custard

A Sundae For Sundae Lovers

August 29, 2012 | 22 Comments

In the category of favorite suggestions ever made to me, I place the following:

“You should always eat what your body is craving, because the body craves what the body needs. Your body is never wrong.”

Love it. Love it. Love it.

I wield this powerful tool like a ninja. A samurai. A sword-bearing, armor-plated, enabling Knight of the Round (and copiously overflowing) Table.

I use my sword to justify the eating of bacon (My body is craving bacon! It must need salt and pork products!), the drinking of chocolate milk (My body is craving chocolate milk! It must need artificially sweetened dairy-based beverages!), and the snacking of M&M’s (My body is craving M&M’s! It must need some chocolate that will melt in my mouth and not in my hands!)

So, you know, when I started craving an ice cream sundae like nobody’s business the other day, I knew that this was an urge that I needed to satisfy: I’m clearly suffering from some sort of ice cream sundae deficiency.

Filed Under: Frozen Tagged With: agave nectar, bacon fat, banana chip, cajeta, caramel, custard, ice cream sundae, maple syrup, recipe, sweet

Bacon & Dulce De Leche Pie

July 15, 2012 | 12 Comments

A loving loved one sat me down last week and reminded me of all the things that I didn’t learn to accept until later in life. Adult-like things that I only recently came around on. This list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

1. Salads
2. Salad spinners
3. Wearing socks
4. Washing socks
5. Coexisting peacefully with spiders
6. Respectable bedtimes

Loving loved one tells me that it’s questionable as to whether I have yet to actually accept numbers 1 and 6.

Three things that I have embraced with open arms since birth:

1. Ice cream
2. Pie
3. Bacon

So when I learned that National Ice Cream Day was about to be upon us, I began plotting a way to combine all of these personal favorites.

And thus, as we celebrate ice cream all day today, I am here to present you with a Dulce De Leche Ice Cream Pie with a Bacon & Graham Cracker Crust. Take that Mr. Salad Spinner.

The truth is that I am very much on a sweet/salty kick right now, and it’s a delicate, delicate balance to strike. You must involve just the right amount of salty flavor without too much cloying sweetness. It takes precision, concentration, and more than a few taste tests.

Bacon and caramel create that perfect balance for you naturally: bacon is salty with just a touch of smoky flavor, and caramel is sweet without being overwhelming and overpowering, as chocolate can sometimes be.

Plus it’s about a gajillion degrees outside. You may have noticed? So this sweet/salty pie was always going to happen today.

Filed Under: Frozen Tagged With: bacon, butter, custard, dark brown sugar, dulce de leche, graham cracker crust, ice cream, National Ice Cream Day, pie, recipe, sweet, vanilla

Mexican Chocolate Cream Pie

March 28, 2012 | 26 Comments

I like to talk a lot. Had you guessed as much?

Today, I’m going to restrain myself. Just to allow you to concentrate.

Concentrate on chocolate.
Concentrate on pie.
Concentrate on a chocolate pie that will hopefully rock your world.

Are you concentrating? OK. Good.

I’ve been married for several years so I know that whispering makes interrupting OK.

I’m whispering right now when I tell you that we’re using Mexican chocolate in this particular pie. The flavor of Mexican chocolate is not to be trifled with. I’m partial to the Ibarra label.

We’re also pressing some instant espresso powder and ground ancho chile into our crust. There will be no trifling today.

Filed Under: Crisps, Crumbles & Pies Tagged With: ancho chile, butter, chocolate cream pie, custard, egg yolks, Ibarra, instant espresso powder, Mexican chocolate, milk, recipe, sweet, whipped cream

Prairie Berry Bake

October 26, 2011 | 37 Comments

Below is a tutorial on behaving like a starstruck dummy in front of your personal idol.

Read closely! The author of this tutorial is a proven expert.

By the end of this piece, you, too, can be on the gilded path to self-humiliation in the presence of those whom you admire most – total embarrassment is just seconds away!

So what are you waiting for? Class is officially in session.

Step 1: Make a good first impression with crazy hair.

Look at you go! You’ve already got this down.

It doesn’t matter that you just stood in line outside for four hours in the middle of the windiest day on record for the Phoenix area. No! You were sure not to pack a hairbrush, and that was clearly the right thing to do.

Crazy hair. Crazy girl. What’s not to love, right?