Adventures in Dessert: The Cookie Dough Pie

After all my Food Network / Top Chef watching, I wanted to take all the culinary skills I had learned while being sick and use them for reals!  That meant finding the right recipes to try my new skills on.
I already know I can execute a damn fine Hot Toddy but can I really elevate my dessert game - especially after this flop?
Okay, it wasn't that big of a flop but people were saying it was too sweet which, to me, sounds like it could've been better.  Am I beating myself up over it a little too much?  Maybe.  But you live, you learn and you move on...to Cookie Dough pies.
That's right - Cookie Dough Pie.  After seeing the recipe in the latest issue of Bust, I wanted to try it.  Why not?!  I designated the old man and me as the dessert bringers for Thanksgiving so it was the perfect time to try it out, right?




1. I hardly ever shop with a cart, much less with a freakin' list!
2. The cookie dough portion
3. In the recipe, they say that you'll end up with extra cookie dough and you should bake cookies to garnish your pie with (I garnished with 4 but I packed up the rest with the extra whipped cream I made)
4. The scary egg custard part.  I say "scary" because there's egg tempering involved and you know what?  I accomplished it without scrambled eggs!  Hooray!
5. My favourite thing to make: homemade whipped cream!
6. The various layer stages of the pie
7. The finished pie!
8. A pretty slice of pie

It was a complete success!  At first, I was really critical of the taste and my pie crust substitution - I substituted a "traditional" graham cracker crust since I couldn't find the chocolate wafers - because that's what I do but it turned out all right.  I could really taste the light brown sugar in the cookie dough but I think that's because I knew it was in there and I may or may not have packed the measuring cup a little too full with it but still, it was good and everyone liked it.  Sounds like I'll have to make it again!  I also have my eye on the first recipe on the page o' recipes c/o Bust: the Vegan Pumpkin Pie with Gluten Free Crust.
The old man attempted a vegan pumpkin pie a few years back and let's just say it didn't turn out the way he had hoped but I'm pretty confident that if I try this particular recipe, I might be able to pull it off!  Granted, pie crusts aren't my thing but I'll give it a try.  Maybe this one might turn out magnificent!  Buuut I'm not going to unveil it for Christmas dinner or anything.  I think I'll attempt this between holidays and make sure the recipe is slammin' before I present it to my family.

So...I'd like to express my gratitude to Bust Magazine for having such a kick ass recipe!  Actually, I'd like to express my gratitude to Bust Mag in general because I've been an avid Bust reader since the Girlfriends issue (with Missy Elliot on the cover) in the 90's.  That's how I found out about and fell in love with The Donnas.  That's also how I started to feel more confident about my body and it helped me recognize my rights as a woman.  It was quite possibly the coolest gift my step-sister could've given me as a teenager.  I haven't missed an issue yet and I plan on never missing one.  EVER.  You shouldn't either! Check it out!

Adventures in Dessert

This weekend, I channeled my inner Paula Deen for my Dad's early Father's Day present and there was NO BUTTER INVOLVED!  Imagine that!  Though, there was shortening involved but that's not the same is it?  Meh - same difference I guess.
My Dad is a big time chocoholic and so for his early Father's Day present, I decided I would make him Paula Deen's Frozen Chocolate Mousse Pie.  I am not a chef.  I am most definitely not a baker.  So why make it?  Because I was watching an unhealthy amount of Food Network (as per usual) and Ina Garten made an easy-looking Key Lime Pie.  I'm usually not a Barefoot Contessa fan (especially after her Make-A-Wish fiasco) but she was making my most favourite dessert: Key Lime Pie.  Easy enough, right?  Sure!  I could make that!
But wait!  I don't think my Dad likes Key Lime Pie as much as I do!  I had to change it up and FAST or else it was a chocolate sampler from Godiva and I felt that that was a little impersonal since he's heading out to Kuwait for 9 months.  So I decided I'd peruse the Food Network site for the ultimate chocolate recipe.  Who better than Paula Deen, right?!
I skipped buying a pre-made shell and made my own using the Best Ever Pie Crust.  Like I said, I'm not a baker and this pie crust was super easy to make.


I tried to scallop the edge to make it all fancy and with as many times as I had seen it executed on Food Network and shows like Top Chef, I couldn't do it quite right but it still looked pretty.
The chocolate sauce and the whipped mousse were the scariest parts for me.  I'd never melted chocolate for any kind of sauce but here it was as the base of the whole dessert.  I had also never made whipped cream and I was so scared I was going to screw it up and have to go to the mall.
But the recipe was SO SIMPLE.

 

There it was! The chocolate sauce! I left out the chocolate creme liqueur since I didn't feel like running out just for 1 tablespoon, so I subbed in an extra tablespoon of heavy cream. The chocolate sauce took no time at all! Easy, right?! Totally! But now for the whipped cream... I was joking around and had a Tony Montana moment when I was measuring out my powdered sugar (I'll never grow up)


I don't know how many times I've seen whipped cream being made on Food Network. I know the egg white version and the powdered sugar version. I know to look for stiff peaks and all that but I was so scared I was going mess that up as well!
Ugh - I sound really insecure, don't I?  But I really was afraid I was going to mess it up.  Well, the joke was on me since it's the easiest thing to make EVER.  There's no possible way you can mess up making whipped cream!  EVER!


And even with my little hand mixer, I got my coveted stiff peaks.  I was so excited that I was actually cheering for myself!

Nerd.

So then came the folding of the whipped cream into the chocolate sauce - with care to not overdo it.  What did that mean?  Well, I'd seen enough shows to know that I could potentially take all the air out of my whipped cream if I overdid it, so I took very special care to be nice and gentle (which I'm usually not during cooking)


Easy peasy lemon squeezy.  I could make whipped cream ALL DAY.  Too bad I had made A LOT OF IT.  But I remembered - it was Paula Deen's recipe.  Of course there would be TONS OF EVERYTHING.  Except the chocolate sauce.  I felt like there wasn't enough.  But then I thought that maybe there was enough because it was a frozen mousse pie after all.  But as I was folding the whipped cream into the chocolate I thought that maybe there was too much whipped cream there.
I foolishly spooned out what I had mixed into my pie crust and it went all the way to the edge of the tin in height.  That was enough right?  Well...in the photo, the mousse reaches epic proportions.
Check it


Was there enough room in my freezer for all of this mousse? Hell no.  I guess I would just deal.  I spooned out more whipped cream into my mousse mixture that I had already put in the pie shell and started folding it in for that creamy brown colour but I had to give up because I didn't want to demolish my pie shell in the process so I just spooned it out on the whole thing and made a pretty coating of whipped cream and put the rest in a container for fruit dipping.

 
And there you have it. My adventures in desserts. I can't really call it baking since the only thing I baked was the pie crust.
My everyone at the party liked it - including my Dad - which made me happy.  I did feel like it was missing something (probably the liqueur but whatevs).   At least everyone had the sense to mix the fruit salad in with the chocolate to cut the sweetness.
So now that I've done it, I can make another version when my Dad gets back!  Hopefully by then , I'll have a nice, customized version (Grand Marnier anyone?).  Sounds like a plan to me!

How was your weekend?

Pizza Time!

Saturday, April 24, I started something I never dreamed of starting: a diet.
Yep. I started a freakin' diet. It's been a tough month but I've been powering through it. I'm trying to stay positive and upbeat about the whole thing but it's hard. It's like quitting cold turkey - I'm an emotional wreck. I'm hungry a lot. Whenever I see food, I get overwhelmed with sadness and longing for it. When I indulge (I try to at least once a week but I don't go overboard), I feel guilty. It's a love/hate thing that's really taking its toll on me but in the end, I will benefit and it will be worth it.
While I was at the grocery store, I had to buy the Cooking Light magazine pizza issue. I mean, I love pizza more than anything and the fact that I had been without it this long (except the "diet approved" pizza) was driving me crazy. So I declared that we would make pizza on Sunday.
It started with the sauce.

The recipe came straight from the magazine and was easier than I would have ever imagined. One major upside to this whole diet thing is that I'm not afraid to cook anymore. I used to watch Food Network all day, every day and I had all the cooking techniques down but I was afraid to apply them in my every day life. This has all changed AND I can apply everything I have learned watching Food Network to my food. Including making this very basic but really delicious sauce.
Then came time for the dough.
My old man has a book called Vegan With A Vengeance where we usually take our pizza dough recipe from but this time, we followed the magazine's recipe. Only we missed one major step: the dough needed to sit in the fridge for 24 hours. WTF??!!! I can't wait that long! Vegan With A Vengeance has a shorter prep time with only 1 hour of wait time for the dough to rise but we didn't make it because it calls for sugar in the recipe. Sweet baby Jeebus! What are we to do??? After pulling and stretching the dough, it was still too sticky. I was ready to give up until we decided that since Publix sells pizza dough, we should just get that and let our original batch go back to the fridge. All was not lost!

Then came the topping.
My original idea was to make a Pizza Margherita but we forgot the basil. Why, oh why?! I got the damn fresh mozzarella but I left the basil! Now it would just be a basic cheese pizza. Meh. That's okay.


Into the oven with you, little pizza! You look good, you smell good and now...the moment of truth. What will you look like when you come out? What will you taste like?


Success! The pizza was amazing! Although we had a little "dough disaster", it was still pretty awesome. I'll definitely have to try it again and maybe get all fancy with it and see how it goes.

To more PizzAdventures!
Katzi
S.L.Y.A.S.D.I.