[Inez] Yes, it's been a while

Sorry it's been so long. After my laudable goal of making dessert for my roommates every week, I got sucked into thesis-land and didn't emerge for a while. I did actually make a blueberry pie for them, which turned out pretty well. I have pictures from that, too, but I'm having some camera troubles and I haven't gotten around to dealing with it (or the blog). But I borrowed my sister's camera to document my second experiment with pots de creme. If you'll recall, the first attempt was wildly successful aside from forgetting to chop the chocolate before adding it to the milk, resulting in some chocolate bits in the pudding -- great when fresh from the oven, a little less than ideal when cooled. Anyway, it was so easy and so delicious that I thought I'd give it another go here in cold rainy Minnesota. Oh hey by the way I graduated!

Anyway, it didn't turn out. I confess, I tweaked the recipe before trying it (I couldn't find the recipe I used before and, like an idiot, didn't think to look here on the blog for it. So I used a new one). Becca says her philosophy is to try a recipe as it stands once, and then tweak it when she can actually make judgments about it. In this, as in many things, Becca was probably right. Given that, I won't be giving you the recipe I used, but I will give you some pictures.

I chopped the chocolate really well this time.

I used my first vanilla bean! Jamie and I went to Costco to get some stuff, and they had these vials with vanilla beans in them -- two vials (10 vanilla beans) for $11. It was cool. Below is after I cut it in half and scraped all the seeds out (that's the dark lump next to the bean pod).





See, they look pretty good. They tasted good, too, they just didn't really pud. Yeah, that's a technical term.


Here's the really exciting part: in a few short days, Elise and I will be REUNITED! Maybe we'll do a joint post or two from Denmark!



[parenthetical remark] Becca and I made Guinness chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting a few days ago, but we couldn't find a camera with a charged battery to use so we didn't take any pictures. We agreed to do a do-over with pictures later on. Stop reading now for spoiler!

Verdict: they're yummy, very moist and fluffy. But it's like everyone says, they don't really taste like Guinness at all. [/parenthetical remark]