Some experiments work, some not so much

I seldom plan for a dessert but I frequently want to eat dessert after supper. So this means if I'm going to have dessert I have to improvise.

I have a recipe for "All Bran Brownies" which I had never tried so I decided to make it one evening. The recipe basically calls for soaking some All Bran in warm water to soften then mixing in a box of instant brownie mix and baking soda and then baking. Easy peasy :) So as the All Bran was soaking I went to get the brownie mix out of the cupboard and to my horror the cupboard was bare. Well, bare of brownie mix anyways. However, I had a box of chocolate cake mix. So I thought that was close enough and continued with the recipe using the cake mix.


The key ingredients... All Bran cereal and Chocolate Cake mix.


The mix in the pan all ready to go in the oven. It was significantly thicker and more dense than a typical cake mix or even a typical brownie mix. It was more like the consistency of mashed potatoes.

I baked and iced the cake but alas, the experiment was a failure. The cake was dense and had a definite All Bran taste. Not even icing could save this cake. I had one piece and threw the rest away. However, its one saving grace is that because of the high fiber content from the All Bran cereal, the cake was very filling. It was almost a meal in itself.

On another day I decided to improvise a cheesecake-type dessert. I started by making a graham cracker crust. I didn't measure anything which is so not like me but was very fun and freeing :)

This is about 1/2 box of graham cracker crumbs, a pinch of salt, about 2 tablespoons of sugar, and a little melted butter. After mixing them all together I pressed the mixture into a pie plate.

The filling was interesting. It consisted of 1 package of light cream cheese, 1 can of condensed milk, some salt, and a splash of lemon juice (all mixed together in the bowl). Then I folded in about 2/3 of a cool whip container and about 1/4 cup of sliced almonds.

The salsa in the picture was not part of the dessert recipe. We were having tacos that night :)

Then I poured the filling into the crust. It was about the consistency of pudding which is a little more liquidy than I would have liked. I put the pie in the refrigerator to set. It needed about 5 hours to set but 2 hours later a certain man in my life was asking "is the dessert ready yet?", "can we have dessert now?", "I'm sure the dessert will be set by now" so I caved and served the not-quite-set dessert.

I started with this. It's like Nutella but instead of all hazelnut it's half hazelnut and half caramel. I spooned some of this lovely concoction into a bowl and melted it in the microwave.

I served one slice of pie onto a plate and drizzled the melted Nutella-like spread over the top. Yummy!

You can tell from the pic that the pie could have used more time to set in the fridge. However, even after being in the fridge overnight it was still a little sloppy. I think using less Cool Whip (about 1/3 of a tub instead of 2/3) would resolve the problem. I also would have cut the salt out of the filling or reduced it significantly. A little salt in the crust is great but having more than a pinch in the filling was too much. The almonds added a nice texture to the filling. Another option would be to sprinkle the almonds on the pie crust and then pour the filling on top to result in more of a layered effect.

Overall, I see this pie as a successful experiment. It was eaten quite happily (the next day it had set a little more) and with a few minor modifications I'd make it again.

Have you tried to whip together a dessert with no preparation? What was the result?

Pop Quiz

Here is the much anticipated guest blog on Foodiestudent. Notes in italics and bold are my own. Hey, it's my blog and I can't have anyone TOTALLY take the spotlight from me :D. With that in mind, take it away, Louisa........

Hello there, gentle readers! This is a guest post by Vicky’s (ahem, Foodiestudent or FS) sister, Louisa. A couple weeks ago I suggested she try this “pop quiz” for her blog, but the more I talked about it, the more I realized that I wanted to do this experiment myself, not just read about it on her blog. So she agreed to let me do a guest post and here we are! (I am nothing if not generous!)

For this experiment, I made homemade pop by mixing various types of syrup with club soda. Then I recruited some coworkers and we taste-tested them all.

(Note: During the taste test, most of us simply drank the pop and rated it. But we had a couple of wine aficionados in the group who swirled, sniffed, and sipped the pop, then used words like “bouquet” and “low notes” to describe it. Awesome!)

The syrups:

1. Homemade raspberry syrup made from fresh, locally grown, organic raspberries (made by my boss’s husband!)
2. Maple syrup
3. Ice Java (sweet coffee syrup that you’re supposed to add to milk)
4. Ribena (blackcurrant syrup)

Here you can see how much syrup we put in each glass. This also shows the order in which we conducted the taste test (raspberry, Ribena, maple, Ice Java):

And here they are after adding the club soda (we used canned Canada Dry club soda):

We thought it was pretty funny how the Ice Java pop looks like Guinness. :) (the foam on the "Guinness" looks so thick it could be eaten with a spoon)

We had 11 taste-testers, including myself, and each pop was rated on a scale of 1-5 points, with 5 being the best. People could also add comments. The results:

Raspberry pop:

• Scores ranged from 4 to 5, with an average score of 4.7
• "Smells and tastes fantastic"
• "Not too sweet but still really fruity; delicious!"
• "Much tastier than real pop!"
• "Fresh-tasting flavor"

Ribena:

• Scores ranged from 3 to 5, with an average score of 4.1
• "Good flavor but not as good as raspberry"
• "Tangy, less sweet"
• "Bland"
• "Not quite as fresh tasting [as the raspberry]"

Maple:

• Scores ranged from 1 to 5, with an average score of 3.2
• "Much too sugary"
• "Good and sugary"
• "Delicious! A sweet treat"
• "Yuck!! I didn’t even finish it. (Adding Ribena did NOT help)" (Maple and Ribena... just the thought makes me cringe)

Ice Java:

• Scores ranged from -1 to 5, with an average score of 2.6
• "Tastes like a hardware store. Disgusting" (I got my best belly laugh in months from this comment)
• "Good bouquet. Great coffee undertones"
• "Big head, short taste" (Due to my ladylike nature I shall refrain from snickering at this)
• "Not good for non-coffee lovers"

Here are all the individual ratings. We were fairly consistent in liking the fruit-based pops, but varied widely with the more unusual maple and Ice Java pops:

Average scores:

Incidentally, I work at a university and all my taste-testers are researchers. They offered some comments about the research methods and results: (*cough*geeks*cough*)

• For each round of testing, we had the same person pour the syrup, to make the quantities as consistent as possible (without actually bothering to measure). However, we each poured our own club soda, filling the glasses from 1/3 to 1/2 full. (Perhaps mixing each flavor in a pitcher and pouring into the cups would have been a better method, hindsight being 20/20 and all)


• We noticed that the scores got lower for each subsequent test, possibly because we were subjectively comparing each drink to the first one we tried, and so the first one became the de facto gold standard. Also, some people didn’t rinse their cups between tests. (44 plastic cups from Wal-Mart: $1.98. Accurate results on the "pop quiz": priceless)

In the end, we recommend heading to your local farmer’s market to find someone selling organic fruit syrup, and using that for your own homemade pop experiments. And Ice Java belongs with milk (or chocolate milk – yum!), not club soda. (The FS will definitely be keeping an eye open for organic fruit syrup. The raspberry & club soda combo looks yummy and refreshing)

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for the great blog post, Louisa. Come back and do another guest post anytime.

Until next week, loyal blog readers.... adieu!

Special Guest Blogger

I'm very happy to announce that next week's blog will be delivered by a special guest blogger. This is the portrait of the guest blogger..... apparently:

Check back next week to read about the results of a fun food experiment.