no-bake grasshopper pie

about a week or so ago i told the lovely heather that i would be blogging more of my massive failures for your entertainment. i went to college with heather as well as high school (sort of) with her fiance, will, so it's only right that THIS massive failure looks like something that got thrown up on st. patrick's day:


i over-beat the creamy mint pie filling. happy birthday, daddy!

in any case, i'll give you the recipe so you, too, can stupidly over-beat the filling (TWICE) and make globby mint butter (let's call it buerre de menthe-- it sounds more purposeful).

ingredients:

• 8 ounces mascarpone cheese
• 2 tbs confectioner sugar
• 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
• 1 envelope gelatin
• 1/2 cup creme de menthe syrup*
• (*1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar & 1 tsp mint extract boiled for 2 minutes and then cooled)
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1 package mint milano cookies
• 2 tbs softened butter
• 1/3 cup almond meal (or some more crushed cookies)

prep:

• (make your creme de menthe syrup)
• sprinkle gelatin powder over 1/4 cup cold water and allow to sit for 2 minutes, then nuke for 15 seconds to dissolve gelatin, allow to cool
• soften mascarpone cheese in a bowl
• cut one inch off the end of each cookie
• crush the one inch pieces and combine with butter & almond meal

• pat crumbs into the bottom of a 9" pie plate
• line sides with remaining cookies, refrigerate until needed
  

actual cooking:

• beat mascarpone cheese slightly
• add creme de methe syrup & confectioners sugar
• beat until combined (it's not pretty)
• continue beating while you add heavy cream
• beat until soft peaks form
• continue beating while you add gelatin
• beat until medium-stiff peaks form
• (try not to make chunky mint butter)
• pour into prepared pie plate and chill at least 4 hours

so, my second attempt at this recipe didn't turn out that great, either, but since it's slightly less chunky than the barfy-looking one, i dumped it in the pie plate and hoped for the best.

thing i hate about this recipe are: i used both mint & chocolate-mint cookies and ended up with 2 mint next to eat other-- i wish my pie plate's circumference was about 1/2 an inch bigger; gelatin is GROSS, in so many ways; and i completely suck at whipping cream. which is why god made WHIPPED CREAM IN A CAN.

concept: daddy cookies

my entire life, my daddy has been responsible for eating-- and enjoying-- every, single, ugly, ridiculous thing i've baked. it's pretty much his sworn duty. even when it's a "cake" that took three hours in the easybake oven and is frosted black, and not by using chocolate frosting and black food dye (oh, yeah, they have that!), but mixing all the colors together. mmmmm, delicious, sweetie.

for whatever reason, i've been having a slightly bad run with cookies this year. my peanut butter cookies are a little too short and hard. (but pretty, damn it!) my first tray of oatmeal cookies spread too much and browned too much. my pinwheels are three different sizes (totally my fault). my first tray of sugar cookies stuck to my greased cookie sheets. so did my first batch of slightly misshapen spritzes. my second go at sugar cookies came out beautiful but my second batch of spritzes came out horribly misshapen. horribly.

ugly or slightly irregular cookies do not go on trays. they're called husband cookies. we feed them to our husbands. (i know, you think you want to feel bad for the poor husbands eating ugly or irregular cookies all month-- don't. they're eating delicious, homemade cookies all month, okay?) i make so many husband cookies that bill has to spread the wealth a little bit. hence the concept: daddy cookies.

last night i made a whole batch of husband/daddy spritzes. a whole batch. that's, like, six dozen. they're perfect in every other way, but all kinds of ugly. i don't know why. my press is messed up-- there's too much pressure or something-- it's really hard to press out the cookies and dough leaks, spills, really, in between cookies, leaving little cookie tails. and, to top it all off, somehow, the christmas tree plate broke. it's broken. unusable. do you think wilton sells them individually? no. wilton and i are totally in a fight. except... i really want a couple of food dye sets (the 12-pack, the 8-pack, primary, pastel and garden tones, and maybe throw in some white-white, no-taste red and copper), one of those spinny cake holders, a frosting spatula and... and... a cordless electric cookie press.

for now? i soldier on. chocolate-orange-almond biscotti tonight. (chocoralmond, for short.)

pie, pie, me oh my

okay. this is the ugly truth: not everything i cook comes out perfect. there. i admitted it. most things that come out wrong the first time are great the second time. some things... are not. like pie.

apparently, i can't bake a pie to save my life. oh, yes, it's true. PIE. my nemesis. i just popped my fourth apple crumb pie in as many weeks into the oven. and it's WRONG. let's break it up into its parts, shall we?

PIE CRUST: pie crust is deceptively simple. four ingredients (flour, fat, salt, water) are gently combined, rolled out beautifully, dropped into a pie plate, decoratively edged and bake up to flaky perfection. right? right. easy enough. i can't do it. i got a pastry blender. i tried it with ice-cold shortening, butter, room temperature shortening, ice water, cool water... every possible adjustment. i've followed the recipe to the letter and i've relied on my instincts. i've conjured up memories of my mother tossing pie crust together like it was nothing and i've stared at the frozen pie crust at trader joe's wondering if anyone would notice if i used one. the same batch of crust that was a perfect base to a pretty good pumpkin pie yesterday is a total crap base to yet another apple crumb pie today. did ya catch that?? THE SAME BATCH of pie crust is acting totally different today. i don't know what to do.

APPLE FILLING: my apple fillings ranged from sticky and squashy (when i forgot to cut in the butter!) to sour and crispy (pretty much every other time!) i'm trying to find rome apples, but so far i've been stuck with granny smith's. not. working.

CRUMB TOPPING: probably impossible to get WRONG, but still never quite RIGHT. there's no definition to my crumbs. but, seriously? sugar, butter, spice, flour. it's always delicious.

my fourth attempt at apple crumb pie is smelling delicious just now, almost half an hour into baking. i think the little bastard is lying-- just taunting me with it's perfect smell so that, later, after our guests enjoy the turkey, spinach and parmesan raviolis i made FROM INGREDIENTS, then can be shocked at appalled at how very, very BAD my pie is. but at least bill won't have to eat ANOTHER mediocre apple crumb pie all by himself.