I should be revising a portfolio paper right now. I promised my committee chair I'd send her a complete draft by the end of the month--which is Monday. And I promised my study buddies I'd have a draft of it to workshop tomorrow. But here's the thing: I've been working like a dog all week, and my brain is fried. I need a break from academic writing. So I decided to make myself some treats.
Plus, I wanted to try my hand at the step-by-step cooking/baking photo blog post genre.
See, it was my turn last Saturday to do the grocery shopping, and I love berries. And they were on sale. So I bought a lot of them. I mean A LOT. So on Sunday, I made a pie. A chocolate uber-berry no-bake non-dairy cheesecake.* Mmmm-MM! It was delicious, and by far the most attractive pie I've ever made. Not that that's saying much--I'm pretty new to the pie-making business.
But it didn't use very many berries. I still had a lot of berries. And you know, fresh fruit doesn't last forever. So I made some chocolate covered strawberries.
Chocolate covered strawberries are easy (and also tasty). I wanted to try something different. I still had tons of raspberries, so I decided to make some chocolate raspberry cups. I put some melted white chocolate at the bottom of a mini-muffin pan, put two raspberries in each, and then I poured some melted semi-sweet chocolate over the top. Later, it occurred to me that I might have trouble getting the chocolate out of the pan, because I didn't use liners or anything. But I poked at their edges with a knife and they popped right out.
And they were DELICIOUS.
Except there was too much chocolate.
I know, right? I can't believe I'd say that either, but it's true. There was too much chocolate. They were hard to bite into, and the raspberry-chocolate ratio wasn't right. Well, we ate them anyway. Mostly I ate them. But I did share some with my roommates.
Even after completing this highly educational experiment, I still had a lot of berries. I could have just eaten them, but I had bigger ideas. I planned further experiments for my remaining test subjects, but didn't carry them out until tonight, spurred by the fact that my brain was beginning to dribble out of my ears from all that academic writing, and those berries weren't going to keep forever.
I decided to ditch the muffin pan. I dropped a bit of white chocolate in rows on a wax-paper covered cutting board and put a berry on top of each. In retrospect, maybe I should have left some just like this, because look how pretty! Or maybe I could have melted the chocolate to an even thinner consistency and just drizzled some delicately over the top. But who am I kidding? I'm not really the delicate type.
I wanted them completely covered in chocolate. I figured that it would get really messy if I tried to roll them in chocolate and then put them back on the paper. I also figured I could just pour chocolate over the top of them.
That sort of worked. But I could tell that I was going to end up with a "too much chocolate" problem again. Also, it wasn't looking very pretty. I decided to roll them after all, and then drop them back onto the wax paper.
Just as I predicted, it was messy. Overall though, I think they're slightly better looking than the "dribble chocolate over the top" models. And they certainly have a more reasonable berry-chocolate ratio. When I finished making my twelve white-chocolate-enhanced berries, even though I'd been snacking on the raw ingredients as I worked, I still had a few more raspberries left. So I just rolled those in chocolate too. Might as well.
Messy, but DELICIOUS. I plan to conduct follow-up experiments to improve my methodology and satisfy my need for chocolate and distractions from doing actual work.
*Chocolate Uber-berry No-bake Non-dairy Cheesecake Recipe:
Ingredients:
Sliced strawberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Any other berries you want
1 8-oz package of plain Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
2 C thawed non-dairy whipped topping
3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 C (1/2 stick) margarine, softened
1/2 C sugar
1 graham cracker crust
Directions:
In a microwave-safe bowl, heat chocolate chips on MEDIUM for 1 minute. Stir. If needed, heat in additional 30-second increments on medium until melted and smooth.
In a large bowl, mix cream cheese, margarine, and sugar on medium speed until creamy. Gradually add whipped topping and chocolate, mixing on low speed until well blended. Spoon into crust.
Arrange berries on top of the pie any way you want. Chill in refrigerator until firm (about two hours) before serving.
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