adventures in cooking
Yesterday was Kevin's birthday, so I made dinner and dessert. The dinner (Bacon Wrapped Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Spinach and Cheese Cakes) didn't come out as gourmet-looking as I'd hoped, but it did taste delicious, so I consider that a win. But the cake, oh the cake...
Now, this cake wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, high-class. But it looked really cool, and didn't taste half-bad, to boot! First, I decided I wanted to make an ice cream cake. Then I wanted to make a pizza cake. Problem was, no one who has ever made a pizza ice cream cake has posted about it on the intarwebs... so it was up to me to practice the ancient art of making things up. I drew inspiration from this cake and various other dessert pizza recipes found online.
Ingredients
-a tube of premade sugar cookie dough (from the dairy case)
-strawberry jam
-french vanilla ice cream (it's slightly more yellow than regular vanilla)
-Reese's miniature peanut butter cups
-a bar of white chocolate
-green frosting from a squeezy tube
Method
I took a smallish round pizza pan (12 or 13 inches, I think) and greased it up with butter. I let the cookie dough out for a few minutes before I opened it so it softened a bit. Once it was softened, I patted it into the pan, right to the edges, so it became one giant cookie, and baked it at 350 degrees for probably about 10 minutes... I just kept an eye on it and took it out when the edges were pretty golden and middle was starting to get golden. I set up a cooling rack and put the pan right on there to cool down, about 20 minutes.
Once the cookie was lukewarm, I smeared the jam around it, much like one would put sauce on a pizza. I avoided the outer half-inch to inch of cookie, to make the crust. Once the jam was spread, I wrapped the whole pan up in tinfoil and stuck it in the freezer to chill the jam so it wouldn't move around during the next step. At that point, I also stuck the ice cream in the fridge to soften up.
After about a half hour, I popped the pizza out of the freezer - the jam was nicely chilled into place. The ice cream came out of the fridge soft enough to spoon onto the pizza and kind of pat/spread it into place, but not completely melty. I spread a pretty thick layer on (maybe a little less than a centimeter thick) since the whole point was for this to be an ice cream cake. I left just a little bit of the jam showing around the edges in some spots. Once the ice cream was on, it was starting to get a little melty, which is okay... the pizza went back into the freezer, unwrapped for 15 - 20 minutes.
While the ice cream was firming up again, I started prepping the toppings. I made a "sausage, pepper and onion" pizza, but there's definitely room for invention here. For the sausage, I just cut Reese's miniatures peanut butter cups in half so that I ended up with 2 thinner circles from each one. The onions came from a white chocolate bar, cut into chunks approximating the size of coarsely diced onions. I took the idea of the peppers directly from the pizza cake recipe I linked above - I greased a small plate, squeezed 1-2 inch green frosting pieces onto the plate, and stuck the plate into the freezer for 15 minutes or so.
When the pizza came out of the freezer, the ice cream was still pretty soft, so I had to work quickly. First came the peanut butter cups, placed peanut butter side down and pushed a little bit into the ice cream. Next came the chilled and slightly more solid green frosting strands, scattered around in between the peanut butter cups. Finally, the white chocolate chunks were placed and pushed slightly into the ice cream, filling in the additional spaces. Finally, the whole thing was wrapped in tinfoil and put in the freezer overnight.
To serve, I was actually afraid to take it out of the pan in one piece (though later I discovered nothing stuck to the pan after all), so I just used a pizza cutter to cut into 8 slices. It actually held up really well to being eaten like pizza, and was pretty tasty! Kevin wants me to make it for future PIzza Friday gatherings... we'll see. :)
The pizza cake in all of its glory
I'm just so excited that something I was flying completely blind on ended up coming out so well. :)
(x-posted to geekfood)
Now, this cake wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, high-class. But it looked really cool, and didn't taste half-bad, to boot! First, I decided I wanted to make an ice cream cake. Then I wanted to make a pizza cake. Problem was, no one who has ever made a pizza ice cream cake has posted about it on the intarwebs... so it was up to me to practice the ancient art of making things up. I drew inspiration from this cake and various other dessert pizza recipes found online.
Ingredients
-a tube of premade sugar cookie dough (from the dairy case)
-strawberry jam
-french vanilla ice cream (it's slightly more yellow than regular vanilla)
-Reese's miniature peanut butter cups
-a bar of white chocolate
-green frosting from a squeezy tube
Method
I took a smallish round pizza pan (12 or 13 inches, I think) and greased it up with butter. I let the cookie dough out for a few minutes before I opened it so it softened a bit. Once it was softened, I patted it into the pan, right to the edges, so it became one giant cookie, and baked it at 350 degrees for probably about 10 minutes... I just kept an eye on it and took it out when the edges were pretty golden and middle was starting to get golden. I set up a cooling rack and put the pan right on there to cool down, about 20 minutes.
Once the cookie was lukewarm, I smeared the jam around it, much like one would put sauce on a pizza. I avoided the outer half-inch to inch of cookie, to make the crust. Once the jam was spread, I wrapped the whole pan up in tinfoil and stuck it in the freezer to chill the jam so it wouldn't move around during the next step. At that point, I also stuck the ice cream in the fridge to soften up.
After about a half hour, I popped the pizza out of the freezer - the jam was nicely chilled into place. The ice cream came out of the fridge soft enough to spoon onto the pizza and kind of pat/spread it into place, but not completely melty. I spread a pretty thick layer on (maybe a little less than a centimeter thick) since the whole point was for this to be an ice cream cake. I left just a little bit of the jam showing around the edges in some spots. Once the ice cream was on, it was starting to get a little melty, which is okay... the pizza went back into the freezer, unwrapped for 15 - 20 minutes.
While the ice cream was firming up again, I started prepping the toppings. I made a "sausage, pepper and onion" pizza, but there's definitely room for invention here. For the sausage, I just cut Reese's miniatures peanut butter cups in half so that I ended up with 2 thinner circles from each one. The onions came from a white chocolate bar, cut into chunks approximating the size of coarsely diced onions. I took the idea of the peppers directly from the pizza cake recipe I linked above - I greased a small plate, squeezed 1-2 inch green frosting pieces onto the plate, and stuck the plate into the freezer for 15 minutes or so.
When the pizza came out of the freezer, the ice cream was still pretty soft, so I had to work quickly. First came the peanut butter cups, placed peanut butter side down and pushed a little bit into the ice cream. Next came the chilled and slightly more solid green frosting strands, scattered around in between the peanut butter cups. Finally, the white chocolate chunks were placed and pushed slightly into the ice cream, filling in the additional spaces. Finally, the whole thing was wrapped in tinfoil and put in the freezer overnight.
To serve, I was actually afraid to take it out of the pan in one piece (though later I discovered nothing stuck to the pan after all), so I just used a pizza cutter to cut into 8 slices. It actually held up really well to being eaten like pizza, and was pretty tasty! Kevin wants me to make it for future PIzza Friday gatherings... we'll see. :)
The pizza cake in all of its glory
I'm just so excited that something I was flying completely blind on ended up coming out so well. :)
(x-posted to geekfood)