Put it this way: Would the Michelle Obama Cookbook even include an Oreo dessert, much less start with one? Don’t bet your skinny jeans on it.
But first, to smash some Oreos.
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| Just because it’s 2012 |
Those would be special, 2012-only Birthday Cake Oreos, all decorated out to commemorate one hundred years of chocolate sandwich cookie goodness. (So the debut of Oreos was contemporaneous with the Titanic disaster. Who knew? Maybe Mrs. John Jacob Astor IV consoled herself with a cold goblet of milk and a silver tray piled with Oreos.) Peggy Paul notes in her recipe: “I use double stuffed [sic],” but I thought I’d commemorate the year Ron Paul is making his most prolonged grab for the brass ring yet by using these 2012-specific cookies.
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| These commemorative Oreos won’t stay fresh forever |
It’s a pretty simple recipe, chock full of sugar and fats, as most worthwhile desserts are wont to be.
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| The ingredients |
The cake basically is supported on a crumbled Oreo crust, and the commemorative centenary sprinkles certainly stood out amidst the brown crumbles.
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| A break from monochrome Oreos |
After that, it was the layering of the gloppy stuff: cream cheese mixture, chocolate pudding, Cool Whip.
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| Careful layering |
“Decorate with slivers of chocolate or crushed cookies,” saith the recipe, but was there even a choice? If I’m going to go Oreo I’m going to go all the way Oreo.
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| I probably could’ve crumbled the Oreo topping more finely |
The result? I let the cake cool in the refrigerator (as instructed), but perhaps not as much as optimum (but there’s always subsequent portions for that). The pieces cut with a plastic spatula held together well enough.
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| Pretty together |
And they found favor with most of my family, myself included. “Just like a regular Oreo pie,” it was pointed out to me. It is a rich dessert. If anything, it was maybe a touch too sweet, but I wonder how much the special-flavor Oreos are responsible for that. (Probably no worse than Double Stuf would be.) To me, the big pan of it brought to mind nothing so much as the even bigger trays of gloppy desserts to be had at the dessert counters of Golden Corral… and I mean that in the most appreciative, jam-another-spoonful-into-your-stuffed-belly way.
So: this venture started with a most functional, no-sugar-barred markedly sweet dessert, liked by one and all who tried it. It’s clear the Ron Paul family is doing its sugar-laden best to ingratiate itself with ours. They’re off to a good start – culinary, if not political – with this.
Lesson learned: Gather ye commemorative cookies while ye may.
Rating: 90 out of 100 notional birthday candles
Sounds like you are off to a good start, Adam. One question: how many recipes are there? And how often will you be venturing into this cookbook? That's two questions.... Okay, two questions: how many recipes are there? How often will you be venturing into this cookbook? And will you post some idea of price for each recipe? Oh jeez, that's three questions.... So, three questions. No, wait. Amongst our many questions are... how many, how often, how much, blah blah blah.
ReplyDeleteDave: There are forty-seven recipes in the cookbook. Really, I think that’s a lot for a twenty-eight page booklet.
DeleteGiven all else going on in my life, probably I’ll make a recipe every week or two. (Some are a lot simpler than others, so the timing stands to vary widely.) Unlike the blog that inspired me, I have no time limit or deadline to get it all done. I am enjoying it, so that’s incentive enough to keep at it!
I hadn’t occurred to me to give a notion on the pricing of what it takes to make each dish, but I did think for each one I would start with a picture of all the ingredients, so an ordinarily knowledgable consumer might get an idea from that. At any rate, if I didn’t think this venture were cheap enough for me, I wouldn’t be doing it!