u/HoboToast

Cinnamon roll monkey bread is sold at the Washington State Fair by D’OH Sweets and Treats. I made this version using this recipe, but instead of rolling the dough into balls I just tore off small chunks. It was really easy and really good!

Here’s some more pictures.

I found cocoa pods at the local H-Mart recently and had never seen them in a store before, so I had to buy one. Then I didn’t know what to do with it, so I went with the obvious and made chocolate from scratch!

I read up a bit online but all the instructions sounded unnecessarily complicated, so I kinda winged it.

First I separated out all the seeds (the white fruit around them was really tasty, but there wasn’t much of it). I dehydrated them for five days, then baked them at 250°F for about 15 minutes. After that, I put them into a coffee grinder and powderized them. I added the cocoa powder (about 1/3 cup) to a half cup of butter and about 1/3 cup of powdered sugar. I poured that mixture into molds and then let it set up in the fridge.

It actually tasted great! It was a little different since I used cow butter instead of cocoa butter like the store-bought stuff, but it wasn’t bad-different.

Here’s more pics of the process.

As stated in my other post for this week, I live on 122°W, which is a nice place but doesn’t leave me many options for this theme. If you follow that line all the way around the globe, however, you find our antimeridian of 58°E. This one passes through lots of exciting places including Iran and Oman, and comes very close to the infamous Strait of Hormuz!

This is a Juz al-Hind cake from Oman, made with coconut and farina. It’s topped with a regular buttercream frosting (chocolate for the land, plain with blue dye for the water) and sunbursts (chocolate-covered sunflower seeds) to represent the cargo ships and blockade.

The cake tasted really good and the map design turned out better than I expected, you can even make out the Hajar Mountains, Qeshm Island, and Hormuz Island!

Here’s the cake recipe.

And here’s pics of the process.

From S14E14: Crème Fraîche

I made this for “Entree” week over at r/52weeksofbaking. Unfortunately I couldn’t find authentic crème fraîche so I had to use Canadian/style sour cream, but it still tasted great!

Here’s the scene.

And here’s more pictures.

I based this dish on this recipe, except I made plain ginger caviar instead of carrot-ginger. I also added pink food coloring to make it pretty.

The “scallops” are sliced oyster mushrooms, marinated in veggie bouillon and then pan fried. For the caviar I mixed pureed ginger with water and then strained it, mixed in xanthan gum and calcium lactate, and then soaked droplets in a sodium alginate bath. Garnished with parsley.

It was interesting. Not terrible, but not fantastic.

And yes, I bought spoons specifically for this post!

Here’s more pictures.

Okay third time posting this because I keep screwing up the title. Hopefully third time’s the charm.

I thought these turned out really good! Then again, I like pretty much anything reuben. They’re pastrami, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut (homemade) wrapped in egg roll wrappers, air fried, and dipped in thousand island.

Here’s more pictures.

This cake wasn’t bad, but not as good as I expected, the marshmallow frosting wasn’t fluffy enough, it didn’t hold together very well, and as much chocolate as there was in and on it I still could have used more. Not terrible, but I wouldn’t make it the same way again.

I used my go-to sourdough chocolate cake recipe, put crushed graham crackers and marshmallow frosting between the layers and on top, then topped all of that with melted chocolate and some torched marshmallows.

Here’s more pictures.

I needed to use up some of the pears from my tree. This was an experiment, but it turned out pretty good! It’s puff pastry brushed with butter, sliced Asian pears, chopped crispy bacon, chunks of blue cheese, and pecans.

Here’s more pictures.

I already made one attempt at the Grapfruit Pie posted by u/theglassisfullfull a few weeks ago and it was terrible. After I made it, I saw all of you smart people’s comments about how “M. M.” probably stood for marshmallows and not M&Ms, so I took another whack at it. It was much better this time! Still not great, I don’t think I’ll be making a third one, but this one was actually edible. I also prepared the Ready Whip according to the instructions on the box this time instead of just adding the powder.

Here’s the original post.

And here’s some more pics of the process.

These are deep fried balls of split pea dough with a spicy mango dipping sauce. They were easy to make and tasted really good!

Here’s the pholourie recipe.

Here’s the recipe for the mango sauce (I blended it up after it cooled).

And here’s more pictures.

Start to finish: 35 minutes. Probably could have gone faster if I had been in a hurry. This was super easy to make and tasted great! Flavor-wise it was very similar to almond roca.

Here’s the recipe.

And here’s more pictures.

I saw a few different ways of making this, but for my first try I decided to just adapt my pickled asparagus recipe.

I haven’t tried it yet because it needs to sit for a few more days, but it sounds delicious and it looks pretty!

Here’s some pics of the process.

Thanks to u/Yrros_ton_yrros for the idea to make vindaloo for this theme! I went with mutton (technically lamb, I haven’t seen mutton at the grocery store in years) instead of pork in honor of this Red Dwarf scene where they try to convert Lister’s mutton vindaloo to chicken, accidentally creating a mutton vindaloo monster in the process.

Here’s the recipe I used. It was really good, it was flavorful and spicy!

Here’s some more pictures.

The Sacher torte is a famous Austrian dessert. It’s a chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam in the middle, covered in chocolate ganache. It was really good, but not as rich as I expected.

Here’s the recipe.

And here’s more pictures.

I live in the Seattle suburbs. It’s blackberry, salmonberry, huckleberry, even wild raspberry country, but not cloudberry country. Regardless, I found a small patch a few miles from my house (no idea how they ended up there) and so I try to harvest enough to make something every summer.

I used my go-to Instant Pot cheesecake recipe for this, but mixed a few berries into the batter and then topped it with a layer of cooked-down berries in a bit of sugar. It was fruity, a bit tart, and delicious!

And here’s more pictures.

I live in the Seattle suburbs. It’s blackberry, salmonberry, huckleberry, even wild raspberry country, but not cloudberry country. Regardless, I found a small patch a few miles from my house (no idea how they ended up there) and so I try to harvest enough to make something every summer.

I used my go-to Instant Pot cheesecake recipe for this, but mixed a few berries into the batter and then topped it with a layer of cooked-down berries in a bit of sugar. It was fruity, a bit tart, and delicious!

And here’s more pictures.

This dish began as a viral video from a street food vendor in Ghaziabad, India. It sounds kind of grotesque but actually tasted surprisingly good! I’d eat it again.

I followed the instructions in this video, but I subbed red bell pepper for the tomato because tomatoes, ew.

Here’s some more pics.

This cake is from this scene in a Star Trek: Voyager episode, “Riddles” (S06E06), where Tuvok suffers an injury causing brain damage and gets really into cooking. The cloaking frequency he draws on top turns out to be the key to finding the aliens that caused his injury, and therefore a cure.

He describes it as a pistachio cake with parra cream sauce. I used this recipe for the pistachio cake, and for the parra cream I made a pear and Ramune soda frosting (parra, PEAR-RAmune, haha). I melted some chocolate, piped it roughly onto wax paper, and froze it for the side decorations. The cloaking frequency itself is just red decorating gel.

The cake itself was really good, but I was also really happy with how the frosting turned out!

Here’s more pictures.