One of the more interesting free style kitchen deserts I’ve pulled off was a balsamic vinegar caramel. I was inspired by strawberries with balsamic, and thought why not go a bit further. I paired it with a few homemade sorbets and a vanilla ice cream I’d made for a sweet course at the end of a long meal.
In case you haven’t had the inspiration, it’s damn good:
Or you could do:
We ended up getting the Ninja Foodi and cooked 3 things with it tonight - all separate because we wanted to keep it simple.
Steak on broil setting. My wife likes very lean steak, so the cut wasn’t that great (I think a tip steak?). The cook on it seemed pretty good and it was still juicy inside. So I give that a good job. Interested in cooking a NY Strip Steak with it.
Frozen French Fries on air crisp setting. These were actually pretty good and I’d say a bit better than cooking them in an oven spread out in a single layer.
Frozen brussel sprouts on air crisp setting. My wife coated them with just a little olive oil and Worcestershire sauce. These actually turned out pretty good and I don’t like brussel sprouts. They browned up nicely.
I normally go with a honey/lemon juice glaze for fruit salads. I wonder if the flavor is similar.
Haagen Dazs used to do a banoffee pie ice cream. It was amazing.
My wife and I watched an awful lot of the Great British Bake-Off a few months ago, and on seeing one particular cake come up in a technical challenge, she said, “I want that for my birthday.” I said, “Okay.”
Well, she celebrated her birthday yesterday, so from about Friday night to mid-Saturday afternoon, I was working on the various bits: raspberry jam, almost two pounds of marzipan, pastry cream, and whipped cream. Saturday saw me make the sponges and assemble everything. (How did anyone bake before the invention of the stand mixer?)
Assembly went a bit sideways—yet again, I didn’t let my pastry cream thicken quite enough, which led to a bit of a filling waterfall out the side of the cake. I ended up putting it all together as fast as I can, then getting it in the fridge to chill and set more. The marzipan split a bit when I laid it on top of the whole assembly, too, which led to additional amateurish decorations on top of those which I was already planning to cover up the break. Still, the final product turned out looking half-decent, if you’re less discerning than a lifelong British baker and TV show judge. Behold, the prinsesstårta!
I’m proud of how even the layers ended up, and I can’t argue with the flavor. The combination of jam and cream was just superb, and I never knew how much I liked the taste of marzipan.
Dang. Kudos for that, and the presentation is great. The drawing of the fondant (?) on top in particular looks good, I’ve never managed anything to look so even.
“Here, let me cut you a piece,” he said, as he pulled his curved sword. CURVED. SWORD.
#unexpectedskyrim
Looks good to me, you had me at raspberry jam to be honest.
So I made chocolate chip cookies for game night yesterday. As usual, they were inhaled. This is not the interesting part even though I am sometimes amazed at how the simplistic stuff is just really liked.
I had a request from one of my regulars that the next time I make them, and they hope that will be soonish, that i make like half of them without the chips. Blasphemy I say but no, three of them actually like the cookie more than the chips and they just tolerate the chips. My group can reach about 12ish but the regulars are 5-6, sometimes 7, but… well so about half of them consider the chocolate chips in chocolate chip cookies tolerable.
And could you make the milkshakes without the milk? I just like the ice cream. :)
Haha. Yeah that’s what it feels like.
My sister told me this morning our mom used to use half a bag of chips because we couldn’t afford a whole bag. She thinks if I do a 1/2 or a 1/3 a bag it would actually please both groups, and probably not weird me out. Apparently her SO also likes them better with no chips, but she likes them so 1/3 it is.
You can also try cutting blocks of chocolate yourself. That lets you control the shape and size. My group tends to like smaller, almost sliver like bits of chocolate rather than chips or chunks. We all like the chocolate, just in moderation.
We also use semi sweet at the most, never milk chocolate. I mean I love milk chocolate, it’s just too much in most cookies.
TBH, when I was a kid, I used to have fun eating all the chocolate chips out of chocolate chip cookies, leaving behind a latticework pile of brown sugar-rich cookiestuff to devour wholesale at the end.
The chocolate chip cookie recipes I enjoy most are brown sugar-heavy, chewy, slightly crispy at the edges, with a noticeable salt tang at the end. A lot of other cookie recipes, chips or otherwise, don’t have that same flavor profile, texture, etc. The chocolate chips are certainly delicious, and I like having 'em there, but if you made me my exact chocolate chip recipe, less the chips, it’d still probably be, like, my 2nd favorite cookie :)
I find almost all chocolate chip cookies to be too sweet. I cut the sugar by about half. Definitely leave the chips in, though
My brother!
haha,
well I think she’s right. I remember seeing a half-full bag of chips in the old family cupboard all the. I’ll try a half-bag next time. I like the chips, but half as many would probably be fine for me as someone who actually wants chocolate chips in her chocolate chip cookies.
The odd things we talk about during game night… also my mom apparently gives my nephew two cookies everyday and no one new that until this week. He gets Chip Ahoy. Auntie, that’s me, is discouraging that. Sadly, I don’t like those kind of chocolate chip cookies like at all anymore.
I love homemade chocolate chip cookies and prefer them after they cool and get crispy.
My wife only likes them without the chips. I do typically like them with a bit less then recipes call for, but definitely give me the chips.
I’ve heard chipless chocolate chip cookies referred to as simply “brown sugar cookies”, but that name is far from universal.
While there’s a time and place for all sorts of fancy cookies, the classic Toll House recipe is almost perfect (I swap half the white sugar for brown sugar, but that’s about it). I’m not big on self consciously chewy or crispy cookies per se. There’s a sweet spot with just the right texture of crumb that really makes chocolate chip cookies for me. Don’t even look at me with those “basic ass sugar cookies with chocolate chips in” though.
Totally agree about the salty finish.
So I recently discovered za’atar and it’s kind of delicious on everything D:
Oh yes. It goes with just about everything.
Wait till you learn about what nutritional yeast does to kale chips and popcorn drool