Weird Foods and Other Strangeness

Picante - I seem to have a bit of a roving addiction, in particular to roving purchases on Etsy.com, so I find myself to be in a situation of almost needing to build another room on the house for the purposes of fiber storage. It is a serious affliction. I am looking forward to learning how to weave. We bought a Rasmussen table loom a while ago and I haven't had time to play with it yet.

Sounds like a real good plan for reducing your fiber inventory.

Oh Mulch, I almost choked on my lunch reading that. What a great story. That definitely needs to be in the RM cookbook.

On the subject of "joke" foods, my father and I share a tremendous love of Toblerone chocolate bars (the ones in the triangular shaped box). Every year, at Christmas, we have sort of one-upping contest in which we try to disguise the familiar shape in the most creative way. We usually buy the 1 lb ones that are available at the holidays, since they are big and usually get generously shared.

Well, one year, my bar was not particularly disguised, which I found somewhat surprising. I opened it gleefully anyway, and set it aside to eat later. It was not until about a week after Christmas that I finally dug into it. I opened it by pulling on the cardboard tear-strip that goes around the wrapper, and then opening the foil wrapped chocolate inside. At first, I was horrified. My chocolate bar was moldy! But wait....no....my "chocolate" bar was a VERY cleverly made replica of a Toblerone bar, down to the grooves between each section, carefully formed from wall plaster (i.e. plaster of Paris, spackle, whatever you call it).

My Dad had used a hot knife to open the glued edge of the cardboard wrapper so as not to tamper with the opening strip. He had carefully unwrapped the real bar out of the foil, he had made the model bar, re-wrapped it with the real foil, retaining all the original folds in the ends, placed it back into the cardboard outer sleeve, and re-glued it shut. Brilliant. We have a good laugh every year about the plaster chocolate bar. Of course, after I had opened it, the real one was brought out of the cupboard, along with the usual "We thought you'd NEVER open it" comments!

Your dad is good! I am sure we will need to recruit him for an asteroid mission as he is very adept at disguises.

Funny, CMoxon! My husband used to love his Toblerone bars, until he broke a tooth on one (not a plaster one, but he keeps his chocolate in the fridge and it had apparently gotten as hard as plaster from the cold).

My D.H. gets one from his parents every Christmas.

Roflol. Never had too much trouble with altitude bakeing. Guess it comes from growing up with my head in the sky (6800ft). Sometimes I wish I knew what it is that I do so I could share. Don't tho.

I nominate duchess to be editor of the RM Cookbook.

I second that nomination. Only how will she tell us what to do. She should be the RM baker, suppying us all with lovely chocolate cakes with level tops, instead of the rollercoasters, I made before I gave up baking.

Ooooh, can I be proofreader? Please??? I have mondo spelling and grammar experience. Can I at least submit my resume?

I shall be taste tester. But only of baked goods not baked by Mulch. Those only get the visual test for versimillitude.

Sheesh. No one has faith in my baking skills...

Or maybe you all do, but in the wrong way...

Exactly. Mulch you have Dmail.

I can do some testing of Mulch's baked goods in the lab, for things like nutritional content....

We also have an insectary at work. I can see if the bugs will eat them, which will be indicative of whether they are in fact edible, or if they are trick foods, like balloons and such.

You might want to be careful about work though as they might also explode and you would have to explain.

Dr Doolite you will be a perfect proof reader as you are so persnickety about spelling and using words that are actually in dictionarys. I think the Mulch receipes should stand on past merit alone because they are so wonderfully ingenious. Although I'm dying to see a video of the Ennis Balloon Cake in action. Perchance on a casual Friday, in your toe shoes, you might give it a go in the lab dear Dr. Doolittle?

Mulch, I shared your cake story with my mom who has been a maker and decorator of cakes for many years. She even came to Nevada a week early to bake our wedding cake. She really enjoyed the story. I was glad to cheer her up a bit as she's had a rough winter. Thank you for sharing your baking adventures.

I can volunteer my graphic designing skills to make it pretty. We could have cakes that look like mountains (on purpose). It would probably look more like mountains than the Denver airport, which strongly resembles a large refugee camp more than mountains (sorry if that offends anyone who lives in Denver).

Some of the Nordicware bundt cake pans would make excellent mountains. Rings of perfect little peaks.

Katlian there could be a Carson City Peakous Cake in the RM cookbook. Would your mom be interested in helping? (hint, hint). I bet she could help us make The Tallest Mountainous Cake Ever which I think should be in our cookbook. Seriously though, great to hear that Mulch made her smile ^_^

I could give it a go in the lab, although I am not sure that the purple aspect would be welcomed by the cleaning staff. Perhaps I will test it with water? I would take nice records of water velocity at balloon burst point, water spread diameter, impact on frosting, etc. It would all be highly scientifical. (special word for Dahlianut)

I am excited about the prospect of a Carson City Peakous Cake.

All this research is exciting. Will the Carson City Peakous Cake be chocolate?

Glad I could cheer your mom, Katlian. What good is a water balloon cake if it doesn't make someone smile?

Mulch, have you ever made a cake that contains, or depicts, mulch? I think this has real possibilities of being a standout recipe in the true tradition of great gardeners.

It occurs to me that chopped/grated/shaved chocolate bits and curls would be a fabulous representation of bark mulch. One could add some green frosting peeking through to depict young plants emerging through the mulch. Perhaps a gummy worm or two?

I think including actual mulch would be unappealing. My grass clipping mulch always has loads of bugs in it and I have an inflexible cultural bias against eating bugs.

Depicting mulch would be easy, a piece of cake, so to speak. Put a gooey frosting on top of the cake. Crumble shredded wheat on the frosting and press it into place. That is the mulch. Take a few sprigs of parsley and/or cilantro and stick them into the mulch, and voila, a mulched garden!

Today, with all the snow, I could even use the frosted shredded wheat.

We cross posted. I like the gummy worm idea too.

I have not used bark but your chocolate idea would definitely work for that. Taste better than shredded wheat, although taste is often the last criteria when I am on a cake mission. ;-)

Well, I will have to find one of those pointy bundt cake pans before I can make the perfect mountain cake. Doesn't this one look like snow dusted mountains? My Mom wouldn't really be able to help us test the high altitude recipes since she lives in Portland, which is just about the opposite of high and dry.

When I was a kid and washing dishes at summer camp (to earn a week there, it was a great program) one night the head cook gave us a leftover dessert from a dinner for the camp directors. It was a dirt cake. There was a clean flowerpot filled with chocolate pudding and crumbled cake topped with crushed oreos, a gummy worm, and a fake flower. Since my mom makes cakes I had heard of this dessert before but my cohorts wouldn't believe it was edible until I scooped out a chunk and showed them the cake and pudding under the "dirt." Looking back i should have said "yuck, this looks gross. Don't worry, I'll go dump this outside." And then eaten the whole thing by myself ^_^

I had some dirt cake at a garden party once. It is very yummy. Good idea to act squeamish and abscond with the whole thing Katlian!

They serve it at the Diamond J sometimes and it is definitely worth absconding with!

German chocolate cake icing looks like mulch. And tastes good! A friend of mine made a mountain cake for a party for a friend who was climbing Everest. She used several cakes sliced up on top of a big sheet cake. The icing was mostly white except for muddy chunks at the base camp. She found lots of little decorative things at Hobby Lobby. It was festive indeed!

It sounds festive!

German chocolate cake icing does look a bit like mulch and so does shaved chocolate. But I was put off for a bit because I thought you were referring to making it look like Mulch. or actually putting Mulch in it. Making it look like Mulch might be okay. Putting her in it sounds a bit uncomfortable for her. Though there is that old fashioned trick of having a scantily clothed lady pop out of a cake. Seems to have gone out of use when the women's movement arrived though.

Also would be dangerous for Mulch if it was exploding balloon or firecracker cake.

Yes, I thought of that. And think of the baking process. Sounds dangerous.

I have the recipe for "Dirt Cake" and also "Sand Cake". I LOVE the story about the water balloon cake!

Ah no, I had not considered the actual inclusion of Mulch (note capital M) as opposed to mulch in the cake.

I love the grass clippings point, Mulch. I am thinking some shredded coconut allowed to steep for a while in green food coloring, mixed in with the shredded wheat and/or chocolate bits. Very realistic! Now I want to go home and bake.

My mom has a decorating tip that makes lots of tiny squiggles, it's designed for making "grass" but is good for shaggy fur too. She has done several golf themed cakes one half inch dot at a time.

I'm guessing a winter garden heaped with piles of dead leaves would be less appealing than a nice summer garden with flowers.

How about a cone-shaped volcano cake? It could erupt and then be eaten.

I am not getting inside a cake, no matter how many layers of clothing I could wear. Especially if firecrackers are involved. That is final.

I love the volcano cake though. But I would not get in that one either.

Now we need to research edible explosives, for the volcano cake.

Champagne. Shake and pop. Would make a better geyser though. We do need a RM Geyser Cake too!