Confections

It has been a decadent week and my body will never be the same. It all started when I made chocolate chip zucchini cookies and at them as appetizers, snacks, desserts, and the occasional breakfast. Guilt never dared pierce me as I ate them, because these cookies were made with a vegetable and favorable sugar substitutes like honey and maple syrup. Therefore, I can eat as many of them as I want. 

Today two of my friends visited me. I brought them to the Chocolate Mill for the food group that traditionally follows a meal of macaroni and cheese: chocolate. Here I ate half of a double chocolate brownie and half of a German chocolate cake. What makes German chocolate different from other chocolate, I imagine you asking? My initial thought was that it must have some sort of beer hidden in the creamy frosting and possibly ground pork. After some scholarly research on Wikipedia, I was astonished and scandalized to discover that German chocolate is not even German. It’s named after someone called Samuel German, a man who likes pecans and coconut and impersonating countries while baking. I wonder if the Germans know.

I hope my illusions of Black Forest Cake are never shattered in a similar manner.

For dessert, we made ice cream. One of my aforementioned friends is a recreational pastry chef and Food Network connoisseur, and while she is residing in my basement I have every intention exploiting her skills. We chose a recipe for honey ice cream, which turned out to be rather vague once we began to follow the directions. It called for two kinds of cream using a strange British dialect that I found impenetrable despite my fluency in the language of Jane Austen.

 

After spending about a half hour watching my sister try to whip the half-and-half with a hand mixer to no avail, we tried it with the heavy cream instead. We weren’t certain where the half-and-half was supposed to come into play, so we poured it into the honey that was simmering on the stove. Other recipes in the same book advised the reader to “add several handfuls of flour and, whatever you do, don’t add chives."

Somehow the ice cream turned out to be a success, and one that neither of us felt like eating because of  heartburn and painful spasms. I, myself, only had a few spoonfuls and I didn’t even dip my finger into it more than ten times.

Tomorrow, I am leaving my oven-mistress a bag of flour, a muffin tin, and a few pounds of zucchini so that she might bake me bite-sized chocolate cupcakes while I’m at work slaving over a hot cash register. Then we’ll probably eat some ice cream.