A little bit of this, and a little bit of that

Making dessert for Greg is always a challenging endeavor -- he's not really a "dessert sort of guy", but he does enjoy the occasional sweet...it just can't involve chocolate, pie crust, nuts, cooked fruit, or dark caramel.  I think he's trying to stretch my creative genius.  For his birthday this year (Oct. 19th -- happy 33rd birthday, my love!), I made the old fashioned and elegant Floating Islands dessert: meringue "islands" poached in milk, "floating" in Creme Anglaise sauce.

 
(Recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan -- my baking hero)

It was delicious, but we both agreed that the caramel drizzled on top should probably have been caramel sauce and not brittle threads.  I kind of enjoyed the crunch, but it was a little difficult to avoid getting stabbed in the mouth.


I recently came across a recipe for Caramel Macchiato Popcorn Balls and modified it to clusters instead.

 

Instead of using store bought caramel cubes, as the coating, I made my own caramel (are you surprised?) from this one on Allrecipes.com.  Instead of fussing with forming popcorn balls, I spread the sticky popcorn on baking sheets and baked them as directed in the Allrecipes version.  I wanted the chocolate and caramel to maintain their distinct flavors, so I opted to drizzle the chocolate (shot through with espresso powder and Saigon cinnamon) on top after baking instead of mixing it in to the caramel. 

 


Two days ago, I went from Fiery Redhead to Plastic Rockstar Blond.

 

It's the most artificial blond I've probably ever achieved.  I'm totally infatuated with this look.  I'm sure it'll pass quickly and we'll be back to red in no time.  Or purple.