TRIFLE: white chocolate mint brownie magic

Think brownies, white chocolate mint mousse, chocolate pudding, and holiday happiness. You will haz all the happy. I promise.

Okay so, the prelude to this one's gonna come atchu in steps. Cause I like numbers and lists.

Step 1. Ship your twin off to Africa.
Step 2. Wallow in hopeless, dark despair for 3 months. Conclude only possible respite is preparing a trifle for her glamorous homecoming.
Step 3. Violently desire trifle dish. Search everywhere, high / low, near / far, hither / yon, etc.
Step 4. Fail miserably. Realize no one knows what you're talking about, and find no such dish. Settle back into grief and self loathing.
Step 5. Recall that you tutor for fancy Georgetown family. Upon next visit to their mansion, casually mention your casual need for a trifle dish. Be slightly disappointed when they don't have one you can borrow. Sadness.
Step 6. Wake up next morning to discover fancy Georgetown mom standing outside your door with not one, but TWO brand new trifle dishes. Express genuine, unabated glee. Truly, a Christmas miracle.

And now onto trifle making. Ingredients:

Boxed brownie mix (plus the eggs / oil / water it says you need)
Heavy cream
4 egg yolks
Sugar
White chocolate chips
2 packages Chocolate Pudding mix (plus the milk it says you need)
Brand new trifle dish
Leo's mints, stolen
Arab slave helper
Mint extract

White Chocolate Mint Mousse: The night before you want to have the trifle ready, you make the mousse. From scratch. Seriously. Start by beating 4 eggs yolks with an electric mixer (I know, I always use a fork too, but for this its actually important. Unless you have a bionic arm.) Add in 1/4 cup of white sugar.

Heat up one cup of the heavy whipping cream in a small pot on the stove (note: a real recipe would invoke the term "saucepan" here ... but who the hell has ever made sauce in one of those?). Don't let it boil or anything, just until its hot. Put half of it into the egg/sugar bowl, mix, then add that all back to the remaining cream in the pot. Continue cooking this creamy egg stuff for a few minutes over low heat STIRRING CONSTANTLY. Add in the white chocolate chips, stirring until they melt. Now, I missed that part about stirring constantly. And yes, that did mean that I had, temporarily, concocted not white chocolate mousse, but white chocolate scrambled eggs. It was heartbreaking. So yeah. Don't do that. Stir constantly bitches.

Refrigerate the above masterpiece (covered) for about 2 hours. Now beat 1 and a 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream in a bowl, fold this into the now-cold egg mixture. Cover, and put this whole thing into the frig again, leave it there overnight.

Brownies: Do what it says on the box. Cool completely. Like actually completely. Again, I never follow that direction but this time its important. This is an excellent time to utilize your Arab kitchen slave, if he isn't busy with vegetables, which they often are.

And he won't mind, because his other option was working with crazy meat lady:

Chocolate pudding: Again, read box instructions. Follow them. Now take a second to breathe, cause shits about to get real.

Magic & Mystery: Because you follow directions perfectly and allowed the brownies to cool (before your roommate ripped them out to make broccoli something-or-other in the pan), you can easily cut them all into small one inch rectangley-square things. Arrange half of these in a gorgeous circle on the bottom of your trifle dish (having settled on the smaller dish at the recommendation of your Arab. They're good with spacial reality.) Fill in small holes in the brownie circle with more brownie, obvi. Now spoon half of the chocolate pudding on top of the brownie layer and smooth out. Thats layer #2. WOW.

Next, get ambitious, and add a few teaspoons of mint extract to your mouse, gently mix it in. Now spoon half of your MAGICAL MOUSSE YOU MADE FROM SCRATCH into the trifle as your third layer. Repeat the brownie-pudding-mousse layers, pausing to absolutely flip out before the second layer of brownies because you don't know if they'll sink and ruin the whole thing. Another great job for your Arab: taking initiative and really gettin' after it with the second brownie layer, fearless.

After 2 or 3 victory laps around the house and squealing for your twin's approval, put the finished trifle in the frig and go to the gym. Cause you're gonna get fat tonight.

On the way back from the gym, casual saunter into Leo's and steal some of their red and white mints. Hide them in your Nalgene, and GTFO.

At home, put the mints in a plastic bag, and beat them with the back end of scissors (because you can't seem to locate a mallet). Sprinkle on trifle. Succumb to your child like glee (and apparent psychosis):

SERVE AND BE DELIGHTED. HAPPY HOLIDAYS FRIENDS.

p.s. as always, photocred to Erica Begoun.

BACON BOUQUET

“Violets are blue
Bacon is red.
We love you so much,
and we’re glad you’re our friend.”

For our beloved (and soon-to-be-famous) Danny Rivera’s last theater performance at Georgetown, Eclaire and I wanted to do something really special. We couldn’t do roses because Danny is much manlier than that, but were aiming for that sort of sentiment, at least.


This is where the internet came to our rescue. A dozen bacon roses. Perfect for the manly men in your life.

To put together this greasy token of undying love, you will need:

1 package bacon, the thicker the better
bamboo skewers
green food coloring
muffin tin

Caution: you will get greasy. REALLY greasy. Have lots of soap on standby.
Take a strip of bacon and start rolling it like.... well, like a fruit roll-up, only bacon. You have to roll it pretty tightly at first so you have a place to stick the stem later. When you’ve got the whole rosette assembled, you can arrange the outer petals artistically. I do apologize that you’ll never look at a rose the same way.


If you have a mini muffin tin, you can just pop that rose in there and move onto the next one. If you have a normal muffin tin, use tin foil to make a bacon support ring. That sounds weird, but here’s a picture, you’ll get it.

Put the tray into a 375 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes, until the bacon is cooked-pink but don’t let it burn! Cooking time will depend on your muffin tin situation, but you know what cooked bacon looks like.

While your bacon is baking, dye your bacon skewers. The best way is to put a drop of food coloring onto the skewer and rub it into the wood. Your fingers will get stained green, but this is why you’re doing it after the bacon. Because we don’t want green bacon.

So, let your skewers dry completely, and when your bacon is done you’re going to want it to sit on a paper towel and de-grease anyway. When everything is set, poke the skewer through the bottom of the bacon rose, and arrange the roses in a... vase? Cup? Idk, whatever you have on hand, really. 

You might wanna use toothpicks to hold the whole thing together, especially if the roses are looking rickety. Deliver with utmost love, but avoid dogs on the way.

GINGERBREAD FRIENDS

We’re uncommonly blessed by Alissa’s fetish for cake decorating, which has provided us with baking tools heretofore unknown to mankind/ErinandMelissa. Did you know they have markers to draw on cookies?? They do. So gather all the decorating bits and pieces you’ve got, and you will also need:

3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoonfuls ground ginger
1 large spoonful cinnamon
a couple shakes ground cloves
a couple shakes nutmeg
1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg

Mix your flour / salt / baking soda / spices in one bowl, and beat together sugars / butter, and then egg, in another. Combine bowls. Mush the cookie dough into a ball, cover it, and put it in the refrigerator overnight. 

Now is the messy part. If I were you, I’d put down a lot of wax paper onto whatever surface you’re working on, then sprinkle a couple of spoonfuls of flour onto said surface and spread it out. Now I know there’s no chance in hell you own a rolling pin, so wash the outside of an empty wine bottle out of your recycling pile, thoroughly dry, and flour the wine bottle.

I’m not fucking with you. 

Use the wine bottle to roll out the dough until it’s about 1/4 inch thick, sprinkling more flour as necessary to keep things from getting too sticky. Flour a cookie cutter, and cut out gingerbread people! Or, dip a knife in flour and freehand it, but that’s awfully ballsy. Bake those bad gingerboys for about 12 minutes. It depends on the size of your cookie cutter, but the edges should start to brown and the centers should be firm.

OK now decorate! Let the cookies cool completely, cause otherwise the icing will melt and you’ll be sad. You can use icing with those fancy decorating tips, or you can use tubs of icing or the recipe below:

2 cups sugar, 1 stick butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 1/2 tablespoons milk. Beat it up. Like, really.

Anyway, if you don’t have fancy decorating tips, load up icing into a ziploc bag, close it (obvi), and snip a tiny bit of the corner. You can also divide up icing and make different colors by adding a few drops of food coloring. If you run out of ideas for decorating, scroll through facebook.

Or, pick your favorite celebrity. Say a basketball player you’d love to marry.

Please come back, Chris.

Hands down the creepiest thing I've ever done.

TACO FIXINS

(803): I'm practically paying him in tacos to have sex with me.


Make it happen. You will need:

1 avocado

1 large tomato

1 large red onion

several cloves of garlic

a bunch of cilantro

1 lime

a tablespoon or so olive oil

salt and pepper

1 tablespoonish salsa

GUAC

When you get an avocado, you want one that isn’t rock solid and has some give to it. However, Safeway will try to sell you ones that are so mushy they’re practically liquid inside-- don’t get that either. 

To open the avocado, you cut a longways seam around the entire thing, cutting all the way down to the pit. Holding each half, you should be able to pull the halves apart, but you might need to twist it a little bit. At any rate, you should end up with two halves, one with a pit in it. Hold the avocado in your hand, and smack/slice the pit using a big scary knife. The knife should get lodged in the pit and you can pull it out. Dump both avocado halves into a bowl.

To keep the avocado from turning brown, you need to add lime asap. Cut the lime in half, and zest/juice one half on top of the avocado.

Dice both tomato and onion pretty small. Add a heaping spoonful of each to the avocado, season liberally with salt and pepper, and mash with a fork. Add a spoonful of chopped cilantro and about a clove of minced garlic as well. You can add a spoonful of salsa if you want a little spice.

PICO DE GALLO

Throw the remainder of the tomato, onion, and chopped cilantro in another bowl. Zest/juice the other half of the lime. Add a splash of olive oil, a small clove of minced garlic, and salt/pepper and mix. Tastes best if you leave it in the fridge for an hour or so.

Because I really get off on stuff like this, I garnish both with a sprig of cilantro in the center. But it’s overkill and no one but me ever notices, so you probably shouldn’t bother.

CHRISTMAS COOKIE SHOTS

An adoring fan recently pointed out that the most difficult part of the holiday season is having to choose between drinking and dessert. Well, here at Crack Den Cookies, we believe that no one should ever have to choose between their two favorite categories of edibles. And, as enablers, we’re going to make sure you have the tools you need to get both fat and drunk.

First: the cookie shot glasses. You will need:

1 heaping cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter 

1/4 heaping cup brown sugar

1/4 heaping cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1 cup MINI chocolate chips. MINI, I SAID.

mini-muffin tins and mini-muffin-paper-liners


Note: this is a halved recipe, so when I say heaping, I mean heaping. I’m not gonna tell you to measure out eighths of a cup, because that’s stupid.

Next, from the liquor store...

1 container alcoholic whipped cream. Your liquor store will have it, just ask.

vanilla vodka

creme de cacao

amaretto

Mix together butter and sugars, then mix in egg and vanilla. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt, then add that to the wet stuff and mix in your chocolate chips.

While your oven is preheating to 375, line your mini-muffin tin. Drop 1-inch-diameter cookie dough balls into your muffin tins, then bake for about 15 minutes until nicely golden brown. When you take them out of the oven, the centers will start to fall, and that’s actually what you want. Use your fingers (or the handle of a knife if, like Paul, you believe that the use of tools separates humans from chimpanzees) and poke down the center until you have a nice little cookie cup. 

While the cookie cups are cooling, mix up your shots. 2-1-1 vodka, creme de cacao, and amaretto.

Fill cookie cups with your whip-a-hol. Shoot shot. Shoot cookie. Love.

MAN COOKING

Sunday Night Mouse Movies. The few, the proud, the greatest Henle tradition since not-being-written-up-ever. After a few SNMMs filled with female-baked pies, cookies, and assorted carboloaded, chocolate covered bars, the men decided to storm the kitchen. And by that I mean Phil showed up with peanut butter and Hershey's kisses and told us to GTFO the way. Bufe helped. Cause hobbits stick together.

And I speak with utmost uncertainty when I say it involved the following :

1 stick of butter (ya, we know)
1 cup peanut butter (go with low-fat if you wanna save yourself way more guilt than is proportional to how much fat you're actually saving)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
rittle bit vanilla
rittle bit baking soda / powder / whatever / you do you
2 tablespoons of milk
1 and 1/2 cups flour
teeny bit of salt


Get out your mixing bowl (in some cultures they call it a pasta pot), and mash the butter and peanut butter together with your mashed potatoe masher, because this is man cooking and you can. It will get stuck in the masher, but fear not, you're men, and YOU CAN HANDLE THIS. Get a fork. Behold:

Add both sugars, mix, then the egg and vanilla, mix again. Summon your sous chef, secure 2 more pots, don apron (its about to get man-messy) and glare in the direction of giggling women. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt, concentrating deeply on your pot. Look generally adorable.

"its all queer domestic bliss in the foreground... and crack den in the background" (copyright: Us, 2010)

Mix until you don't feel like mixing more. Compliment self on facial hair. Combine pots.

Roll into cookie dough balls, and to add a bit more fat & sparkle to Sunday Night Mouse Movies, roll in sugar. Cause why not. Men love sugar.

Bake for 9 minutes (Not eight to ten. Nine.) at 375 (again, depending on your apartment's cooking ability) until they look like cookies. With whatever Hershey's kisses you have left after being absolutely pillaged by the fat girls that live in the apartment, press immediately into warm cookies. Utter the phrase "MAN COOKING" several more times, snuggle up to your women, and commence SNMM.

its-this-or-my-thesis COCOA APPLE MUFFINS

Alright just roll with it. I could either sit down with a giant PDF full of Foucault and human rights law, or I could combine our lack luster ingredient shelves into Monday night calories of joy. Which are my really favorite kind. Of calories and of joy.

I'm literally going to make this up as we go, so here's your play by play. Rummage through your cabinets, find the magic bullet you shoved in there cause it was cluttering up your counter, and fill it with two small apples (cubed). And one... two... THREE.... APPLESAUCE!! Maybe when I'm still unemployed next year, Magic Bullet infomercials will hire me.

So put the apple sauce (should still have chunks) in a large bowl with an egg. Add 4 tablespoons of melted butter and 1 cup sugar. Now reconsider your plan when roommate proposes putting hot cocoa powder in the mix. And fuck it, this is your recipe, you do you. Add 1/3 cup hot cocoa powder. Seriously.

Realize you don't have Michael Buble's Christmas Album on. Put it on.

In another bowl, combine 1 and 1/4 cup of flour, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp baking powder, and (ready for this?? I'm so excited), 1/4 tsp of chili powder! BOOM.

Add half the dry bowl to the wet, mix, then the other half, mix. Taste batter, notice it tastes like A CHAI LATTE. Squeal with glee and this unexpected turn of events. Put in muffins tins (greased or lined with paper) and bake on 375 for.... TBD. I'll get back to you.

**wait wait wait wait wait pretend to write paper wait wait wait**

Okay so it seems to take about 12 minutes. And they're yummy!!