars in Auckland, Berkeley, Paris, and especially in tiny alcoves on crowded streets in Florence and Palermo. It would be over-romanticizing to say that the best espresso is made in Italy [when has that ever stopped him from over-romanticizing???], but then again the Italians are known for romance....This is the buttercream from hell if you have to prepare it - but buttercream from heaven when you eat it!" I'm so glad I read this when I was halfway through making the buttercream.

The ganache part was super easy with the exception of the instant espresso powder. Because I didn't have any. I did however have instant coffee powder so I just used that and called it a day. The buttercream on the other hand, was a bit of a pain. Heat chocolate, easy. By the way, it's worth pointing out at this point that there was an awful lot of chocolate in this cake. 22 ounces. That's kind of crazy. Again, no espresso powder here so I had to substitute instant coffee powder. I feel a bit bad about that. Next step, beat a pound of butter in the mixer. Yes, a pound. Yes, butter was flying out of my mixer. Really wish I had gotten that bigger mixer. After beating the pound of butter, I transferred it to a bowl. Wait, really? I just dirtied my KitchenAid to beat butter? I didn't even add anything to it? This recipe is nonsense.

Then I had to heat egg whites and sugar in a double boiler. For those keeping track, this is now the fourth time I'm using my double boiler in this recipe. Then I had to gently whisk until the egg whites reached a temperature of 120 degrees. No, I didn't check. I just went with 3-5 minutes. Then I had to transfer to my KitchenAid bowl (which I had to clean the butter out of) and whip those egg whites into a frenzy before folding the butter, egg whites, and chocolate together. What a pain. But fine, whatever, time to assemble!

I was starting to feel the time pressure now but the assembly wasn't too bad. I was directed to assemble the cake inside a springform pan and to slice each cake in half so I would have four layers. Assembly was easy and I tossed the cake back into the fridge to chill.

Now the finishing touches. I had to frost the cake with the remaining buttercream and then pipe decoration with the remaining ganache and buttercream. It recommended alternating buttercream and ganache rings on the top of the cake which looked quite lovely. And then, drama. I had a nice cake stand that I put the cake on but in the process, the bottom of the springform pan (and hence the whole cake) nearly slid off the stand! I balanced it just in time though so we didn't have a smashed cake. (I'll tell you now though, the next day when I took the cake out of the fridge to cut another slice, the base of the stand actually cracked off and the cake went flying. Amazingly enough, I actually caught the cake. But I was really pissed that my cake stand broke.)

Anyway, this cake was very tasty and very rich and not too shabby in terms of decoration. But it sure was a headache. Next time, I pick the birthday dessert!

Oh, and I'm not going to blog about this one, but I made panda birthday cupcakes for my sister. Here's a few pictures because they're adorable.

Special and exciting Christmas desserts post coming soon! Merry Christmas everyone!

A Disney Moment: Meet the Robinsons

I did not care for this movie. Halfway through it, I had no idea what was going on. Since I'm writing this so late, I don't really remember anything about it (unfortunately) but I do remember it was my least favorite in this group. There's a time machine and a bowler hat and if I recall correctly, things get timey-wimey but in general, it just wasn't for me. Eh, nuff said. We all know we're just waiting for the final verdict on what the best Disney movie of all is so we'll just move it along. It's clearly not this one. 5/5.

A Disney Moment: Bolt
Ah, my love of cartoon dogs. It ends here with Bolt. I didn't like Bolt. This was my first time seeing Bolt and it was largely forgettable. I remember that Bolt thought he had super powers and I remember Penny missed Bolt and there was a big fire and a superbark. After that, I'm out. I remember thinking that it felt like a strange cross between Oliver and Company and Homeward Bound but lacked some of the charm. It just felt very predictable in terms of plot. I think that's why I liked Chicken Little better. But maybe I'm not really remembering correctly. Who knows? This one earned a 4/5 and thank goodness, we're coming to actual good movies again!

I Hate this Pastry Bag

This adventure is brought to you by running out of cookies to bring to a Christmas party. Yes, seriously. After divvying up the many cookies, I realized that I didn't have quite enough to bring to a Christmas party. The obvious solution? Make a croquembouche, of course! The idea for this dessert came from two places: first, it was one of the challenges on Master Chef Junior and I figured that if children could do it, I surely could as well and second, my mom got a lovely dessert stand as a gift that honestly looks like it is meant to hold a croquembouche (and nothing else).

What is a croquembouche, you ask? Well, friends, it's a tower of cream puffs held together with caramel and decorated with spun caramel. It's just a lovely and festive dessert. And, conveniently enough, my mom was going to help me bake it! She's so nice. The plan was for me to make the cream puff shells the day before in CT and bring them to NJ for filling and assembly. Long story short: I didn't. No excuses here, just didn't do it. So I got to NJ around 2:00 needing to make the shells, the cream (which has to chill for 2 hours), the caramel, and then assemble everything by 7:00. No pressure, right? Oh, and if you're wondering why I got such a late start, it's because I saw Star Wars at 8:30 am. No regrets - we only paid $14 for 2 tickets.

So, it's possible that when I arrived, my mom got a bit frustrated with me for not telling her that I didn't make the shells but hey, that makes things more interesting, right? We were racing against the clock! We got to work on the pastry cream first since that needed to chill for 2 hours. And by "we" I definitely mean my mom. I'm not sure I did anything with that pastry cream except hand my mom ingredients and bowls and read the directions out loud. But my track record with custard is not the best so I was happy to cede control to my mom. Eventually, the custard started custard-ing and looked very nice so into the fridge it went. We did taste a bit before chilling and it seemed awfully sweet. Oh, I should mention that the recipe called for a really really tall croquembouche and we weren't doing that so we halved the recipe. Dividing by 2 is hard! At one point, we had to figure out the conversion for 1/3 cup to tablespoons because we don't have a 1/6 cup measure. If memory serves, it was 3 tbsp + 1 tsp so dividing by 2 made it 1.5 tbsp + 1/2 tsp. It was a lot of math and a lot of looking for the right measuring instruments. 

Custard in the fridge, time to go buy a Christmas tree! Yes, in the middle of baking, we had to go get a Christmas tree and carry it in and set it up. While I was putting water in the tree stand, my mom basically finished the dough for the pastry shells. I'm not sure I baked any of this dessert. Hmm. Anyway, I took charge of setting up the pastry bag. I hate this pastry bag. There's no other way to say it. It's the worst. It's a slippery, stiff, plastic-y bag that is hard to work with and always makes a mess. Also, I spent at least 5 minutes trying to put the piping tip on which was IMPOSSIBLE. At one point the tip flew across the kitchen. Turns out it didn't fit because it isn't for that pastry bag. Oops. Perhaps that one was user error. But the problem was that we didn't have a large plain tip for piping so we needed to use the large star tip. After a row of piping though, I figure out how to make smooth mounds and it started working out much better. Naturally, I couldn't fit all of the dough in the bag so there was a harrowing refilling process that made a huge mess. Meanwhile as I was piping, my mom was following to brush the puffs with egg wash and smooth out the spikes and scold me for piping them too close together. Joke's on you, mom, they puffed up just fine! 

Beautiful golden brown puffs. Lovely. 

Now it's time to fill the puffs! We were supposed to poke a hole, then fill the center with the cream. The problem is, piping with this bag one-handed is impossible. I had to hold the puff in one hand and pipe with the other and let's just say, it was all coming out the top. And I was getting in trouble for not filling them enough. Eventually I got the hang of that at least but my hands were shaking, my mom was telling me I was doing it wrong, and the greasy bag was just a mess. So my mom took the bag away volunteered to fill the rest. Oh, imagine that, she's having just as much trouble as I did! After a lot of laughing and calling her a smartass for thinking she could do it better, we developed a system where I held the puff while she piped two-handed. It got much easier. Our technique leaves something to be desired but we got it done. 

And then abandonment. My mom had to leave for a dinner and movie and I was left to make the caramel and assemble the whole thing. The caramel was just boiling sugar and water until it turned golden brown and my mom warned me that it can turn on a dime so I was watching very carefully. And watching. And watching. It took at least 10 minutes. I probably could have taken a walk. I also prepared an ice bath to put the pot in as directed to get it to stop cooking immediately once it hit the right color. Eventually, it started to turn brown. It seemed a little light but I noticed the sides were smoking a bit so I put it in the ice bath to be on the safe side. After a quick hiss, the bubbles cleared and behold! Lovely lovely golden brown caramel.

Now to assemble. I had to dip the sides of the puffs in the caramel and place them in a ring to form the base. On the second puff, I just barely nicked the tip of my finger in the caramel. Caramel burns hurt! It wasn't the end of the world but I do have a tiny caramel blister on my finger still. Meanwhile, the caramel is still in the ice bath and is now audibly cracking and hardening very very quickly. By the third puff, it was impossible to dip in the caramel because it was so hard. But, I used my brain (for once) and tossed the pot back on low heat to warm up the caramel and after a few minutes and some stirring, it was the perfect consistency again. I ended up repeating this process several times but it worked well. I stacked up the puffs and I am REALLY proud of how it turned out. Nice and symmetric and I even added some spun caramel as decoration, basically accomplished by using the spoon to drizzle caramel on but it worked great. Apparently I was supposed to use a fork or a broken whisk (a broken whisk? Who saves a broken whisk? Seriously?) but the spoon worked just fine. It probably helped that the caramel was slightly cool. Anyway, it's not as tall and fancy as many croquembouches but I love it just the same. 

I actually made a second one (not pictured) because I had so many leftover puffs. It wasn't quite as tall as the first but was pretty easy to replicate. Not sure why the Master Chef Junior children had such problems with it. Oh, and as for the taste, apparently the pastry shells cut the sweetness of the cream and people liked them. I don't actually eat cream puffs so I wouldn't know. But so pretty! Oh, and I finished the whole thing with an hour to spare. 

I think I need a bigger challenge for the next one. What do you think?

A Disney Moment: Home on the Range

Whoops, apparently I jumped the gun on leaving the last group of five. And nobody even corrected me! Shameful. Although, I can't blame you, dear readers, because Home on the Range is a solid middle of the pack movie and ranked a 3/5 according to my notes. I actually liked this one better than I thought I would because there were a lot of pretty funny background jokes that were going on and overall, it was not taking itself too seriously. But OMG, the yodeling song! This might be the trippiest scene since pink elephants! There are psychedelic cows! The colors! I remember being unable to stop laughing the first time I saw it. You can see it here if you haven't seen it before. It's worth it. I don't really remember the rest but oh boy, that yodeling. 

A Disney Moment: Chicken Little

Apparently my notes were not as good as I thought they were. I'm writing this now but I saw this movie well over a year ago. This group of five includes Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Princess and the Frog, and Tangled. Two of these are clearly better than the other three. But I don't really remember the first three! I asked my sister to remind me and we determined that Chicken Little ranked a 3/5. Then I asked her why and apparently there was an actual bull in a china shop that I couldn't stop laughing at. So hang on, let me Wikipedia this movie to jog my memory....

Aha! Apparently just seeing the picture of Chicken Little jogged my memory! I loved his huge glasses! And he has the ugly duckling friend! The whole beginning of this movie had such charm! And then...aliens? Ok, things got a little weird at that point and I don't entirely remember so I won't comment. By the way, the Wikipedia entry for this movie was clearly written by an eight year old. So, umm, middle of the road movie but overall not too bad. Maybe I'll watch it again some day and try to figure out what happens in it. 

Go Big or Go Home: A Return to Blogging with 845 Cookies

Well, folks, if I'm going to come back, I'm obviously going to come back in a big way. Yes! this blog has been stagnant for over a year and yes! there has been much less baking than in years past but the siren call of my KitchenAid mixer has finally convinced me to dive headfirst back into the insanity. Contributing to this insanity is my good friend and Christmas baking partner. We've developed this new holiday tradition of baking together at Christmas. This is the third year of our tradition and last year (which I sadly failed to blog about), we made 517 cookies in one day. We counted because we're nerds. It goes without saying that we needed to surpass last year's total this year. We also didn't want to just make cookies this year and decided to expand our baking list to include truffles because who doesn't love truffles? So, on a lovely Sunday afternoon we were off to the races!

Here was our plan: Ok, we kind of didn't have a plan. Last year we had decided on what we were going to bake and strategized the order of the baking and everything. This year our strategy was more in the tone of "Hey, we should bake cookies." So we spent the first hour of our baking time developing a plan. Here was our original plan:

1) Truffles covered in almonds, dark chocolate ganache, white chocolate ganache, Christmas sprinkles, coconut, cocoa
2) Peanut butter truffles covered in dark chocolate ganache and white chocolate ganache
3) Coffee pecan fudge
4) Cookies and cream fudge
5) Palmiers (double batch)
6) M&M cookies (double batch)
7) Reese's peanut butter cup cookies (double batch)
8) Cookie press cookies (snowflakes and trees)
9) Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips (double batch)
10) Walnut balls (double batch)

That sounds completely reasonable for one day of baking, right? Agreed! Off we went to the kitchen where the first order of business was making the truffles since we would be covering them with so many different things. I love making truffles. It's just heavy cream and chocolate and rolling into a ball. After some very difficult math trying to determine how many truffles should be made for the number of tins that we bought, my friend got to work heating the cream and measuring out the chocolate while I got to work on the base of the M&M cookies. Efficiency! I don't think I've ever talked about the M&M cookies but they're just the regular Nestle Toll House cookies with the chocolate chips cut slightly (which I definitely eyeballed). Then they get baked most of the way until we take them out and add red and green M&Ms in an adorable pattern on the top. And by adorable, I mean completely OCD in that each cookie has six M&Ms (green center, five reds surrounding or vice versa) and obviously the M&Ms must be placed "M" side down. This requires speed, agility, and teamwork to get all of the cookies decorated before the cookies cool down too much. Then, back in the oven for another minute to set the M&Ms and bam! First cookies done!

Well, sort of. Since we made a double batch and we only fit about 12-16 cookies per pan, we were baking these for at least an hour. But that's ok because every time we put a pan in the oven, off we went to do something else! The mixer was occupied so I set about rolling a billion truffles while my friend looked for the spritz cookie recipe. It wasn't actually a billion truffles but the first ones I did were the ones rolled in almonds. Just kidding, because apparently I didn't have almonds! Oh well, walnuts work just as well, right? After a long discussion about the value of toasting nuts before using them, we completely forgot to toast the walnuts and just rolled the truffles in them anyway. Whoops. Oh, have I mentioned how much I love having a food processor? Remember back in the day when I used to chop nuts by smashing a rolling pin into them? This is way better!

Let's see, where was I? Rolling truffles. So I rolled the almond walnut truffles, the coconut truffles (hmm, I'm just now thinking that perhaps I should have toasted the coconut? Is that a thing? I don't actually eat coconut...), and the truffles that were to be covered in dark and white chocolate ganaches. I should also point out that the plan was to have white chocolate drizzle on the dark chocolate truffles and vice versa. Was being the operative word. But wouldn't it have been pretty? By the time I finished the intricate dance of rolling truffles and applying M&Ms and cleaning the chocolate off my hands, my friend had already made the spritz dough and it was definitely time for a glass of sangria.

Devoted readers will remember that I have made spritz cookies before and that I spoke at length of the merits of the Dead Lady Cookie Press. Obviously, I do not have the Dead Lady Cookie Press so I was forced to use a brand new cookie press that I got for my wedding. Well, sort of. Last week, I planned to make spritz cookies for a fundraiser so I opened up my new cookie press and lo and behold, the piece that actually presses the cookies is missing. I was very sad that my fancy electric cookie press was defective so I brought it back to Bed Bath and Beyond where they no longer stock the electric cookie press and I had to get the OXO Good Grips Cookie Press. I was skeptical after the terrible cookie press gun that my mom had failed to press cookies with in the past but let me tell you, I am a convert. This cookie press is SO easy to use! It doesn't hurt your hands, it doesn't slip around, it's easy to load with dough, and it's easy to clean! I know I sound like a commercial for a cookie press but I can't oversell how amazing this cookie press is. Everyone should be so lucky to have this cookie press. I also always love making spritz cookies with people who haven't made them before because it always seems like magic to them to get actual shapes out of those strange metal discs. Anyway, we decided to make the green Christmas trees (because they're the best) and blue snowflakes because they would make our cookie tins look colorful. Simple, beautiful, and baked without incident. Well, except that we forgot to refrigerate the dough before pressing but you know what? I think refrigerating the dough makes it much harder to press! These came out perfectly every time! Bam. More cookies done to add to our total.

At this point, while spritz cookies were baking, my friend magically finished the chocolate cookie dough and was adding the white chocolate chips. I don't even remember her doing any of this but apparently it got done. It was around this time that I realized that we had refrigerated the truffles for wayyyyy too long and now it was hard to pry them from the bowl to roll into balls. I took the bowls out of the fridge but it didn't seem to help much so I muscled my way through the chocolate to roll into balls. It was a fascinating lesson in the science of truffles. The outside of the "dough" was very stiff and hard to get through, but the inside was still creamy and almost wet. Ya know, like a truffle should be! I also learned that no matter how hard the chocolate is, the second I start rolling it in a ball, it gets sticky again and easy to dip in cocoa (which is what I did next).

By now, my dear husband was home and we had prepared a list for him of things he needed to pick up at the store. Also by now, we were realizing that we would need to downgrade at least some of our plans if we wanted to stay sane. So we come to our first compromise: instead of doing white and dark chocolate ganaches, we will just dip in white melted chocolate (Wilton candy melts) and red melted chocolate. How festive! We just needed some red candy melts. Now, I don't want to be too mean because my husband kindly ran this errand for us but I really do have to point out that he texted me a picture of a bag of red candy melts and a bag of dark cocoa candy melts and asked me which one was correct. I don't know how "Wilton red candy melts" on the list could have been clearer in this respect. Also, apparently there were no Christmas sprinkles at the store so my husband picked up red sanding sugar and green sanding sugar. It was a good move and we opted to go with the green since we already would have red truffles.

While we were waiting for our missing ingredients to arrive from Santa, we got to work on the palmiers. We made these last year and they were a big hit and it felt like we didn't make enough last year so we decided to double the recipe. Fun fact: that makes a whole lot of cookies! So many cookies that we ran out of places to put them. We only had enough room to cut one batch in advance and had to wait to cut the rest. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself! I haven't even told you what these are! Palmiers are puff pastry with sugar rolled in and folded intricately and baked. Sounds pretty easy, right? As always in this blog, if it sounds easy, it surely is not. We had to read the folding directions three or four times and correct the first folding attempt before we got it right, despite having done this before. It's also critical to be careful with the bake time because it's a different amount of time on each side and if you let them go too long, they will burn for sure and burned sugar smells bad. I only burned one batch a little bit but that's because I started to get antsy making just one pan at a time and tossed two pans in at once for one batch. Turns out the bottom pan burns if you do that. After it happened, I vaguely remember that happening last year, hence why I had been doing it one pan at a time. Instinct is an interesting thing. However, now it's documented so that Christmas 2016 Jen won't make the same mistake. Hopefully.

Finally, while the palmiers were baking, we took a break. We were very hungry and thirsty and waiting for our pizza and we needed to continue our annual tradition of watching Home Alone while baking. This year we opted for Home Alone 2 because we didn't finish watching it last year. That movie sure is dated. But I love it all the same. Bear in mind that while we were watching, we were still getting up to remove cookies from the oven at a fairly steady pace. We also used this time to re-discuss our plan and make our second compromise of the night, i.e. there was no way in hell we were making a second version of truffle. Peanut butter truffles were a no-go. We also downgraded the Reese's cookies to a single batch from a double because it was already almost 7 pm and we still had a lot to do. Left on our list at this point was dipping truffles in two types of chocolate, two types of fudge, Reese's cookies, and walnut balls (plus however many palmiers were still left to bake).

After a quick meal, we hauled our already tired and aching bodies off the couch at the approximate point where Kevin is heading to Duncan's toy chest and got back to work. My friend took the cookies and cream fudge and I continued baking the never ending trays of palmiers. Speaking of which, after I put in the last pan of palmiers, my friend played a very mean joke and said "Only one more after that one!" Cruel, cruel joke. I wish I had counted how many batches of palmiers we made because they just went on forever. I also used this time to crush the oreos for the cookies and cream fudge. I was excited to do this with my food processor but I still hadn't cleaned it from chopping walnuts and didn't want to because I still needed to chop more walnuts for the walnut balls. There wasn't time to chop walnuts and then oreos (because apparently fudge is a pretty delicate process that involves moving very quickly once things get going) so I used the old standby: put oreos in a ziplock bag and smack them with a rolling pin. There is something very satisfying about that though. There was something even more satisfying about getting the opportunity to sit on the floor to do it. We were really starting to feel the pain at this point.

There was some intricate teamwork involved with the cookies and cream fudge, especially when we tried to empty a jar of marshmallow fluff into the pot but ultimately we got the fudge in the pan and got the pan in the fridge and set about the next tasks. I took the lead on the second fudge, a nice coffee-pecan fudge. Somehow, this one was more involved than the previous one and involved approximately 20 minutes of constant stirring. While I was doing that, I think my friend was making the walnut ball dough? I don't even know, it all starts to get fuzzy at this point. Anyway, I was very excited to use my candy thermometer for the first time and kept a very close eye to identify exactly when the mixture reached the "soft ball" stage. Then I had to stir in some pecans and put it in the pans. Now, I don't know if we misread the directions or if we were having a collective blonde moment but we definitely should have put it in one pan and not two. It ended up being pretty thin and, in the second pan, didn't even reach the edges. But once it was in the pan, there was no turning back because it was hardening almost instantly. Oh well! Into the fridge you go!

And onto the floor we go to roll out all of the walnut balls. We were completely out of counter space and we were tired of standing and it was definitely past 9:00 at this point. But walnut balls got rave reviews last year! How could we not do them? Strategically, that's why we left them till last. Wait, last....I'm missing something...the peanut butter cup cookies! We also made those sometime between pizza and walnut balls! I literally don't recall how we made that happen. I guess it must have been while I was making fudge? Yes! I remember now, because the muffin tins with the peanut butter cup dough were behind my feet on the floor while I was stirring the fudge! It may have been a bit of a tripping hazard. There were only two pans of those though so I guess they baked quickly. So I suppose that before rolling walnut balls, we were pressing Reese's peanut butter cups into the muffin tins (it's another bake most of the way and add candy recipe) which must mean that at some point, my friend unwrapped all of the peanut butter cups. Hmm. This was only two days ago, I really should remember. We were just getting so tired at this point. And thirsty! It was so weird but we were both so thirsty and we weren't even eating the cookies! We seriously need our heads examined.

Whatever. At some point, we made Reese's cookies and now we're sitting on the floor rolling walnut balls. Despite having very few ingredients, these cookies are delicious. So we rolled them all out on the pans, stuck one in the oven and wait a minute, I missed something else. Sometime before sticking the walnut balls in the oven, we melted the chocolate to dip the remaining truffles in! Let's rewind to that point (whenever it was) and just say that the chocolate melted perfectly in the microwave and we dipped the truffles by sticking a toothpick in each one and spinning it around in the chocolate. In the future, we will be more careful about completely covering the truffles and we will put them on wax paper and not on the pan so they come off easier but in general, this strategy worked well for us. Except for one truffle that looked ugly so we were going to discard it but then we realized that one tin would be a truffle short so we obviously couldn't have that. I actually peeled off cooled chocolate from one of the truffles so that we would have enough of the white truffles to go in the tins. So whew, the last of the truffles are in the fridge chilling and are you tired yet? We are!

Back to balls. We put the walnut balls in the oven and collapsed on the couches to continue watching Home Alone. By the time all of the walnut balls were cooked though, we only got as far as the dramatic music where Kevin starts setting booby traps. Next time we'll need to start the movie earlier. Also, we were rolling the walnut balls in powdered sugar and it worked pretty well but next time, we'll actually sift the powdered sugar first. It was a little bit lumpy. Note for next year!

AND WE'RE DONE! Well, sort of. Done baking. Now we just have to cut a bunch of fudge and actually assemble the tins of cookies and truffles. And ya know, clean up. But look how beautiful they are! And yes, of course we laid the cookies out decoratively on the dining room table for picture taking purposes!

In summary, we made a total of 845 cookies/truffles/pieces of fudge. We started at 1 pm on a Sunday and finished cleaning up at approximately midnight. We are tired. But honestly, it's such a beautiful sight to behold and I feel very accomplished. Next year, I'm thinking that perhaps we don't increase the number like crazy people and instead we focus on better methods of packaging. As it stands, the cookie tins look very nice at first but they are not very stable and the powdered sugar from the walnut balls can make a bit of a mess. We'll definitely be looking for some process improvement there. Overall though, not bad for a day's work. Plus, it was a super fun way to get in the Christmas spirit! Now, who wants a cookie?

A Disney Moment: Treasure Planet
Ok, ok, I know it's been forever. We finished watching all of the Disney animated features well over a year ago and have since moved on to Pixar. But, we did take notes and rank the movies so I'll give you a double feature review until we finish up and give the final rankings! Let's start with Treasure Planet. This is the shocking movie of the group. We settled into watching this with the attitude that we were in for another Atlantis (as a reminder, Atlantis was Black Cauldron bad) but we were pleasantly surprised. It's a pretty underrated movie. We really liked the animation and the creativity of the huge quantities of differently animated aliens. I don't remember much about it except that it was very much in the tone of Muppet Treasure Island (an obvious classic) and we liked that the captain was a woman. Writing it now, it seems pretty forgettable but it was our favorite of the group at the time. Doesn't say much for this group. But we definitely enjoyed this one!

A Disney Moment: Brother Bear
No. There's brothers and bears and my interest in this one ends about there. My sister and I were pretty much yelling at the TV for this one. It felt so long and not much happens and I just did not care. The human animation was reminiscent of Lilo's sister's legs and honestly, were it not for Atlantis, this would be a clear bottom ranking. However, it is saved by the fact that Atlantis might be my least favorite Disney animated film of all time so that earns this movie a 4/5 to close out this grouping. Coming next we have Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, Princess and the Frog, and Tangled. Finally coming out of the black hole of animated films!

ThrowBAKE Monday

See what I did with the title there? It's basically the epitome of my cleverness. As you should have gathered by now, I'll be blogging (finally) about a baking project (at last) from way back when. No, seriously, it's from April. That's so many months, I don't even know how long that is! Anyway, get excited because this is something new, something exciting, something trendy. That's right: cake pops! My first foray into the world of cake pops. Are you excited yet? You should be.

To set the stage, I was invited to my future cousin-in-law's bachelorette party. I say future because at the time it was future but by the time I'm writing this, they're married sooooooo....whatever. Bachelorette party! And what is better at a bachelorette party than cake pops! And what better time to start them is the night before the party/weekend? That's what I thought too. So, the night before I had to leave for the party, I was up late making cake pops. Which I've never made before. But how hard could they be? I got all the ingredients and I decided that since the color theme of the weekend was blue and yellow that I would make sky blue cake pops with yellow polka dots. See? Nothing crazy. I'm keeping it simple. I even used boxed cake mix and canned frosting rather than make it myself. I'm getting reasonable in my old age.

So cake pops are actually quite easy (in theory). You bake the cake. Let it cool. Crumble it into a zillion pieces. Mix in frosting (about 3/4 of the can). Roll into balls. Put in sticks. Dip in chocolate. Decorate as needed. Easy. I decided to go with chocolate cake (I believe I used Duncan Hines double fudge cake because, of course) and cream cheese frosting. I was hoping to avoid it getting too sweet with all of the chocolate and everything. Baking the cake was a piece of...cake...yeahhhhhh...I couldn't resist that pun but now I don't know where to go from here. I'll just pretend that never happened. You know what's really fun? Crumbling cake with your bare hands. Seriously, I enjoyed it and spent about half an hour doing it while watching an episode of 30 Rock. Next, I mixed in the frosting. I found that the best way to do this was to squish it all together with the backside of a big metal spoon. It was surprisingly good at incorporating the frosting into every bit of the crumbs. Then I rolled them into balls and tossed them into the freezer to harden up a bit.

Here's where things got a little tricky. Dipping in chocolate. I melted my chocolate wafers and the chocolate was really thick. Definitely wasn't going to make dipping easy at all. I read somewhere that you can add some vegetable oil to thin it out a bit and thus began the process of microwaving and stirring and trying to find the right consistency. Also, I should point out that by now it was awfully late. Anyway, I started out with dipping the lollipop stick in the chocolate so that it would be like glue inside the cake pop, stuck the stick into the cake ball, and then gently rolled the ball in the chocolate and let the excess drip off. Doesn't that sound so pleasant and easy? It wasn't. The chocolate was still really thick and sometimes the cake balls would fall of the stick and get stuck in the chocolate. Sometimes the chocolate would drip all the way down the stick. Sometimes the cake pop would hold on just fine until I stuck it into the blocks of styrofoam (which I legitimately have no idea why I had) and then the cake ball would sadly slide halfway down the lollipop stick. Needless to say, it was a little frustrating to have such inconsistency. Plus it was late. Plus I kept running out of chocolate. Plus it was never the right consistency. But whatever, eventually, all the cake pops were coated in chocolate.

Now to decorate them! And keep in mind, all I'm doing is yellow polka dots! Yeah, no. Not happening. I polka dotted two of them and decided they looked stupid so I stopped. They just came out spikey and weird and I didn't like it. Blue cake pops it is! Late night Jen makes the best decisions. Zak got in on the decorating a little bit and made one that said "Hi!" and another with a happy face and a third with a penis (not pictured) because ya know, it's a bachelorette party! Our beautiful work is displayed below for your judgement:

But now that they were all done, how did they taste? Awesome. They were really delicious, albeit a bit sweet for me. But it's cake with frosting and coated in chocolate so it's hard for it to not be sweet. The girls at the party demolished them though. They were a great drunk bachelorette party food. And it was funny because as frustrating as they were, when people were asking me how I made them, my first response was "oh, it's really easy..." Funny how memory works, isn't it?

A Disney Moment: Lilo and Stitch

I remember seeing Lilo and Stitch in theaters when it first came out. It was actually somewhat notable in that it was in the pre-Pixar-rip-your-heart-out era. (And before you say anything, I know Toy Story 2 came out before that but it didn’t crush my soul as much on the first viewing as it does now.) I just remember sitting in the theater and crying my eyes out because I couldn’t figure out what loophole they were going to find to keep Lilo and Stitch together and to keep Lilo and her sister together! I just couldn’t see the way out for these characters! Maybe it was my age or something but it’s the first time I remember really crying at an animated film as an adult-ish person. All that said, this movie doesn’t hold up to that memory that I have.

It certainly has its touching moments and there’s some great messaging about unconventional families but there are some visual and storytelling hurdles that the movie doesn’t quite overcome. The whole Ugly Duckling comparison is extremely heavy-handed, the Elvis bits just feel stupid on the rewatch, and OH MY GOD, LILO’S SISTER’S LEGS! No human’s legs look like that! She has no ankles and her thighs are tree trunks. I’m not even sure she has knees. It’s more than I could handle. This surprised us by not ranking the highest in the group of five and instead landed at 2/5. Soon you shall see why. 

Disney Dining Service Reviews! [Part 2]

This is part 2 of my Disney Dining Service reviews. If you haven't read part 1, you may do so here. Resuming reviews!

It’s a really good thing we left a little room for someone to exceed our expectations. Because James from Cocoa Beach, Florida did just that. He blew it out of the water. Our next meal was at Artist Point at Wilderness Lodge and it was awesome. We’ve only been to Artist Point once before and the running joke is that I loved my meal there but can’t for the life of me remember what I ate. In fact, even as I write this, I don’t remember what I ate as an appetizer. Crazy. All I ever remember is that Artist Point is delicious. But enough about the food, this is about the service! We arrived early for our reservation so we had some cocktails in the bar area. We checked in but were still drinking our cocktails and were told that we could sit as long as we like and could come over when we were ready. That was super nice because it’s sad when one needs to rush a drink. We still ended up taking our cocktails to the table but we took our sweet time going about it. Once we arrived, we were introduced to James who was extremely talkative. But oddly, not in a bad way. I’m usually extremely turned off by waiters that talk a lot because I’m shy and awkward and I just want my food, dammit. But somehow, I was not at all bothered by how much James was talking. He described most of the menu in great detail (including pointing out which dishes are most popular and have been on the menu since the restaurant opened) and made some good recommendations. He also was able to explain the wines quite well and deftly answered my sister’s question about where in Washington a particular wine was from. He really seemed to know his stuff front and back. He brought out the wine for me to taste (I tasted the wine again! I’m like a star of wine tasting this trip!) but he refrained from pouring our glasses of wine until we were through with our cocktails and kept our white wine chilled in the meantime. Good move. Also a good move and what we call a touch of the “above and beyond-ness” was the fact that as he was describing the menu, he was constantly moving around the table. He didn’t describe the menu to just one person. Take notice the next time you have about four people at your table and you’ll see that the waiter rarely moves as he describes the menu and/or specials. It was a very nice maneuver. At this point, we were starting to get excited about the service. Our appetizers arrived and we all got different ones (quite an unusual occurrence for us) and I noticed that when Zak accidentally used his steak knife on his appetizer, it was quickly replaced with a new knife immediately following that course. Also, James noted that Zak had not eaten one of the side veggies or garnishes (I forget which) in his appetizer and he explained what exactly it was to Zak and encouraged him to give it a try. That was great because it was clear that Zak didn’t know what it was (and frankly, we didn’t know either) but as a result of the waiter paying attention, Zak tried something new and liked it. 

After our appetizers, James came back with a couple of bonuses: Mickey straws

for our waters (because come on, who doesn’t love a Mickey straw??) and small, espresso-sized portions of the famous smoked Portobello mushroom soup. My sister had ordered this as her appetizer and I’ll admit I was a bit jealous because it was really good. So when that soup came out, I was beyond thrilled. Also, even though Zak refers to mushrooms as terrorists, James managed to talk him into giving it a taste. Now we hit the point where James basically won the game: he cleaned our table after the appetizer! That almost never happens! Table Zamboni win! We were dealing with some next-level service here. James continued to amaze us when my sister left for the restroom and he picked up her napkin and folded it neatly on the arm of the chair. He also replaced Zak’s napkin after our entrée when he left for the restroom (which was good because Zak and I both ordered surf and turf and the lobster was a pretty messy endeavor). He didn’t rush us at all and waited until we were all done eating to clear our plates. He also took some time to inform us (albeit incorrectly) of the park hours for that night. This whole meal was the perfect blend of high class service and Disney friendliness and I cannot rave about it enough. If Sara in France was a 10, James was about a 14. He was that good. I only even took notes on his above and beyond actions because all of my usual standards were met. The wine was poured perfectly, the pacing was great, and he was conscientious of when to clear our plates and when to interact with us. Also, the food was, once again, absolutely amazing. Best meal. Best service. Game, set, match. High five to Olaf.

So of course, after the great triumph comes the fall. Obviously, we knew we weren’t going to get service that would be as good as James. So we weren’t even hoping for that. What we were hoping for though, was competent service. We didn’t get that either. Our final stop was a late night dinner at California Grill at the top of the Contemporary resort. This restaurant recently underwent a renovation and this was our first time back since. My mom and sister loved this restaurant in the past but I’ve always been a bit lukewarm on the menu. It just doesn’t hold that much excitement for me. However, when Zak and I went there the last time, the service was fantastic. Definitely had the essence of “above and beyond-ness”. This visit did not. First, let me talk about the renovation a bit. A big part of the redesign was adding a second observation deck for fireworks viewing. That’s nice. However, they also removed some of the sound absorbing qualities of the restaurant itself and effectively the bar/lounge area melts into the restaurant area which melts into the kitchen area. And the whole thing is loud. Really loud. We don’t like the loud. It wasn’t this loud before. We also didn’t really like the new décor. It felt like it lowered the class level of the restaurant and the patrons tended

to be dressed accordingly. Unfortunate. However, we did get a nice window table which is great for firework watching. So we sat down and immediately we had some waiter issues. He mumbled. So for a loud restaurant, he was pretty hard to understand. He also only explained the menu to me. I mean literally he’d point to my menu and say “This is very popular” or “This one is new on the menu” without actually saying what dish he was talking about. As a result, the rest of the table couldn’t really follow his comments. We already missed James and his flitting around our table. Our waiter did offer to bring out a couple of wines for us to try because I said that we wanted a Cabernet Sauvignon but were having some trouble deciding. I thought that was very considerate until he brought out a Malbec and a Cabernet Sauvignon. Umm, those are decidedly not the same type of wine. Also, I thought it was a little odd that he brought out only a small sample of each. The last time I was there and Zak and I were having trouble deciding, the waiter brought out 4 tasting glasses for each of us so we could both try. Now, that was obviously exceptional but it’s odd that he designed it so only one person could taste the wines. So anyway, between the Cab and the Malbec, I picked the Cab. Obviously. Because that’s what we wanted in the first place. Rage. Our waiter also did not ask about or explain the dining plan to us. Which actually would have been nice since we weren’t sure if the sushi counted as an appetizer under the dining plan. The bread guy literally threw the basket of bread on the table without describing what the breads were and actually knocked over the candle on the table in the process. This was not an auspicious start to the meal.

Oh yeah, and the first butter he delivered didn’t have any sea salt on it. We asked for more butter and there was the sea salt which changed the flavor completely. The next faux pas was that while Zak was in the restroom, the appetizers arrived. A good waiter would have noticed that and would have held the appetizers until he returned. Instead, we were forced to start eating without him or endure cold appetizers. He also noticeably did not pick up Zak’s napkin and fold it neatly on the arm of the chair while he was gone. My expectations have gotten pretty high, people. After the appetizer, our waiter actually asked my mom and sister to pass their dirty plates over to him. Now, there was plenty of room behind each of them for him to stand and fetch their plates. Unacceptable at a restaurant like this. Maybe acceptable at a Friday’s but not at a fancy restaurant. After the appetizers, we were informed that the fireworks would be starting in about 20 minutes so would we like our entrees to be served before or after the fireworks? We weren’t inclined to wait 30 minutes between appetizer and entrée so we opted for before the fireworks. The problem with this was that we were still eating during the fireworks and Zak effectively had his plate taken before he was actually done. Maybe it’s our fault for wanting to eat overlapping the fireworks but our waiter really should have asked if Zak was done with his meal. Also, the steaks were undercooked. I tried to get Zak to send it back but he didn’t want to deal with that. He really should have though. His bison was definitely rare and not medium. As the plates were being cleared following the entrée, our waiter actually asked my sister to pass him the bread basket. Which was in the middle of the table. That he absolutely could have reached. And when I say “asked” I do not mean that he asked politely. I don’t remember the exact phrasing but the essence of it was “Could ya give me that?” Again, probably not the exact sentence but there was definitely no “please” or “thank you” or apology for not picking it up himself. We were feeling a bit of rage at this point. And that’s when things started to border on comical. Because as he was clearing the table, he took a half full glass of water and actually laid it down on his tray. This all happened behind my back so all I saw was my sister’s horrified look and Zak being unable to contain his concern and actually starting to say “no no no, don’t do that!” Meanwhile, my mom was pretty sure that she was going to have water spilled down her back. She didn’t but that was some pretty high drama. The next comical piece was my mom’s bread plate. The table was entirely cleared after the entrée, except for her bread plate and knife. And then the desserts came and the bread plate remained. And then the desserts were cleared and the bread plate stood its ground. We left the table and the bread plate was still on the table. How hard is it to clear a bread plate? Every time our waiter walked by and did not take that plate we would burst out laughing. Furthermore, he also had the gall to point out where on the check we are supposed to leave the tip. I understand that sometimes on the dining plan people fail to tip properly but I thought it was telling that he was the only one who felt the need to point it out. All in all, it was an extremely disappointing service. The food was pretty disappointing too (although mine was quite good) and I don’t think we’ll be back for a while. Plus the angle of watching the fireworks is better from Narcoossee’s anyway. So by far this was the worst service which made us sad because this was our last nice dinner of the trip. [Ok, so maybe the picture below isn't at all from that day or that dining experience but look how sad they look after riding Kali River Rapids!]

So with that, we end our service reviewing adventure. Artist Point knocked it out of the park. California Grill had a super fail. Monsieur Paul was a close second and all the rest fell somewhat in the middle. I think I’ll do this again the next time we visit though. It was a lot of fun passing judgment on the professionalism of the service! Ok, and now I'm hungry. Guess it's time to go bake something!

Disney Dining Service Reviews! [Part 1]

Hello all! Today I take a brief hiatus from blogging about baking and instead give a report on my recent trip to Disney World. Enjoy the diversion!

My family goes to Disney World to eat. Admittedly, we like everything else about Disney as well (with the exception of the heat. In Florida. In August.) but really, the star of the trip is usually the dining. Over the years we have tried the majority of the Signature restaurants several times and we are rarely disappointed with our meals. On our last trip though, we found something to be lacking…the service. With Disney’s high standard of customer service, we were shocked to find the restaurant services extremely lacking. With that in mind, on this trip, I made it my mission to review our dining experiences – not for the food, which we know to be excellent, but for the service. The cast of characters on this trip include my mom, my sister, my fiancé, and me. We booked five fancy dinners including Be Our Guest, Yachtsman Steakhouse (a new restaurant for us!), Monsieur Paul, Artist Point, and California Grill (first visit since the remodel). Some of my comments might be outdated practices (e.g. waiting to clear plates until everyone has finished eating), some may be oddly specific (e.g. it is important not to drip wine on the table when it is poured because let’s face it, wine is good to the last drop), and some are just obvious to anyone who has ever eaten at a restaurant (e.g. the tempo of the meal being too fast or too slow for what is ordered). As an added complication to the tale, we were using the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan which entitled us to an appetizer, entrée, dessert, and non-alcoholic beverage at every meal. Ok, that’s enough background! On with the reviews!

Just kidding. One more note: I will be changing the names of most of the servers because anyone can have an off-night. The names of the truly exceptional will be retained and maybe if they like to google their names, they’ll find a good review of their service. Ok, now onwards!

Just kidding again. I'll also include pictures of my entree and Zak's entree even though this is about service, not food. But seriously, yum. So just to get you hungry, you'll get some pictures too. Ok, for real this time, let's go!

Our first stop was Be Our Guest which is the new restaurant in the Magic Kingdom at Beast’s castle. The last time we dined here, we had the best service of our entire trip. So our expectations were pretty high. My sister and I checked in at the castle exactly on time for our 7:20 reservation. My mom and Zak, however, had underestimated how long it takes to get from the hotel to the restaurant so alas, we were THOSE people who got buzzed but didn’t have our whole party.

So we waited behind the iron gate of the castle, punished for our sin of checking in without our entire party. On the bright side, we met a fascinating member of the custodial staff who entertained us with discussing Doctor Who and his encounter with John Barrowman (BARROWMAN!). Once the late people arrived, we were escorted into the restaurant. The hostess nicely explained the different rooms in the castle and we were seated in the West Wing. Our waiter greeted us and took our drink orders. We ordered a bottle of wine for the table (Conundrum, a crisp, fruity white) and while we were all pulling out our IDs, he kept trying to push us to order appetizers. I mean, really? We had barely even read the menu yet! We shooed him away until after our drink orders arrived. We placed our orders and as he walked away, we realized that he never actually explained the dining plan to us. This wasn’t a big deal to us because we knew what was included but we also know that they’re supposed to explain the inclusions of the plan to us whether we want them to or not. Strike 1. The next major test is the pouring of the wine. Our waiter gave us nice, healthy pour with no drips. Also, I got to taste the wine which is so rare! Probably because I always look like the youngest there. However, the wine pouring failed during the appetizers. Understandably, it’s hard to split a bottle of wine among four people but what you don’t do is top off three people’s glasses until the bottle is empty and give nothing to the fourth person. We are not a fan of that. So, alas, my mom only got one glass of wine during this meal. She also got the short end of the stick because the appetizer plates were cleared while she was still eating. This may be my biggest pet peeve. Everyone should be done eating so no one feels rushed. The same thing happened to Zak during our entrée.

The waiter then tried to show us the dessert cart while our entrees were still on the table. Talk about being rushed! We actually did not let him describe the desserts until after we were done with our entrees. The moment our plates were cleared though, he was back to give us our desserts. He didn’t even offer dessert drink options (since we hadn’t yet used our non-alcoholic beverage) and we had to ask for the types of tea and coffee that were available. There was also some confusion when the check came because only then did he mention the dining plan which he kept referring to as “coupons” instead of “credits.” Overall, the meal was pretty rushed. We anticipated this a bit because it is a restaurant inside a park and I’m sure most people want to get moving quickly. However, a good waiter would have recognized that we were in no rush after one of our multiple attempts to get him to slow the pace. A couple of side notes: the waiter was quite soft-spoken for a loud restaurant and the room we were in routinely had loud thunder which scared the bejeezus out of my sister every time. Overall, not a great service experience but it was what I’d call ok. Not offensive, not outstanding, just a mid-level start to our vacation.

Next up, we have the Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club. This was our first time ever dining at this restaurant. We were very excited though because this was where the best steak is rumored to be. We arrived at 7:00 and were seated at 7:10 so that was quite good. We were waited on by Lulu from Bangkok, Thailand which was fun for us because my great-grandmother’s name was Lulu. And no, that wasn’t her nickname, that was her given name. Our waitress, however, had Lulu as a nickname. Enough about the name though. We also noted that the restaurant was quite loud when we sat down (another pet peeve of ours. Put in some soft wall hangings or some carpets, people!). Lulu was very knowledgeable about the menu and described all of the options very well. When my mom was bouncing between ordering medium rare and medium, Lulu actually suggested “medium rare +” which was exactly what my mom wanted. 

Our wine was served with a wine bottle plate and was poured with a napkin to catch any drips, which is 

always a classy move. Basically a great start. Zak couldn’t decide between two of the sauces so she offered to bring him both and effortlessly switched out his truffle fries for a twice-baked potato. Very accommodating. She even asked if we were celebrating anything special. That is always a nice Disney touch. Unfortunately, now we hit a slight glitch. This time my sister got the short end of the wine pouring stick. She got only a couple of drops in her second glass. The entrees arrived as the appetizer plates were being cleared which didn’t give anyone much time to digest their appetizers. For a steakhouse, that’s kind of a problem. And then Zak’s steak arrived with the wrong potatoes. Lulu graciously allowed him to keep the truffle fries and brought him his twice-baked potato but alas, when Zak cut into his steak, it was basically still moo-ing. His medium steak was very very rare. We suspect that he had accidentally gotten someone else’s meal. 

Unfortunately, it meant that Zak only got to eat potatoes while the rest of us were eating our steaks and his got cooked properly. He was offered a third type of potato for his inconvenience though! Which he (thankfully) declined. After that blip though, the service went back to being quite lovely. Clean, white napkins were placed on our table post-entrée to simulate a clean tablecloth prior to dessert. They had a lovely tea menu and Lulu poured our tea for us quite nicely. She even got us tea to-go cups when we were just too full and tired to finish our tea in the restaurant. So Lulu was pretty great but part of the service is all of the food arriving properly cooked and on time and that’s where we can’t call Lulu the best of the trip. Also, unrelated to the service, we were all very disappointed in our steaks. We had much better steak at other Disney restaurants. So despite the service being adequate, we probably won’t be back anytime soon due to the food.

Ahhhhh, now we’re talkin’: Monsieur Paul. Formally known as Bistro di Paris, it was once one of the fanciest restaurants at Disney, second only to Victoria and Albert’s. In recent years, it’s undergone a transformation that allows it to be a part of the dining plan and slightly toned down its rigid standards. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still quite fancy but it lacks the snooty-ness it once had. The last time we were there, we had a waiter that would. Not. Stop. Talking. I’d take a mouthful of food and he’d ask me a question. He was chatting with us while we ate. It was extremely uncomfortable. So as long as we didn’t have that guy, we were pretty sure our service would be better. We arrived early for our reservation but we were seated almost immediately so we didn’t have to wait at all. Our waitress this time was Sara from Nimes, France. She was extremely personable and explained the dining plan well and succinctly. She chatted with us a bit when we asked where she was from in France but did not overstay her conversational welcome. 

She poured nice, even glasses of wine with the professional drip-napkin and she even smelled the cork herself rather than offering it to one of us to smell. I thought that was a nice touch since my response is usually “it smells like a cork” and gives me no information. It at least gave the illusion that she knew what she was doing, even if she didn’t. Good trick. She also managed to pour us all a second glass of wine while still leaving some in the bottle. So yes, she poured smaller glasses but that’s the best thing to do when you have four people. We all drank an even amount, which was lovely. Another small touch I love is the bread service that serves the bread with a fork and spoon. There’s something so classy about that. I have no idea why they do that but it’s cool. And having three options for bread is always a plus. This place was even classy enough to trade out our utensils with the ones that would be appropriate for our next course. After our appetizer (which was insanely delicious, by the way), we were asked if we were all through with our appetizer before clearing the plates and in fact, we were asked again at the end of our entrée when everyone was clearly done eating. I also loved that our entrees were served by four different waiters so that all of the entrees arrived at exactly the same time. That’s classy. 

And I love it because typically, I always get my food last. In fact, on our last Disney trip, we were consistently waiting for my food to be delivered. That didn’t happen once on this trip which was a surprise and a delight. After our entrée, the table Zamboni came out. By that I mean the blade that they use to clean crumbs off the table but we always call it the table Zamboni. Now that’s nice service. Somewhere around dessert, our empty wine glasses magically vanished. I still don’t know when they were taken away. It was done so seamlessly! The manager came over to talk to us for a bit and check in and was especially interested in why I had a notebook on the table. We explained that while I am certainly no food critic, I would be reviewing the service of the restaurant. I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t always pull out a notebook just to get better service! Finally, in a moment of slightly outdated tradition, Zak was handed the bill as the only male at the table. Technically proper, so I’ll forgive that small bit of sexism. Oh, and I almost forgot: the pacing of the meal was just lovely. There was the exact correct amount of time between courses so we never felt like we were waiting around or that we were rushed. Very nice tempo for the meal. All in all, the service was impeccable. Perfect. However, even though the service was downright flawless, it lacked what my sister and I call the “above and beyond-ness”. We could point to no flaw in the service but at the same time it wasn’t exactly memorable as “Oh my, that was the most amazing service I’ve ever had at a restaurant!” So we didn’t leave there thinking that nobody could possibly ever beat this service but we also didn’t leave wanting for anything more. Excellent job, Sara from Nimes! 

 So ends part 1 but no worries, the best (and worst!) are yet to come! No, really, they'll be coming sometime in the next five minutes.

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

Hello loyal readers! I return semi-triumphantly with a tale of adventure, challenge, foes, and moderate defeat. I am technically blogging out of order right now because I had another big, exciting baking project about a month ago but this one is fresh in my mind and more fun so I’m writing about it first. Get over it. Today’s challenge: Salted Caramel Cheesecake with Salted Caramel Ice Cream and Pop Rocks.

Allow me to give you some background. There’s a delightful restaurant by my new house called Market Place which specializes in farm-to-table type food. It has some truly excellent food (I’m talking NYC quality here) and the chef will even be competing on Iron Chef in July. However, I’m not here to tell you about the food. I’m here to tell you about the dessert. My first time there, they had a salted caramel cheesecake and I love cheesecake. I’m usually not an overly huge fan of salted caramel ice cream (too sweet) but I was so intrigued by the Pop Rocks. I haven’t had Pop Rocks since the 6^th grade and I bet you haven’t either! Who would think to put it in a dessert??? A genius, that’s who. Because let me tell you, taking a single bite of the cheesecake, the ice cream, and the Pop Rocks was AMAZING. You have to let the Pop Rocks pop in your mouth while the ice cream is melting in your mouth and the flavor was just perfection. I know I’m waxing poetic about this dessert but I’m not even exaggerating when I say that I have had dreams about this cheesecake. I once went to the restaurant just to sit at the bar and get dessert.

Now the tragedy, dear readers. Zak and I went to dinner there a few weeks ago and they completely changed the menu for seasonal reasons and they REPLACED my cheesecake with some sort of awful Black Cherry Cheesecake. Ok, well, I don’t actually know if the new cheesecake is awful because I didn’t try it but Zak and I were heartbroken. Betrayed. Confused. Obviously there is only one response to this tragedy: I must recreate the world’s most awesome dessert. That’s a sane person’s response, right?

Let’s pause for a moment to consider the scope of this project. Not only do I have to make cheesecake, but I also have to MAKE ice cream and obtain Pop Rocks. I’m completely nuts. AND I LOVE IT! (Also, be aware, this is a long blog post because of the many steps.)

Let the baking commence! First step was to find some Pop Rocks on Amazon. I should note that these are special unflavored, culinary Pop Rocks. Because such a thing exists. I actually found them though and ordered them and they arrived swiftly. Easy first step, right? Hahaha oh just wait and you will see. Next step: make ice cream. I found a recipe online that seemed moderately difficult but I suppose if ice cream making were easy, everyone would do it, right? I also pulled a recipe for the cheesecake before heading to my friendly neighborhood Big Y.

Fun fact: I do not get cell reception in my new friendly neighborhood Big Y. So when I’m standing in the dairy aisle trying to figure out if there is any difference between heavy cream and heavy whipping cream, I have no options. I read the labels, compared the ingredients, the nutrition facts, the prices and came to the conclusion that they look identical. However the recipes took the time to specify the difference so maybe there is a difference? Damn my smartphone not working for me! Since I am a slave to the recipes, I bought both and paid about 30 cents more. I also had to buy caramel syrup (that you would normally put in coffee) and flaked sea salt (fortunately, I was provided with a brand name and could find it easily). Armed with my ingredients, I headed home to begin.

Now, to make salted caramel ice cream, one must first make caramel. I’ve never made caramel. Websites, my sister, and the recipe informed me that it’s really hard and easy to screw up. So, I was rightfully nervous about this. But I was ready! I was dressed in a sweatshirt in 90 degree heat because I was warned that it will spatter a lot and I don’t want it to burn me and I had everything prepared to move as quickly as possible. First step, melt sugar in a pan. That went pretty well. It got all bubbly and melty and turned the right color without getting burny. Seems easy so far! And it smells good! Next step, add heavy cream and stir until caramel is fully dissolved. Adding the heavy cream was the spatter part. But you know what? I actually used the correct pan for once! I used one with high sides so there was a large amount of sizzle and bubbling and spattering but very little that left the pan. Win! Oh wait, except for those two drops that spattered onto my newly refinished hardwood floors. Crap! A quick Google search suggested chipping the hardened caramel off with a metal spatula. That…worked! Success! The stirring part confused me a bit because I wasn’t sure how to tell when the caramel dissolved. I was stirring with a spatula so I figured once I didn’t feel any grainy parts, I was done. Visually, I couldn’t see any difference. But I’m pretty sure I did that step correctly! At this point I’m all, caramel, you have been defeated! Next step, put it in a bowl, add sea salt flakes and vanilla extract and stir. Cool to room temperature. That seemed to go fine too but the vanilla extract suspiciously bubbled and hissed when I added it. I figured “Ok, caramel is still hot, I guess I just burned off the alcohol?” More on that later.

While it was cooling, I got started on my custard for the ice cream base. Who remembers the last time I made custard?  I do and I was really bad at it! But I trudge on, hoping this time will be better. I start heating up my milk and other ingredients while I beat my eggs a bit (but not too much). I think I did a good job this time tempering the eggs and then stirring them in without ending up with an omelet. Progress? I’m still not sure if I let it thicken enough though. It said until it coated the back of a wooden spoon. It seemed like it did but I’m not entirely sure. Thicken! Thicken, you fool! Oh well. Next step, add the caramel to the custard. Now, I know I was supposed to cool the caramel to room temperature but ya know what? At room temperature, caramel is hard. So mixing it in did not really work. This was a problem. I was maybe able to mix in about three quarters of what I was supposed to (with some cursing and some vigorous whisking). I made some progress when I put the bowl over a double boiler but some of the chunks just had to go. Side note: hardened caramel is annoying to clean. Just sayin. Finally I threw the bowl over an ice bath to let my mixture chill.

Now you may be asking, how does that mixture turn into ice cream? Well, I just bust out my handy dandy ice cream maker…oh wait, I totally don’t have one of those. Seems rather problematic, doesn’t it? But here’s my thinking: ice cream was around before electricity so there must be a way to do it! I actually did find a method online that effectively directs one to alternate freezing and blending every 30-45 minutes for a few hours. Seems good enough to me! So I froze and I blended (with my fancy new stick blender!) and I froze and I blended and I froze and I went out to a bar. Whoops. Several hours and several drinks later, I returned home to give it a final stir before falling into bed. I didn’t even taste it because I was waiting for the full flavor profile of the ice cream, cheesecake, and Pop Rocks.

Onwards and upwards to cheesecake making! I’ve made some delightful cheesecakes in my day. I’ve learned some lessons such as, don’t buy the pre-crumbled graham crackers. Seems I’m still a few lessons short of successful though. First off, now I have a food processor to crush my graham crackers! Did I use it? No way! I wasn’t about to clean that thing just to crush graham crackers. Nonsense. I stuck them in a Ziploc bag and smashed them with a rolling pin. No seriously, I kept slamming the rolling pin into them. It was very sophisticated. But effective! I prepped the crust and baked it according to the directions. Well, maybe not 100% according to the directions. The recipe specified wrapping the bottom and outsides of the springform pan with tin foil to prevent leakage. I have never done that and deemed it nonsense. So I didn’t do it. Poor choices, people. It didn’t seem to matter when I baked the crust but something was definitely leaking when I baked the cheesecake. I had a puddle of what I presume was butter (but really could’ve been anything, I guess) on the bottom of my oven. Methinks a self-cleaning cycle will be in order. So sure, the ONE time I don’t obey the recipe, it turns out I should have. I also should have defied the recipe in other respects because I am a more knowledgeable baker than I give myself credit for.

The filling for the cheesecake went pretty smoothly. Here’s a question though. If you have to add ½ cup of heavy whipping cream and ¼ cup of caramel syrup and you add both to the same measuring cup so the total is ¾ cup, is that an accurate thing to do? The two liquids have different viscosities so I’m wondering if adding one to the other affects the volume of the second thing you’re adding? This is an interesting scientific question to me. I think I’ll need to ask a chemist or something. Mommy, do you have an answer???

Anywho, the mixture was easy aside from the scientific quandary but the baking left something to be desired. Namely, I forgot to put in a pan of water below the cheesecake so it wouldn’t crack. I had a nagging feeling that I should but I couldn’t remember if that was for cheesecakes or not and I was too tired to look it up so I didn’t do it. So my cheesecake cracked. Which was sad. Also, it needed some extra cooking time because it was way too wibbly wobbly all over by the time it was supposed to be done. That’s ok, I needed the extra 10 minutes to finish watching Heathers (which I had never seen). That is some dark comedy. I had no idea what I was getting into.

Fast forward to two days later for the actual assembly of the epic dessert.  I open up the Pop Rocks to complete my culinary concoction and to my surprise, most of the Pop Rocks had melted into a single, unbreakable ball in the center. I tried to break them up a bit but really just ended up making a mess. There were enough loose Pop Rocks to include in about three servings of dessert but they were otherwise useless. Shout out to Amazon customer service though. After reporting the issue, they refunded my purchase and instructed me to order a new one with free one-day shipping. Quick resolution, no muss, no fuss. Good job, Amazon. Anyway, here’s some photos of the components (I really need to stop taking photos with my phone) and the finally completed dessert:

It’s a work of art, right? Just beautiful. I’m impressed with myself. And now the taste test! Well, hmm. That’s…interesting. And not really in the good way. The ice cream tastes weird. The cheesecake is delicious and the crust came out nicely and the Pop Rocks are awesome with the cheesecake but the ice cream is…not right. It has an almost bitter, burny, coffee-like flavor. Which doesn’t make any sense considering the ingredients. Except, oh wait, remember what I said about the vanilla extract? Yup, I bet that was it! Something went seriously wrong there. Of course, I was supposed to add it while the mixture was still hot so I have no idea how I would have avoided that. So the ice cream, while edible, was not very good and was discarded. The cheesecake, however, is delightful. I’ll chalk this one up to a semi-success and I’ll definitely take a second stab at salted caramel ice cream in the future. Does that count as baking though? It never technically gets baked but it’s complex enough that I will call it baking so that I can blog about it in the future. Seems I’m not quite an Iron Chef yet. But I will admit, I did like the challenge!

A Disney Moment: Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Rage. Welcome to the Dark Times Disney films: Round Two. If you recall, round 1 was the strange compilation movies that were made during WWII. These may in fact be worse. So once again we have a rating system out of 5 movies but lest you get confused, none of these movies are good. I resent Disney for making these films because making them meant that I had to watch them for this project. Ok, I’ll try to let the rage subside to actually review this movie.

This movie is Black Cauldron bad. I believe this is one of those that resulted in yelling at the TV during viewing. The main character is so naïve you want to smack him in the face, the animation is downright haphazard, and the whole plot feels like a gigantic ripoff of Ferngully and Pocahontas. I can’t help but think that Avatar took some cues from this movie because a lot of the tones and coloring choices are very similar. I can’t even talk about this movie without getting enraged. This was a definitive 5/5. The one thing I can be grateful for is that this was my first viewing of this movie and it will also be my last.