Category Archives: cooking

BRRRAAAAIIINSSSS!

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Hello, Fluffsters!

Yesterday, I had a fun opportunity. I got to serve a creepy brain jello!

What’s that you’re saying? “It’s just jello, how can it possibly be creepy?”

I’m glad you asked.

Actually, they didn’t…

Oh, come on. I can pretend, can’t I?

As I was saying, I’m glad you asked. It can be creepy… like THIS!!

creepy gray brain jello with gummy worms sticking out

Creepy, right?

Isn’t that nasty looking?

So… is this the next “mold is good” thing with you?

Technically, yes, since I do have a jello mold to thank for this.

But as I was saying, isn’t that creepy? I love making this thing. The jello itself is peach flavored. The gummy worms are sour, which gave the jello a bit of a slightly interesting flavor. There’s also (fat free) evaporated milk in it, which is what makes it semi-opaque. It also slightly changes the consistency to be a bit more… solid. The stuff really feels about like what you’d expect chilled brain consistency to be.

People’s reactions to it are absolutely priceless. Some will stare at it in horror. Others will take the gummy worms sticking out of the jello, and therefore eat the gray stuff that comes with it. And a few brave souls will take large quantities of it and delight in eating “brains.”

Everybody who tries it likes the flavor. (After all, it’s jello. Peach jello. It’s not actually that weird.) At the same time, however, most people think it a bit… disgusting. Especially if they think about the fact that it’s “brains” they’re eating. I love having the opportunity to make and serve it.

And I think I really do not want to know what constitutes a good time to make a dessert that looks like a human organ. A worm infested human organ.

Ok, fine. Spoilsport.

Happy Saturday, though! I hope you’re having a great weekend!

Things to do concerning cookies (3): Thin Mints

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Tuesday! I hope your week is starting off as well as mine has.

Today, I’m continuing my cookie series. I’m going to be talking to you about

Things To Do Concerning Thin Mints

So… What’s a thin mint? A really thin mint leaf? How does that relate to cookies?

Thin Mints are a type of Girl Scout cookie. You see, Girl Scouts every year go around selling cookies. Thin Mints are a chocolate-mint patty type cookie that are actually one of the most popular types.

…Ah.

But as I was saying.

1) Eat them plain. This is, of course, the normal route. This is also the most boring route. Seriously, if you’re going to spend $4 for a small box of cookies, you might want to have a better plan in mind than just getting melted chocolate all over your fingers and ending up as a sticky mess. Eww.

2) Eat them frozen. This is a much better solution. Frozen Thin Mints are amazing. They’re refreshing, sweet, and very tasty. Better yet, they don’t melt as quickly, which means that it’s not as messy! Yay!

3) Sell them. This only works if you’re in Girl Scouts.

4) Turn them into ice cream. Breyers Ice Cream has done something to officially get permission to sell Thin Mint Ice Cream. It’s sort of like a marvelous cross between mint chocolate chip ice cream and cookies & cream ice cream. As I said, marvelous.

5) Use them as ice cream toppings. Freeze them, then crumble them, and then dish them over a bowl of ice cream. It works best with non-fruit flavored ice cream. (I’m a fan of strawberry and other fruit flavors, so trust me when I say it’s not that fruit-flavors aren’t the best. It’s not a bad flavor, it’s just not the best combo.) I always enjoy putting Thin Mint crumbles over Thin Mint Ice Cream. It’s sort of like dessert Inception.

So, there you go! I hope you enjoy some Thin Mint inspired things to do. Happy Tuesday!

Things to do concerning cookies (2): Oreos

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Monday! I hope your week is starting well.

As you may recall, I’m doing a mini blog-series on things to do concerning cookies.

Today, I’m going to talk about…

Things to do concerning Oreos.

1) if you’re using Firefox, you can add the plural form to your dictionary. Unless you’re slightly insane like me, and somewhat enjoy having red underlines in your text on words that you know exist. Like heteroskedasticity. There are few things quite so satisfying as being smarter than your web-browser’s dictionary.

2) Eat the oreo whole. As in, both chocolate and white filling. Together. Or, you could…

3) …Separate the oreo. As in, separate the chocolate cookie part from the creamy filling part.

If you want to go epic, you can do it with a specially designed gun/slingshot.

4) Crochet fake oreos. Then give them to friends. (That’s great for christmastime cookie exchanges. I was able to give my fellow high-school girls some “guaranteed calorie-free cookies” a few years ago.)

5) Make Oreo Truffles. Even without being dipped in chocolate, these things are scary delicious. I can’t recommend them enough. Especially since they are so easy!

So, there you go! I hope you have fun doing stuff that relates to oreo cookies!

Things to do concerning Cookies (1)

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Sunday! I hope you have a blessed week.

This upcoming week, I’m going to be traveling a bit. So I’m going to be doing a series on things I’m fairly comfortable with: Cookies. And things to do having to do with them. (That will make more sense as we go along. Hopefully.)

Somehow, I doubt it. Did you even study your own language? That sentence looks like you murdered your language.

If you’re talking about the last thing I wrote, it’s not technically a sentence- it’s a fragment.

But anywho. Without further ado:

Things to Do Concerning Cookies (1): Chocolate Chip

Today I’m going to be looking at Chocolate Chip Cookies, and a few things about chocolate chip cookies.

1) You can change the recipe. I actually have listed my personal recipe adaptation in the recipes section.

2) You can eat them. This should be obvious. My personal preferences include a nice glass of milk. Or maybe coffee. Sometimes both.

3) Zap them, and then eat them. If you’re at a cafeteria, for example, odds are incredibly slim you’ll get cookies fresh out of the oven. But nothing can beat a freshly baked cookie. (Except maybe for beaters- that would likely do the trick.) So,. here’s the solution. Stick a cookie in the microwave. I think about 5-10 seconds is plenty. Or, if you have access to one, stick it in a toaster oven. That reheats the cookie, and gives it the sense of being freshly baked. Again, I highly recommend a cup of milk. If you’re lactose intolerant, almond milk is a wonderful alternative. (I’m not, I don’t think, but my family is. So I’ve discovered a love of almond milk. It does go nicely with chocolate chip cookies. It’s not quite the same, but still really good. Especially if you get the vanilla flavored stuff.)

4) Give them to friends. The cookies, that is. Just to clarify that we weren’t talking about almond milk still. So, yeah. I’d take the cookies, put them in bakers’ bags, and then give them to friends. (Only if you’re feeling generous.) If you’re feeling really generous, you can even give them to professors, teachers, or people you don’t even know/like.

5) Photograph them and put them on Facebook. Because there aren’t enough people using Instagram.

Anyways, there you go! Five things to do that relate to chocolate chip cookies. Have fun! (And tell me how your cookies turn out, if you make any?)

Good Birthday Cakes

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy July 27th!

New way of starting your greetings?

Only when it’s my birthday.

That makes sense then, I suppose. Because your birthday has become like a holiday; is that correct?

Well, it’s at least a day that I’m excited about.

Fair enough.

But that leads me to today’s topic:

My Favorite Types of Birthday Cake. (In no particular order.)

So, just a bit of background. I really like all of these kinds. It’s really hard for me to choose which type is my favorite. So if there’s any difference in the ordering, it’s purely coincidental and only reflects the order in which I thought of and wrote about the different types of cakes.

First: flourless chocolate cake. I’ve made this for people more often than I’ve had it for my own birthday cake. But it’s a really good cake. How can you go wrong with something like 8 ounces of dark chocolate per cake?

At some point, I’m going to need to upload my favorite ways to make flourless chocolate cakes. But for now, here’s a link to the epicurious cake recipe I use, and the AllRecipes Ganache. If you use the ganache as the frosting, it’s really amazing. The cake itself is already very chocolatey. Add a combination of boiling cream and pure bittersweet/dark chocolate, and it’s one of the most chocolate chocolate experiences you can have.

1) Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I haven’t made one in a while. But it’s really good. Nice and perfect sugary-sticky-sweet-maraschino-cherry-and-canned-pineapple goodness. It can also be a thing of absolute beauty.

It doesn’t come with frosting or an icing, which can be a downside. But the crustiness of the cake itself is wonderful, and doesn’t actually need one.

Alpha) Carrot Cake with cream-cheese frosting. This is another one of my favorites. If it’s fresh, then recipes with a bit of pineapple in them are really good. Yes, I do like pineapple. How could you tell?

Now, a small confession: I really like stale carrot cake.

What is wrong with you?

Haha, very funny. I know, it’s a bit odd. But it’s really good! If you wait for a few days, the frosting gets a bit of texture to it. A bit of crunch, that is, which is something I really like with this particular flavor. It’s sort of almost like carrot-cake croutons. Admit it, those sound like they’d be good.

Uno) Ice cream cakes. I like both BaskinRobins’ ice cream cakes, and ColdStones. If there’s the possibility of mixing flavors, like Cold Stones does, I really like their Strawberry, with either white chocolate chips or Kit-Kats. (I haven’t checked to see if they let you use a sorbet. If so, I’d go with either lemon or raspberry sorbet with white chocolate chips.) For the straight ice cream flavors, I really like mint chocolate chip. It both tastes fresh, and like chocolate. Where even can that go wrong? (Unless the mint tastes like toothpaste. That’s a problem.)

Chief) Mud Pie. Not technically a cake, but I don’t know if ice cream cake really counts as a cake either. Mud pie is another one of my more favorite desserts. The coffee ice cream and rich chocolate flavor combine in a perfect flavor harmony. It’s like eating a sugary coffee drink. When done right, it truly is a thing of beauty.

S, what about you, Fluffsters? Do you have a favorite birthday cake? I’d love to read about them in the comments below!

Happy Saturday!

Ganache: Magic

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Hello, Fluffsters!

I was doing a bit of stuff with a nearly magical substance today. It’s something called “ganache.” It’s just cream and chocolate, and amazingness. It’s one of my two favorite cake frostings at this point. (The other is cream cheese frosting.) I mean seriously. Cream and dark chocolate: Where do you go wrong?

So the direct recipe is about a half-cup of cream to 3.5 ounces of chocolate. (About 3/4 cup of chocolate.) Heat the cream until it starts to bubble or boil, and pour it over the chocolate. Whisk together. (Optional: Add about a 1/4 teaspoon of mint extract for flavoring.)

The real magic, though, comes in whisking it together. It’s seriously amazing. First you have your cream over your chocolate chips. As you whisk it together, you get more chocolate shreds, and it starts to look like an oreo-cookie milkshake.

Doesn’t it look a bit like oreos crunched up in cream?

Within about 5 more strokes, though, the real ganache starts to appear.

Ganache forms in the center of the ingredients

Ganache forming in the center of the ingredients.

It’s really very astonishing how quickly it happens. And it’s a total change, too! There’s no way to separate the ganache back out into its cream/chocolate parts. (At least not easily, as far as I’m aware.)

I seriously think that making ganache should be a science experiment for kids just starting to learn about chemistry. It would be a “sweet” way to learn science.

Do I want to know if you wrote this post just to be able to use that pun?

…Probably not. But happy Friday, Fluffsters! And just a reminder, my current new design in my cafepress store is on sale until sometime either today or tomorrow. Check the New and Now section for the current low prices, and the other part of my store for all my other designs!

Have a great weekend!

Comforting Foods (NaBloPoMo 6)

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Hello again, Fluffsters! Happy Monday!

Now, I understand that Mondays can be a trying time. But we can get through this… together!

Brassicae, now you’re just sounding like one of those cheesy shows our competitors put on!

Uh… Well, I haven’t seen any of your competitors’ shows. So I don’t know how to respond.

But anyways. As I was saying. Mondays can be trying, but there are some things we can do that bring us comfort.

Oh, so that was just a way of reminding everyone of the challenge you’re trying to do for a month, then?

You got it! And today’s question is:

What is your biggest comfort food? Share the recipe if you have one.

So, I’m not entirely sure how to take that. There are two ways, really. Is the question about Big as in Size? Or Big as in most emotionally Impactful?

Is “impactful” even a word?

…That doesn’t really matter. And it is now.

That doesn’t answer my question though.

So go with both.

Oh. Right.

In that case.

Biggest Size Comfort Food

Mom’s Hamburger Stroganoff. Or her Chicken Noodle Soup. Definitely. I could eat a huge serving of either of those and still want more. I unfortunately don’t have the recipe immediately available, but they’re really comforting for me.

I’ve always loved her chicken soup. It’s just a taste of home, and something she would try to make when we were sick to make us feel better. And then we’d have chicken salad the next day for lunch, with fresh chicken. That was always amazing. Especially with grapes. Or maybe apples.

And the stroganoff? That actually has a bit of a funny story behind it… For a while, my parents were trying to do the “low carb” diet. I sort of objected, since I loved pasta. (I still do, actually.) But we sometimes went to potlucks. And the stroganoff is a fairly easy dish, and the best part is that it calls for noodles. (Egg noodles especially.) Sometimes for dinners at home, Mom would make a stroganoff casserole that was pretty good, but it didn’t have pasta. And so that was never as much a favorite for me. But when she made stroganoff for the potlucks, she would always make the egg noodles to go with. Because of that, I really loved the stroganoff. It’s also just really good. I mean, really. Ground beef, sour cream, mushrooms, and onions? How can you go wrong with that?

Biggest Emotional Comfort Food

That is so much harder. I’m a fan of many chocolate desserts. I’ve already posted the recipe for my variation on chocolate chip cookies, which I love. But cheddar cheese and apples are another one. There’s something just really comforting about having that for a snack. Or anything dark chocolate. Nuts, dark chocolate M&Ms, and raisins combine to form a great trail mix. And my flourless chocolate cakes are also very good! If I do say so myself. Oh, and most Mexican food. Or any food that involves HUGE amounts of melted Cheddar. (Except cheeseburgers. I do not like those.)

So in other words, I’m not at all sure about the second category.

So, Fluffsters, what’s your favorite comfort food?

Why One Should NOT Trust The Webmaster’s Food Tastes(1)

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So, Webmaster….

Hm?

A while back, in your muffin flavored shrimp post, you said that you would explain why someone used “I’ve seen what kind of muffins you eat” as a bad thing…

…Oh. I’d hoped you’d forget about it…

It’s part of me. I can no more forget about it than you can forget about your spleen.

Spleen? What does that do?

…Nevermind. And that’s just changing the subject! You said you’d explain later…

Ok, fine. Well, I can certainly give an example.

Yesterday, I came across the most remarkable muffins. They were rainbow colored, presumably in honor of St. Patrick’s Day.

But not just rainbow colored. They were brightly rainbow technicolored.

They were surprisingly good!

…You actually tried one?

Of course!

They were actually sort of fruity flavored. It was surprisingly good.

Pink, green, and yello partially eaten muffin

Proof that the Webmaster ate one.

…

I think I understand where that respondent is coming from.

Ah well. I guess that means more for me, though!

Yes. You may definitely have mine…

So, readers, what sorts of odd muffins have you had?

I Think Male Computer Scientists Might Not Think The Way I Do…

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A few minutes ago, I couldn’t find Fluffy anywhere, and I was having trouble thinking of a decent post. So naturally, when I saw a friend of mine, I asked him if he had any ideas for something totally fluffy, not related to animals.

His answer?

Pad Thai. Not just Pad Thai. Videos of Pad Thai being cooked. By street venders. (He was quite emphatic on that point.)

I don’t know quite what I expected, but that certainly was not it.

You know. Personally, when I think fluffy, I think of Google Image Searching either “cute owls“, “pygmy owls“, kittens, or puppies. (Seriously, you should try this.)

Anywho, have a great day!

Here are some cookies people make with nuts.

Things To Do Concerning Thin Mints

Things to do concerning Oreos.

Things to Do Concerning Cookies (1): Chocolate Chip

My Favorite Types of Birthday Cake. (In no particular order.)

What is your biggest comfort food? Share the recipe if you have one.

Biggest Size Comfort Food

Biggest Emotional Comfort Food