Wait a minute, though, weren't you that perfect, put-together girl in high school? All appearances suggest that you must have been. Indeed, I think you still are - now with added meal-making skills. It wasn't hard for me to be convinced that Dorie's peppermint cream puff ring was the right choice! Maybe it was just me buckling under your perfect and put-together air...
It's funny, though, we seem to have had exactly opposite experiences with the recipe. I got one of my baking highs from the way the pate-a-choux came together. Piping warm dough blew my mind, and the fact that it made such a patisserie-perfect ring so very easily for me made me feel like a sorceress of flour! My family will bow before my desserty prowess!
But, um, making this late on Christmas night after the chaos of a Two Toddler Holiday may have been beyond my sorcery stamina. It came time to steep the mint leaves in the warm cream - and I realized that it was midnight and I was too freaking exhausted to set the alarm for three a.m. to take the mint leaves out of the cream. A few years ago, pre-kids, I would've done that. But, exhausted as I was, I knew I'd be up at six anyway so I figured that three more hours of cold time in the fridge wouldn't intensify the mint flavour TOO much. Right? Most of the flavour comes when the cream is warm anyway. Like making tea. Right? RIGHT?At six a.m. when I tasted the mint cream, I realized immediately that I was WRONG. And that I probably wouldn't need to brush my teeth. For a week. This mint cream did not 'whisper' of fresh, refreshing mint leaves. This mint cream SCREAMED and beat you about the head. It was like chewing an entire bunch of fresh mint. Unless you are a goat, I am not certain that this is a good idea.
So. You may have noticed that in the photo above (featuring my nephew), the cream is not the snow-white one might have expected. That's because the kitchen sorceress took over again and decided to make a 'quick' version of Dorie's Chocolate Pastry Cream to fold into the mint cream. It'd be like having a candy cane in your hot chocolate! Never mind that there was a car to pack for the three hour drive north (presents, children, snacks, Xanax - PLUS a three hour drive, PLUS a family Christmas, PLUS a three hour drive home), I told myself I could do it and 'whipped it up'. While having a dreadful fight with my husband about my culinary brinksmanship and my inability to just let things be. Very festive, right? I folded the new chocolate pastry cream into the mint cream - delicious! I piped it onto the ring, topped it with the luscious glaze and sighed in relief. As an olive branch, I magnanimously offered the spoon to the hubby to lick, doffed my apron and began to pack.
His face, however, immediately told me that my solution hadn't been as successful as I thought. He asked if I had really intended for dessert to taste like a chocolate mojito. Off came the top of the ring, on went the apron, I whipped up a huge quantity of plain whipped cream, folded in this now-annoying-chocolate-candy-cane combo, re-piped. Exhausted, the ring and I collapsed into the car.
But the ring traveled well. Better than I did, actually. It did gather a few oooohs and awwwwwwwwws and the mint flavour was toned-down enough to qualify as 'interesting' rather than 'INTENSE and possibly INSANE'.
So it was that I was neither perfect nor put-together. But I survived, we ate, my husband forgave me and it was indeed kinda merry and bright. I guess that is all you can ask for from a family holiday, sorceress or not.
What's next? What's the 2010 dessert?
Desperate to know,
Gumdrop
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