PEEPS PATRIOTIC S'MORES

Photo: PEEPS®

I love S'MORES, and these seasonal  PEEPS® Patriotic Vanilla Creme Marshallow Chicks are so cute! This photo and recipe are from my friends at PEEPS®.  Here's something fun for everyone at the Fourth of July barbecue or campfire: PEEPS Patriotic S'mores!

PEEPS PATRIOTIC SMORES!

Ingredients
PEEPS Patriotic Vanilla Creme Marshmallow Chicks
Graham crackers
Chocolate bars
Sprinkles (Red, White and Blue)

Directions
Break graham crackers in half, so you have two squares.
Melt PEEP over fire or low heat.
Layer melted PEEP over square of chocolate, with graham cracker square on bottom
Top S’more with second graham cracker square and drizzle melted chocolate on top
Add patriotic sprinkles, and top off with PEEPS Patriotic Vanilla Creme Marshmallow Chick

Happy Fourth of July!

BEAT THE HEAT! FRESH UP WITH 7-UP (Chocolate Cake!)

Love this Beat the Heat! "fresh up" with Seven-Up! Ad from July 5, 1948! Family days at the Beach. Mom packs the picnic basket" Dad drives; and the kids fill the cooler with 7-Up. Seems like a lot of 7-Up from the photo. But they all look like they're having fun at the Beach--with 7-Up.

Another way of enjoying 7-Up, a very retro carbonated beverage, is to use it as a leavening agent in a chocolate bundt cake. I've posted 7-Up Chocolate Cake recipes for my Mad Men Marathon several years ago, but this is an easy 'from scratch" recipe. As I mentioned, the 7-Up is the leavening agent. Enjoy! Try to beat the heat this holiday weekend! This cake travels well!

7-Up Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
2 cups unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp Madagascar vanilla
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup DARK cocoa
1 cup 7-Up
1 cup dark chocolate chips  (or a cup of dark chocolate broken into chunks)
 
Directions
Cream butter.
Add sugar and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, beating well after each one.
Stir in salt, flour and cocoa. Blend thoroughly.
Add 7-UP.
Fold in chocolate chips or chunks.
Bake in greased and floured Bundt pan for 60 minutes (or until tester comes clean).
Cool on wire rack. 

Optional: Glaze when cooled with dark chocolate Dobash Frosting. 

Dobash Frosting
1 1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Ghirardelli cocoa
pinch of salt

Combine all in saucepan and bring to a boil.
Add 1/2 cup water to make a paste. Stir into cocoa mixture with whisk over heat until it thickens. Pour while hot over cake and spread.

National Ice Cream Soda Day: Brown Cow

Today is National Ice Cream Soda Day, and, of course, I'm going to have a Brown Cow! See recipe below. Ice cream sodas, aka ice cream floats, are made by combining ice cream with soda or carbonated water and flavored syrup. Of course, mine always contain chocolate (ice cream and syrup). Many people consider root beer and vanilla ice cream to be the classic ingredients for an ice cream soda, but that's a Black Cow. I posted a recipe on National Black Cow Day. A Brown Cow is very similar, but it's made with chocolate ice cream. See below for an easy recipe for a Brown Cow to celebrate National Ice Cream Soda Day!  Serve in a "retro" glass or Mason jar for that 'oout of the past' feeling. A Brown Cow is great for Fourth of July or any time!

According to Wisegeek.com, "although the recipe for an ice cream soda is quite simple, there is a trick to creating the perfect drink. Plain soda foams because it releases carbon dioxide gas, but ice cream is actually a foamy mixture of liquid, ice crystals, and air pockets. Therefore, if you want to make an ice cream soda with a lot of foam, put the ice cream in the glass before pouring the soda. If you want to make a treat with a minimal amount of foam, add the ice cream after the soda has been poured."

From The Nibble:

According to food historians, the first ice cream soda was created by accident at the Philadelphia Exposition in October 1874. It was there that pharmacist Robert M. Green invented the now-familiar ice cream soda. At that time, at soda fountains in pharmacies across America, the pharmacist or an employee known as a soda jerk (because he had to jerk back the tap of carbonated water to make a soda) would create a “cream soda” by adding a tablespoon of vanilla or other flavor of fountain syrup along with a tablespoonful of heavy cream to soda water. 

As with most stories, there are multiple variations. One version says that the fountain ran out of fresh cream. As there was no cream in the vicinity, Mr. Green got vanilla ice cream from a nearby vendor. He planned to let it melt and use it as cream, but was so busy that instead he added a frozen spoonful directly to the cream soda. In another version, he ran out of ice and used the ice cream to cool the drink. However, in his own published account, (in Soda Fountain magazine in 1910), he recounted that while operating a soda fountain at the Franklin Institute’s sesquicentennial celebration in Philadelphia in 1874, he wanted to create something that would attract customers away from another competitor. During some deliberate experimenting, he added ice cream to the soda water. 

Whatever the genesis, the ice cream soda was an instant hit and spread nationwide, where they were also called floats (for the scoop of ice cream floating at the top of the glass). 
Read more at: http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/ice-cream/ice-cream-float.asp

Brown Cow

Ingredients 
Chocolate syrup
Chocolate ice cream
Root beer  (or cola)
Whipped cream, for garnish
Chocolate sprinkles, for garnish
Optional: 1 ounce Godiva chocolate liqueur  (for an adult Brown Cow!)

Directions
Put approximately 2-1/2 scoops of chocolate ice cream in glass cup (depending on size of glass)
Pour optional liqueur over ice cream.
Fill glass with cola (or root beer).
Place spoon in glass and stir gently.
Top with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and sprinkles.
Add straw and serve.

Chocolate Tapioca Pudding: 2 Recipes for National Tapioca Day!

Tapioca, along with junket and pudding, were standard desserts when I was growing up. I knew what pudding was, but never junket or tapioca. As a child that was fine, but as an adult interested in food and food derivations, this holiday--National Tapioca Day--got my attention.

According to Ask.Yahoo, tapioca is a root starch derived from the cassava, or yuca plant. It's often used to thicken soups and sweeten the flavor of baked goods, and it makes a great pudding. The cassava plant is native to South America and the West Indies, where its thick, fibrous roots are used in a variety of forms: bread flour, laundry starch, an alcoholic brew, and of course, tapioca pudding.

From Wikipedia: The pudding can be made from scratch using tapioca in a variety of forms: flakes, coarse meal, sticks, and pearls. Many commercial packaged mixes are also available. British schoolchildren have traditionally nicknamed the dish frog spawn, due to its appearance. American children often call it fish eyes and glue.

And here's a reason not to make tapioca at home -- cassava roots have traces of cyanide in them! The ever-resourceful Mayans, the first known to use tapioca, figured out how to extract this poison for their blow darts, leaving the uncontaminated roots free for eating. Perhaps this information would be better served on my other blog, Mystery Fanfare.

So a processed tapioca should be used in the following recipes. The first recipe for Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding recipe is adapted from Kraft recipes and uses instant tapioca. The second recipe uses tapioca that needs to be soaked overnight. I think the flavor is much better, but really for me, it's all about the chocolate.

1. Easy Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding 

Ingredients
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbsp MINUTE Tapioca
3-1/2 cups whole milk
3 ounces dark chocolate (60-75% cacao)
1 tsp Madagascar vanilla

Directions
Beat egg lightly in medium saucepan with wire whisk.
Add sugar and tapioca; mix well.
Gradually add milk, beating well after each addition.
Let stand 5 minutes. Add chocolate.
Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring constantly.
Reduce heat to medium-low; cook until chocolate is completely melted, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Stir in vanilla.
Cool 20 minutes; stir. (Pudding thickens as it cools.)
SERVE warm or chilled.

2. Longer to make but worth it -- Dark Chocolate Tapioca Pudding
adapted only slightly from JamHands (a great site)  

Ingredients
1/2 cup Tapioca Pearls
2-1/2 cups Whole Milk
Pinch of Salt
2 Eggs, Separated
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Tbsp Madagascar Vanilla
4-6 ounces dark chocolate, chopped

Directions
Soak tapioca in 2 cups of room temperature water overnight. Drain water in morning.
Heat milk over medium low heat in top of double boiler (for just a very short time, do not boil). Add salt and tapioca. Continue to heat until small bubbles appear. Cover, turn heat to very low and cook for one hour. Make sure the milk mixture does not simmer or boil.
Separate egg whites from yolks.
Beat egg yolks and sugar together until light yellow in color. Add a little of hot milk mixture to egg yolks and blend thoroughly.
Add egg yolk mixture into hot milk mixture, stirring constantly.
Place double boiler over medium heat and cook until tapioca mixture is very thick, from 15 – 30 minutes.
Beat egg whites until stiff.
Slowly fold hot tapioca mixture into egg whites.
Stir in vanilla and chopped chocolate and combine thoroughly until smooth.
Serve warm or chilled.

HAPPY TAPIOCA DAY!