adventures in the kitchen

I'm not sure what happened. Perhaps I was inspired after reading Robyn's blog post or I am now (temporarily?) possessed, but somehow over the weekend I became a cooking machine. I've finally remembered that I do in fact like to cook, provided that it's for the enjoyment of more than just myself. Cooking for one always felt like a lot of work with too many leftovers, but now that I'm home again with more ingredients at my disposal and more mouths to fill, I feel like the effort is worth it. Plus, there's no pressure for perfection because Dad will eat it anyway! I've tried some new-to-me recipes in the last few days such as taco chicken chilli, blueberry pancakes from scratch, baked ziti (a definite keeper), but the most life consuming of all was this monster of a dessert: Gimme S'more Cakelettes.
 

 (source)

 Now, I like to think I've been pretty healthy in limiting my sweets intake lately, but I must have been put into a trance when I first saw this dessert. I looked at the picture and thought, "must have...need...drool". Then, before bothering to check out the bazillion steps to the recipe, ingredients were immediately purchased determining that there could be no turning back.

If I had been truly dedicated and skilled, and I didn't do anything else besides breathe and blink, this mother could have been made within a day. Maybe. But let's get real. I have a short attention span with baking and I 'taste-test' a lot of the batter as I go so I shouldn't have too much sweet stuff to work with at once. To keep myself from swinging from the ceiling and from being overwhelmed by the technical stuff, I stretched it all out: step one Friday night, two and three on Saturday, step four and five on Sunday. First time using a food processor, first time making Italian meringue, heck, first time making any of those particular items from scratch (who am I, making such things as 'genoise', 'souffle' or 'ganache'?!). I separated 10 egg whites from yolks and yolks from whites. I chopped 10 oz of chocolate. These kinds of things are just crazy talk. But delicious.

Thankfully, as my patience for sugar-coma-inducing cakelettes (and sanity) was wearing thin, I succeeded. It turned out as it sounded it should--a glorified, gourmet, melt-in-your-mouth s'more--with only miniscule overbaking on the bottom. Oops. Who cares about that part anyway? As satisfying and dare I say 'fun' as it was to complete, I doubt I'll ever make them again. It was like making 4 detailed cakes in one (divided by 7 cause I made 7 of 'em), and luckily I did have some left over 'chocolate souffle' batter to bake on its own--nom nom. Overall, I'd rather make a massive chocolate cake and icing all from scratch, cut myself off a slice and feel just as satisfied.

In future I'd recommend simply making the homemade graham crackers (cause they tasted infinitely better than the cardboardy store bought ones AND you can make cute cookie shapes like the stars I made up top!) and adding your favourite chocolate and marshmallows. Classic.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Sarah for hooking me up with Pinterest, which is where I saw this recipe. It's just like my tumblr and twitter combined into the most useful inspiration organizer. Goodness knows I need another internet distraction, but I'm hooked and so far it's been a good thing.