Firework Tower: A Sweet Addition To Your Independence Day Celebrations

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Hopefully you're all being safe out there. Do me a favor, though. Every time that you thank a military service person today for keeping the freedom, be sure to thank an emergency services responder for always being there to clean up after the people that celebrate a little too hard, eh? The freedom to carry on about our usual lives has as much to do with the people who contend with civilian issues as it does with the people who face the battlefront. If you're reading this and you've served our country in any capacity, military or otherwise, I salute you.

Now, today we've got a real treat on our hands. This is courtesy of two people... Danish food blogger Mat over at Kvalifood for giving me the inspiration, and my old roommate Shirley for giving me the necessary equipment.

I call it the Firework Tower, as I feel that it accurately captures all of the fun and festivities of watching fireworks. However, this is technically a take on a Danish dessert (not to be confused with a Danish pastry, although you know you're doing something right when your country has an entire food named after it) called "kransekake." There's about as many spellings of that word are there are letters in it, so I'm going with the one listed on the product name for the specialty pans needed to make this. Traditionally, kransekake is made with marzipan-type-stuff, but this one is made with cookies, as almond paste is expensive. And that's putting it lightly.


Equipment:

• 1 Set Kransekake Pans
  • I used the Fox Run Non-Stick Kransekake Pans
• Mixer
• Piping Bags & Tips
  • I used a smaller star tip for this... but feel free to use whatever. As long as you've got the GOOD plastic baggies and not the cheap ones, you can usually get away with one of those instead of a piping bag
• Cake-a-Whirl
  • I broke out my trusty ol' Wilton Trim & Turn
• 12in Cake Circle
• Cooling Racks
• Spray Grease

Ingredients:

• Cookie Dough, Half Red, Half White
  • I actually used 2 boxes of Betty Crocker candy cane cookie mix, left over from Christmas. It has a slight peppermint flavor, but I found that it works well for this. You'll want the dough to be slightly stiff, though, so I made it with slightly less butter and water than called for.
• 12oz (Block & 1/2) Cream Cheese, Softened
  • Don't get the reduced fat stuff... it doesn't work quite right
• 1/2c Butter Or Substitute, Softened
  • As usual, I used my cheap old store brand vegetable oil spread. What? Real butter is EXPENSIVE.
• Blue Food Coloring
• Lots of Powdered Sugar
• 1tbsp Vanilla Extract
  • I used imitation extract... you may need less if you're using the real stuff. Taste testing is a thing here... be sure to use it.
• Flour

The first thing that you'll want to do is preheat your oven to 350F, and spray down the insides of the kransekake ring molds with grease. Grease is your friend here. While that's warming up, start rolling out the dough into snakes, trying to get each one about half the width of one of the kransekake rings. Twist the two colors against each other into a rope, and load it into the ring molds, starting with the inner rings. Work in parts about 1/3 the length of the ring, and follow it around, gently squishing the ends together.

You'll want to squish the dough down so that the top of it is pretty much even with the "high part" on the ring mold, as cookie dough likes to spread out when cooked, and you don't want your rings fusing. You can usually work the "extra" dough further down the ring, filling in any cracks. Repeat for all rings.

You'll want the cookies to be fairly stiff by the time that they come out of the oven, so no soft-baked ones here. For me, that was about 15 minutes on convection bake. Times may vary. While the cookies are baking, you can start in on the icing.

Much like the cookies, you'll want a fairly stiff icing, as this is what holds the whole operation together. Mix the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla together until well blended, then slowly add the powdered sugar, mixing on medium. Alternate adding food coloring and powdered sugar, until desired consistency and color are achieved. Now, the type of butter that you're using and the ambient humidity can greatly affect the amount of powdered sugar that you have to use in order to get a stiff icing. You'll want it soft enough to put through a piping bag without bursting said bag, but hard enough that it doesn't run when at an angle. This took me about 6 cups of powdered sugar, but it had also been raining all day.

Once the cookie rings are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool completely, in a dry location. The cooling is important, as it allows them to finish stiffening up. Once they're cooled, free the rings from the molds. I found this was fairly easy to do by running a fingernail round the entire outside of the outermost cookie ring, removing that ring, and then repeating for inner rings. DO NOT mix up the order of the rings. Seriously. Don't.

Find the largest outermost cookie ring and adhere it, as centered as possible, to the cake circle with the icing. Then, go with a zig zag pattern around the ring, making sure that the icing comes down over the edge of the ring.

Find the next ring in the size series and gently press it into the icing on the just-decorated ring. For what it's worth, the ring molds are made to where the size progression involves the outermost ring from each set, then, starting back with the original mold, the middle ring, etc.

From there, it's pretty much repeat, repeat, repeat (but no lathering or rinsing, please) until all the rings are finished. In the event that you're wondering which ring really comes next, "float" it above the assembled bits in order to find out... don't let it touch the frosting until you're sure. Otherwise you're looking at a mess.

For what it's worth, this piece makes an amazing center piece. Feel free to decorate it with little flags or whatnot. Also -- it's worth noting that there are tons of other countries out there whose colors of representation are red, white, and blue, so, my international readers, feel free to commandeer this as needed for your own respective patriotic celebrations.

Cocoa Crumpets: An Edible Celebration

As many of you are likely unaware, today marks the 30th anniversary of my singular most favorite movie of all time -- The Great Mouse Detective. A remnant of the days when the villains of children's movies could actually have a personality and character rather than being generic egotistical cocky bad guy #7, the film was actually one of the first Disney movie to use any substantial computer animation, ultimately laying the groundwork for the visuals in some of their more well known movies, notably Beauty and the Beast. 

While it saddens me that The Great Mouse Detective has ultimately fallen out of the light of widely known Disney animated features, I must celebrate the day that this wonderful piece of work was released to the public (and hope that it's included in the Disney-to-Netflix migration coming later this year). As such, I've made crumpets, or a take on them at least.

Not being of anything vaguely resembling British descent, I had to consult the internet on where to start with this particular escapade. Ultimately, I wound up drawing on Bread A Day's crumpet recipe as my initial springboard, and kind of went a bit... astray from there (I really need to check this out more... it's an entire site devoted to BREAD. That's like... 50% of my diet). My version is made to be more of a sweet crumpet, rather than an English muffin impersonator. 

Ingredients:

• 3c White Cake Mix, Plus Extra
• 2 Eggs
• 2c Whole Milk, Plus Extra
• 4tsp Baking Cocoa
• 1pkg Dry Yeast
• 2tbsp Butter Or Substitute, Melted

Equipment:

• Mixing Bowl
• Whisk
• Griddle Or Frying Pan
• Spatula
• Plastic Wrap
• Sifter or Fine Sieve 

Be ye forewarned: there's a lot of wait time involved in making these. Not like active prep time where you're having to do things, but more to the effect of "you won't be able to eat these shortly after breaking out the ingredients." So if you're hangry and in need of an edible sacrifice immediately if not sooner... check out my Oreo Mousse instead. 

The first bit that you'll want to do is whisk together the eggs, milk, and butter, until they're well blended. Once that's all together, you'll want to mix in enough cake mix to get a batter like you're making pancakes. This may take a bit more or less, especially if the humidity level in your area is tripping out. If you over do it, no biggie, just add more milk. Fully whisk in the cocoa and yeast. 

Now comes the tough part. You'll want to cover the batter with plastic wrap and leave it somewhere vaugely warm-ish to rise until it's all bubbly. Mine took over two hours for that to happen, but I also made the mistake of leaving it in an area where my husband controls the air conditioning. I'm pretty sure I saw a Yeti go skirting about the room. 

For now, we shall part ways. But 'tis not forever. 

Once you've actually survived the wait, heat up your griddle or frying pan, and grease it lightly with... well, whatever your preferred pan-greasing-method is. Getting the temperature right on these will take some work, so you'll want to start with only pouring out one of these at a time until you get the temperature set right. This is the point of the show where some people break out egg rings or English muffin forms... I just kind of free handed it due to the lack thereof. It's really kind of like making pancakes. 

Turns out about a quarter cup of the batter is enough to get a crumpet that's sufficiently large, yet still easy to turn over. It stays one way up until there are lots of bubbles (apparently the main distinguishing factor between crumpets and English muffins is the bubbles) and the top is "dry", then you flip it over and finish cooking it. 

I discovered two things while cooking these. One is that my griddle doesn't cook evenly. Sadness. Secondly is that these are amazing with Papa Murphy's cream cheese dip that comes with their cinnamon wheels. One of these days, I'm just going to have to go in there and ask for a gallon of the stuff. Caramel sauce or butterscotch ice cream topping also works really well. 

Fruit Gusher Cupcakes: An Experiment of Sufficient Deliciousness

Hello everyone! I know it's been a while since you all have heard from me, and I apologize. Turns out that when you've got holes in the roof of the place where you usually cook... it causes some problems.  Especially when it's rainy season. Yeah. If anyone knows where to go to protest to get Murphy's Law repealed, let me know.

That aside, I've got a new recipe for everyone today that's actually my husband's idea. I was kind of surprised when he brought this idea to me. Don't get me wrong -- he's a great cook, he's just usually not into sweet things, which is what caught me as odd about his suggestion. But, whatever. I present: Fruit Gusher Cupcakes! (As I typed that, there were fireworks going off outside. Heh. Makes me feel like I did something important.)

Now, I'll admit, I'm no professional chef or anything. As stated, I have a *very* different day job. I'm just the kid that figured out through trial and (more than I'll ever admit) error, how to feed herself through means other than the takeout window. Although I'm guilty of using that option more than I should. That having been said, these are very much an experiment. We kind of just... rolled with it, really, and went on a grand scavenger hunt through the house for ingredients. Over all, things turned out fairly well. My only real complaint was that it was storming at the time I was doing the frosting, so the humidity and the decoration didn't dance to the same tune.

Spoiler Alert: the Fruit Gusher doesn't melt. I was kind of surprised by this, as I've seen what happens to these if you accidentally leave them in your car. Yes, I am an adult. Yes, I am eating Fruit Gushers. I am old enough to make my own decisions and buy my own groceries.

Anyhow, here's what you'll need for to set up your own laboratory:

Equipment:

• Mixer and Bowl
• Mini Muffin Pan
• Mini Muffin Liners
• Mini Muffin Holder (Optional)
  • I used the Wilton 3-in-1 caddy. I really like the design as it keeps the cupcakes nice and secure
• Piping Bag + Tips
• Spoons
• Mixing Bowl
• Whisk

Cupcakes:

• White Cake Mix
  • I used a Pillsbury Moist Supreme White Cake mix
• Fruit Gushers

Icing:

• 4c Powder Sugar, + Additional
• 1/2c Butter or Similar
  • I used the store-branded "vegetable oil spread". What can I say? Real butter is **expensive**
• 1tbsp Whole Milk
• 6tbsp Tang Drink Mix, + Additional

The cupcakes themselves are pretty much straight forward. Follow the directions on the back of the box for making the batter. Yes, I am that much of a bum. What can I say? Fill your muffin pan full of liners, and fill each cavity roughly half way full. Much fuller than that, and they'll overflow when cooking. No dentistry here. Then, push a singular Fruit Gusher into the middle of each batter cup. Okay, I somewhat lied. The dentistry will have to come later. 

I got a hold of a mixed box of Fruit Gusher packs, where apparently half the packages are strawberry, and the other half are some sort of tropical roulette. I wound up drawing out 3 strawberry packages and 1 fruit roulette. The odds were not quite in my favor. Hence why most of them are red. 

You'll want to bake these until they're fully cooked. For me, that was 10 minutes at 350F, in a convection oven. Baking times may vary. Just keep an eye on them. That's the most important part here.

While the cupcakes are roasting, start on making the frosting. Start off with the butter and milk in the bottom of the mixer, and mix in about half the sugar and Tang drink mix. Slowly add in more powdered sugar until the icing is thick enough to use. Humidity can play a huge part in the amount you'll have to use. You'll want for the icing to be fairly thick so that it'll stay together when you put it on the cupcakes and not slide right back off. Unless you want a glaze. Then by all means, go for runny. Your call. 

Making judicious use of ye olde taste test, add in more Tang mix as needed. Just do it in small increments, because you can quickly turn from barely being able to taste it to having your face turned inside out. Anybody remember the face from the warhead candies? Yep. Right there.

Let your cupcakes cool completely, so that they don't melt the frosting, then go to town with all your icing and frosting skills. I used a star tip and just did a generic swirl about the cupcake, but feel free to turn loose with it. Also, general note: I found that they were *much* easier to apply frosting to once they were in my cupcake carrier, because the edges of the mini cupcake tray held them perfectly in place and apart at a decent enough distance. Do yourself a favor and start on the row away from yourself and work across then forwards. Yeah, there's a nice streak of delightfully-flavored frosting running up my arm that says I speak from experience. 

Enjoy!

Oreo Mousse: A Dessert Fit For A Queen

Hello everyone! It's story time. When I was a little kid, I used to spend a lot of time at my grandparents' house. I'd usually wind up having a lot of fun. Or maybe that's the sugar from all the treats I was given while there talking. Oh well, consuming treats is fun too, right? Among other things, I'd help my grandfather with his penny collection while I was there. He couldn't really see the numbers on the coins well, and that was pretty much the part where I come in. We'd spend hours out on the enclosed porch, me reading off what the coins said, and him placing the relevant ones into the collection books.

He collected Lincoln pennies, and every so often would wind up with a "new" bag to sort through. One day, though, this lone Canadian penny had made its way across the border and into this sack. Needless to say, when I saw a coin with my name on it, I freaked out something serious. Now, I'll admit, I was slightly disappointed when I realized that there wasn't a spot in the collection book for said penny, but that was quickly washed away by the pure excitement that my name was on a bit of currency! 

Grandpa decided to let me keep the coin, and I immediately showed it to Dad when he came to retrieve me. He then explained that the person on there was the Queen of England. Now, you have to understand something. For a little girl growing up in very rural America, the idea of a queen having my name was a HUGE thing. Granted, this also may have had something to do with the fact that I was riding on the Disney Princess train, like a lot of girls that age tend to do, and I knew that Queen was what happened when a Princess grows up (or at least that's the rough gist of it). Understanding why the Queen of England was on a coin from Canada took a few more years, but you can only expect a two year old to understand so much about politics.

For the next several years, I obsessively went through every bit of change that my parents got, sorting through them for more of the "my coins." Turns out that in the early 90's, Canadian currency was working its way into the middle of America fairly often. I wound up with a fair sized stash of them. My infatuation with this particular monetary denomination became so well known among my family members, that one year my uncle built me a small jewelry box with one of the coins embedded in the lower right hand corner of the lid. 

Flash forward a lot of years. When I found out that Queen Elizabeth II was celebrating her 90th birthday this year, I knew that I had to do something. More accurately, when I found out that her "public" birthday fell on the same day as my actual birthday this year, I kind of found it delightful, flashing back to all of those times as a kid that I basically crawled up my Dad's arm at the bank to check the pennies. That having been said, I'd actually like to do something in honor of the British Monarch. Here's hoping I don't make a total fool of myself. Wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary, really.

Your Magesty, in the event that you're actually reading this, I'd like to thank you for filling my childhood with wonder, and I wish you the best.

Honestly, I thought that the best way to go about this whole operation was in a nod to the place where this whole party started, so in remembrance of my grandparents, I present a modified version of my grandmother's Oreo Dessert. Honestly, I think if she knew what I was doing right now, Grandma would be getting a kick out of it.

Equipment:

• Food Processor
• Mixer

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pkg Oreo Cookies
• 8oz Block Cream Cheese, Softened
• 1 Tub Whipped Topping, Thawed
• 1 pkg Hershey's Chocolate Pudding, Made According to Instructions, With Whole Milk
• Chocolate Stars

Oddly enough, this recipe is super quick and simple, but tastes amazing. Grandma never really broke out the heavy machinery to get this put together, but as we've discussed previously, I'm a bum. So plug-in-ables it is. 

The first thing you're going to want to do is load the Oreo cookies into the food processor, grinding them into powder. I found that this works best if you turn the blade on and drop the cookies in one at a time, giving each of them time to get a head start on the powder process. 

The Carnage Of The Great Oreo Vs Blade Battle

From there, the Oreo bits and everything else except the stars (and the food processor, for my friends that want to get real technical with me) goes into the mixer bowl. You'll want to mix on medium-low speed until everything's well combined, and then take some cover and mix on high to get it all nice and fluffy. If you have a mixer shield, use it. Trust me, there will be chocolate in ALL THE PLACES.

Everybody's ready to start the party

All that's left to do at this point is serve it, and, as you can see, I garnished mine with a whole Oreo cookie and chocolate stars. Honestly, serving it is the hardest part, because, at least with my Oreo Mousse, the food liked to make a mass detour directly into my stomach.

Bonus Content: Every time that I see the word "Mousse" in this post, my brain processes it as "mouse," which is funny given the number of references to the Queen of England in here, mostly because I keep thinking of The Great Mouse Detective, in which the Mouse Queen of England was celebrating her Diamond Jubilee, which, as I understand it, happened recently-ish with the current human Queen of England.

Quick & Easy Meaty Mushroom Cream Sauce: For Those Days When You Need Good Food With Minimal Effort

As anybody who knows me knows, noodles with cream-based sauce is pretty much one of the staples of my existence. However, I kind of have a love-hate relationship with it. Said food always makes me feel better, but cream sauces are rather temperamental and can be quite a pain to make after coming home from a long day. Which is, you guessed it, right when they're needed the most.

After a bit of trial and error, I finally found a way to expedite the process and end up with satisfactory results. I mean, in all honesty, nothing ever beats a fully made from scratch cream sauce, but this comes in at a **really** close second.

In the spirit of keeping this on the "quick & easy" train, I'll try to keep the banter to a minimum, because there's a good chance that if you're reading this bit, you're hungry now and don't want to worm through a bunch of blabbering to get to the edible results part.

Equipment

• Skillets 
• Whisk
• Spatula
• Measuring Equipment

Ingredients

• 1 can of Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
  • Do yourself a favor and get the good stuff... not the super cheap bland stuff. If you get the kind with roasted garlic, omit additional garlic.
• 1/2 lb Ground Meat
  • As usual, I broke out the wonderful beef-pork blend, otherwise known as Boston Burger
• 4oz Cream Cheese, Softened
  • For those of you that aren't wanting to plan ahead, cream cheese can totally be softened in the microwave on reduced power.
• 1/4c Sour Cream
• 2oz Milk
• 1/2 pkg Angel Hair Noodles, Cooked to Al Dente
• Spaghetti-type noodles are one of the few things that actually survives in a good enough state to be used again, if made the night previous and stored in the fridge in a sealed container. Nothing quite like getting assaulted by a poorly-perched gallon baggie of pasta. Just warm it up before eating.
• 3tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 1/2tsp Onion Powder
• Pinch of salt

You'll want to try and run the skillets simultaneously. In the event that you can't do so, make the meat first, and make the sauce, because the meat will be okay if it sets out for a bit, but if the cream sauce is made first, it'll do that weird thing that cream sauce does and get all thickened up and covered in skin. Blegh.

Skillet 1:

This is your meat pan. So, obviously, this is where you put the meat. Medium heat, and scramble fry like you're making tacos.  Season with 1tsp garlic powder, and 1/2 tsp onion powder. Drain once it's cooked all the way.

Skillet 2:

This is going to be your designated sauce skillet. Medium heat, turning down as needed to prevent boiling. Add the soup, and fully whisk in the milk. Melt in the cream cheese. It helps if you cut it into little blocks first. Add the sour cream, salt, and remaining powders of onion and garlic. Once it's all mixed in and hot, stir in the meat.

Put the sauce on the noodles and boom! Best quick-dinner you've made in a while.

Meat Horns: For The Viking In All Of Us

Okay, full disclosure here. Thanks to my mom, I grew up thinking that cream horn pastries were the coolest thing on the planet, even if the ones at the local Wal-Mart tasted... very mass produced. So what's the first thing I do when I'm in a legitimate kitchen supply store that sells more than just pans and measuring cups? I hunt down the cream horn forms.

With the intent to make wonderful sweet things, I rushed home in excitement, but... then my plans took a little bit of a detour. I got home and discovered that I needed to make dinner in general, and, as much as I would have loved to have done it, I couldn't do just pastries for dinner -- my poor husband would starve. I still wanted to make use of the forms I had just bought, so I got a little bit creative.

I give you meat horns! No, no, you gotta say it like the Ricola commercial. (Bonus points for anyone who uploads a video of someone saying "meat horns" like said advertisement and links to it in the comments.) Wonderful cheesy meaty goodness stuffed into glorious homemade bread. Anyone that's got people coming over for a Memorial Day fooding, this is what you need. They make for some really good finger food.

Equipment:

• Cream Horn Forms
• Baking Sheet
• Mixing Bowl & Spoon --OR-- Bread Machine
  • Can you guess which one I used?
• Knife or Pastry Cutter Wheel
• Rolling Pin
• Cutting Board
• Paper Towels
• Skillet
• Spatula
• Small Spoon

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Ground Meat
• 1 Box Bread Mix
  • Sour Dough works amazing here, but "Country White" also works. I used a Krusteaz branded mix
• Butter, Melted
  • Okay, confession. I was a total bum and used spray butter
• 1tsp Garlic Powder
• 1tsp Onion Powder
• Pinch of Salt (Optional)
• 1tsp Worcester Sauce
• 1c "Fancy" Shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
• All Purpose Flour
• Spray Grease
  • The edible kind, not the WD40 kind. That stuff tastes terrible. And it may be flammable?

Before I get started here, I suppose that I should make a clarification. I've mentioned some specialty equipment here, and for those of you that don't know what cream horn forms are, this is them:

I want to make it clear that I didn't take this picture, nor was I involved. I just happened to find it in my camera roll after my husband cleaned up the kitchen. I'm honestly trying not to fall out of my chair from laughing. In other news, they also make great claws in the event of a random Halloween costume event.

Shenanigans aside, this recipe as a little bit of a lead time, mostly because it works best with fresh bread dough. For the most part, you're going to want to follow the directions on the box for the bread dough, minus the baking it part. For some of you, that'll mean putting the bread machine on "dough" mode, whereas others of you have a lot more hands-on time involved. Or, if it's your thing, go totally from scratch. Just be forewarned that you'll want a nice dense bread when this is all said and done with, so whatever that takes.

Long live the bread machine.

Once you've got the dough, you'll want to cover your cutting board in a light coat of flour, along with your rolling pin. Trust me, it'll be a nightmare if the stuff sticks. But, as my first time making these will tell you, if you over do the flour, the dough won't stick to itself and chaos will ensue. 

Dump the dough out onto the cutting board (hopefully you're using a large one), and, using flour as needed, get the dough rolled out to about an eighth of an inch thick, and at least 12 inches in one direction. It will fight with you a bit, but be patient. From there, cut strips long ways, about an inch thick. 

You'll want to apply a mild layer of grease to the cream horn forms before wrapping them in dough. I've found that spraying a paper towel with the grease and then gently patting the form works well. Much more than that, and the dough winds up on the floor. Also, due to the shape of the form, spraying them directly isn't recommended. In related news, the water dispenser panel on my fridge is very slippery right now.

Starting at the smaller end of the form, start rolling the dough around the form, making it overlap just slightly. Don't worry if it's not perfectly aligned... it'll bake right up together. Also, note that the easiest way I've found thus far is to put the dough strip on the table, put the form on the dough strip, and slowly roll it up from there. You'll want to make sure that the pointy end is sealed shut pretty nicely, otherwise the meat is going to slide right out the bottom. Also, make sure that the open end isn't obstructed... you'll want to be able to get the form back out. Unless eating pointy bits of metal is your thing. At which point you should probably see a doctor. Urges to eat non-food items is an actual medical condition called Pica, and it's quite serious.

It'll take some practice to get these right

Spray down the baking sheet with grease as well, and line up your completed dough horns about two inches apart, as you finish them. It works best if you manage to get them to stay seam side down. On convection bake, these only took about half as long as the instructions recommended for baking time, which makes sense given that the surface area is much greater than the standard dough loaf lump. When they're about 5 minutes from being done, carefully coat the horns in butter and put them back in the oven. 

While the dough is cooking, scramble fry the meat, like you're making tacos. When it's mostly done cooking, drain off the fat (as posted previously, NOT down the drain), and return to burner. Make sure you shake off as much grease as possible, otherwise you'll be looking at soggy grease horns for dinner instead of meat horns. Season with worchester sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt. When the meat's fully done, turn off the heat and stir in the cheese until everything's all good and melty. Put to the side.

Switch gears again. Once the dough horns have cooled enough to handle, carefully remove the cream horn form. They seem to come out fairly easily with a gentle twist. If yours has an open seam like mine do, make sure that you twist in such a way that you don't dig the upper piece of metal into the bread.

From here, all you've got to do is transfer the cheesy meat mix into the bread horns. I found it's easiest to start with a small spoon and gradually press little bits of meat down into the horn. You've got to be careful with how you use the spoon, though, or else you'll wind up stabbing clean through the side of the bread.

Now, try not to wind up in a food coma, eh?

Bacon Rangoons: Not Feeling Crabby Tonight

Whoo, it's good to be back. This week has been crazy! Been having to pretty much marathon various graduations and similar events. Now that I'm back safely out of all the rushing hoards of people, I want to congratulate everyone that leveled up over the last few weeks. Most importantly, though, I want to give a huge high-five to my sister, who made top of her graduating class. You did it kid! Yeah! To celebrate sis's achievements, I'm going to do a feature involving one of her favorite foods: bacon.

Much like the cheeseburger eggrolls I featured a while back, these wonderful deep fried pockets of awesomeness were also the result of having worked at the aforementioned Asian buffet. I can't really do shellfish thanks to that magical property called "allergies," but I love cream cheese. Especially fried cream cheese. Working there was a constant battle between the urge to gorge myself on fried cream cheese and that little whisper that said "Kid, you too broke for a hospital bill. Don't do stupid things." Fast forward through many shifts of self control and sub the meat around, and you get some absolutely delicious crab-free crab-free wonderment.

Equipment:

• Deep fryer With A Lid
• Small Pot
• Whisk
• Knife 
• Cutting Board
• Mixing Bowl and Spoon OR Mixer
  • Long live the Kitchenaid Mixer!
• Small Prep Bowl

Rangoons:

• Egg Roll Wrappers, Quartered
  • Into squares, not strips, unless you've got some really fancy origami planned. Wonton wrappers work as well.
• 8oz Block Cream Cheese, Softened
• 3-4 Sprigs Green Onion, Minced
• 1tsp Garlic Powder
• 2Tbsp Cooked Bacon, Finely Crumbled
  • I was a total bum and went with bacon bits (real bacon, not the textured soy protein ones... no word on if that actually works well). If you want to use bacon strips, you can expedite the crumbling via blender or food processor. Just make sure that you've patted off all the fat and oil first
• Water

Sauce:

• 8Tbsp Apricot Preserves
• 2tsp Soy Sauce
• 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
• Green Onions, Sliced For Garnish

For the rangoons, put the cream cheese, green onion, garlic, and, the star ingredient, bacon, into your mixing device. Now the important part.  You're either with the machines or with the humans, and your choice of side dictates what power you get to harness. Take a side. Mix the ingredients until well combined.

Once the filling is ready, take about a teaspoon and a half worth of filling and place it in the center of one of the egg roll pieces. Wet down the edges of the wrapper and seal it shut via your choice of folding method. I usually skip the frog shape that most rangoons I've seen seem to channel and head straight for something more dog-head-shaped, mostly because there's less bits to get unevenly cooked or stuck in the fryer basket grating.

I can't look at this without thinking of the "Bacon,
bacon, BACON!!" commercial. Fitting, if you ask me.

You've got plenty of time to get creative with your folding method and polish it as needed, since the innards mix is going to last for quite a bit. The biggest thing is just making sure that the edges are fully sealed, or else you're going to wind up having to scrape burnt on cheesy bits off the inside of the deep fryer. Blegh. Trust me, you don't want to do that. Seal these puppies (pun only somewhat intended) like your life depends on it. Several hours of it may.

Once you've finished out your ranks, you can start frying. Make sure that these don't get stuck together in the fryer basket... it gets kind of hairy if that happens. Okay, not hairy. More like mutated and conjoined. That's the more accurate words for it. It'll only take a few minutes for the frying to complete. Golden brown is what you're shooting for. When they're done, let them drain. My favorite method is on a cooling rack with a towel beneath. 

Now, the sauce for these things is optional. They're quite good as is. The sauce is really sweet, but I thought it brought out the flavor of the bacon. Once again, I've been assisted by my army of minions in making this particular condiment. Not entirely sure that this is what Aimee meant when she suggested the ingredient list, but I felt that it turned out well. Thanks again, kid!

The key part with the sauce is not letting the rangoons get cold while making it. And you can't really make it ahead of time, as the fruit pectin in the preserves causes it to thicken up very quickly as it cools down (and thus is best served hot). As a matter of fact, it's probably best to summon your own minion assistance (of valid assisting age) take over either the rangoon frying or the sauce making, so that both can be completed at the same time.

Put the apricot preserves into the pot on low, whisking constantly. As the preserves melt, you'll want to pick out the bigger pieces of fruit. Pretty much, if you go with a cheap jar of preserves that mostly has purreed fruit, your job here is going to be much easier. When everything's all melty and defruitified, whisk in the soy sauce and the garlic powder. Pour out and consume when it reaches a safe temperature, garnishing with green onions if desired. 

Lastly, you've just got to endure the feud that will inevitably break out over the last piece. Or, for those of you more survival-oriented, you could totally abide by rule number one and grab the plate and high tail it to an isolated location to eat in peace. Just remember to limber up first.