TWD: Floating Islands

I know exactly what you are thinking right now:

What the hell is a floating island?

Well, I thought the same thing, too... when I saw that Shari of Whisk: a food blog had picked this recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie. And then I noticed it was in the "Spoon Desserts" section of the cookbook and I grumbled under my breath... and then I saw the picture and I thought... YUCK! That thing looks disgusting. I immediately planned skipping out on the recipe... and then I remembered that the whole point of this baking group is to expand my horizons. Shari is merely trying to culture me in the world of desserts... so, here I am... making floating islands.

I've been trying to stay ahead of the curve so that I can set my TWD's up for automatic posting on Tuesday mornings, but this recipe, I ended up having to wait till last night to complete.

So, let's discuss the Floating Island , shall we? I'm going to break it down into basics for you. You've basically got a pool of melted ice cream... a cold soup, if you will. And floating around in this melted ice cream pool is a meringue puff/boat/island/blob.

The thing is... you have to actually make this melted pool of ice cream... (don't think I wasn't tempted by the half a carton of ice cream that is still in my freezer, left over from my birthday). But, I stayed honest and made the pool, which is technically called a Creme Anglaise. And I threw in some Bailey's Irish Cream to liven the pool up a bit. All pool parties are more fun with booze.


Apparently, this is what little french children think is a "fun dessert." Someone please introduce them to a Reese Peanut Butter Cup. These poor, poor children. I mean, granted, I think mine turned out wrong... I have a feeling that they weren't supposed to taste like an egg white omelette swimming in a pool of melted ice cream. Mine SUCKED. Even with the Baileys. Baileys alone cannot a party make.


I imagine that this was supposed to turn out more like meringue cookie texture, instead of a soggy, eggy mess. (Yes, I had good intentions and even used red food coloring for mine!) But, it's cool and now I've learned something... I've learned to stick with pastries and chocolate when I go to france.



So, since I'm embarrassed with just how shitty mine floating islands turned out... instead of posting the pic at the top... I'm posting it down here at the bottom. Something went terribly, terribly wrong...





Next week teaser: CHOCOLATE CAKE. Oh YES.

Lesson... Pay attention when measuring.

So, a couple of weeks ago, my friend Leigh was in town for the weekend. She was here during a stressful and sad time for both of us, but we managed to enjoy each other’s company and also enjoy catching up one-on-one, which we hadn’t gotten to do in years.

Usually when someone comes to visit me, I like to make something for the occasion. Cookies, muffins, whatever… I like to be the hostess with the mostest, ya know? But, this time around… I didn’t really have the time to make anything before she came into town. So, on Sunday afternoon, while we were relaxing, I decided to whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I have two favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes. This one which is crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside and the one posted at the bottom of this post which I adapted from this recipe.

So, we were chatting away and she was talking about how she never makes chocolate chip cookies from scratch, etc.. and I was all like.. “ohhhhh.. they’re so easy, who needs cookies from a tube?” And while I was going on and on about how easy cookies are to make and how this recipe is awesome… I measured some ingredients wrong.

I thought that the dough seemed a little runny, but I was confident in my cookie making skills… I chilled the dough for a bit in the freezer and then started scooping them out. 8 minutes later when I checked the oven… I laughed my ass off:

And that is when I realized… hmmm… I seem to have measured either the wrong amount of butter or the wrong amount of flour. Whoops.

This recipe is awesome though if you like soft, chewy cookies. I made some last week with great results. Just make sure you measure everything carefully...

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup plus 2 tbsp of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
2 cups of flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Blend butter, sugars, baking soda and powder, vanilla and eggs until ingredients are mixed.
Add chocolate chips and mix.

Add flour and continue to mix until well blended.
Cover and chill in fridge for 45-60 minutes.

Use a cookie scoop or a tbsp to measure out dough and form a ball of the dough in your hands and then slightly flatten it and place it on non-stick baking sheet.

Bake for approximately 7-9 minutes. Cool on pan and then transfer to baking rack

Rugelach Pinwheels

So, I've had my fair share of baking disasters. But, usually, it's because I did something wrong. Like, halved part of the recipe and not the other part of the recipe or made alterations to the recipe.

But, this recipe... this recipe is just one of those recipes that I just couldn't get right.

It all started with my parents christmas party (which is this weekend), I offered to make all the sweets for the party. Along with brownies and hidden kisses cookies, I felt like we needed a fruity, festive cookie. This decision has haunted me for weeks.

I tried Lemon Thumbprints, I tried Razmatazz Bars, and finally I decided that this rugelach pinwheels recipe with cherry preserves and dried cherries would be perfect.

And they would have been.... had they turned out.

I found the recipe on one of my favorite blogs, Smitten Kitchen. Don't they look so pretty on her site? Perfectly rounded, perfectly filled, perfectly photographed....



Wanna see how mine turned out?

This was the best looking batch. Seriously. I tried about 5 batches of these cookies. I tried them thin, I tried them thick and they always came out spread way all over the pan and looking like a mess. I still have one log and one batch of the dough still chilling in my fridge. I dont know what to do with it. I attempted to make two batches of these, because of all the chilling time, etc, I didn't want to run out of time to make them. Oh, and I had one batch completely stick to my greased non-stick pan and had to dispose of them down the garbage disposal... so, there's that, too.

Now, they taste REALLY good. But seriously... if you saw these sitting out on a platter at a party... you'd run far, far, far away.

So, I bagged them up all in a ziploc and I thought they'd make a good ice cream topping.

So, this christmas party will be without a fruity, festive cookie and after all these bad cookies I've made... i'm done with fruity and festive. Well, at least till next Christmas.