A Crunch and a Pop

I'm pretty dang excited this morning. Well...it's actually Friday night while I'm writing this, but I'm sure I'll be excited still in the morning. We get our Bountiful Baskets basket tomorrow morning and I'm eager to see what goodness we get this time. Anyone else get the guacamole pack? That's going to be scrumptious! It's always fun to see what is in the basket. Sometimes it's all normal produce and sometimes you get oddities that you've never eaten before. Thank goodness for Google and Pinterest with new recipes!

Okay, enough about my excitement over food. Let me show you more food. 

Today's post is brought to you by the letter P. For The Pinning Pirate and for Pop. No, not soda. Check it out. 

The Original Pin

http://nestleusa.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/nestle-crunch-bowls-with-haagen-dazs-sorbet-sugared-mint-leaves/

That's what Jamie, aka The Pinning Pirate, wanted to make. Want her story? Here it is. Enjoy. 

The Pinstrosity Story:

Want some foreshadowing for this experiment?

“The quietest poetry can be an explosion of joy” – James Broughton

I have no idea who that guy is. His quote just had the word explosion in it. Let me get started.

I LOVE crunch bars. I went through a phase earlier in this school year where I stashed them in my secret compartment in my desk and went to town during my conference. I was then able to focus and get stuff done. Let me clarify that they were MINI crunch bars.

I saved this onto my “Fun looking FOOD!” Pinterest board and thought I would never actually do it because it was too tedious. So instead of attempting it at my house, I opted to do it at my mother in laws house and use all of her utensils.

When I went to the grocery store, I realized I hadn't thoroughly read the directions before buying. I knew I needed crunch bars and balloons. I only bought 4 crunch bars, because I assumed that would be enough. I also bought raspberry sherbert (mmmmmmmmmmmm) and off to mother in laws we go.

Lucky for me, she had a candy thermometer (temperature will be important here) and a double boiler. Her double boiler had holes in the top part so I just put foil over it and solved that problem.

Here we go. I got the water in the boiler hot, but not boiling. I break up my 4 bars and dump them in, then clip the candy thermometer on the side. I completely misread or forgot what I read. Here is what I was supposed to do…

“Do not let the chocolate exceed 110° F. Use a spatula to stir chocolate thoroughly and regularly for about 1 minute or until melted and smooth. Remove the bowl of chocolate and stir in the remaining 1/3 of chopped candy bars. This will lower the temperature of the chocolate. When the chocolate is about 84° F, place back on double boiler or saucepan to raise the temperature of the chocolate back to 86-87° F. Do NOT let the chocolate reach 88° F.”

Here is what I did…

Dumped it all in, melted it, stirred it, kept it on the stove, and let it get to 175 degrees.

Well gee whiz, the chocolate is melted! Time for balloons! My husband’s 80 year old grandma was in the kitchen during this part of the process. She was hanging out with her walker, enjoying a strawberry, just talking away while I start dipping the balloons.

When I dipped the first balloon, it was hard to cover it with chocolate because the chocolate wasn't deep enough. I had to scoop it and try to slather it. It actually didn't work that well. The chocolate kept sliding off. After trying very hard, I was satisfied with the coverage and put it on my cutting board.

I guess you can call that "satisfied"

On to balloon #2. I dipped it in the chocolate and BOOM! There is this loud explosion, the word S--- came from somewhere (I think me) and chocolate went EVERYWHERE. My jaw dropped, I turned around to Granny and she just gave me the biggest WTF look I've ever seen. She said “Well, Jamie, do you know what you’re doing?” and I promptly answered “No.”

I dug the balloon out of the chocolate and dipped balloon #3. I started to slather it when BOOM!! I screamed this time and was blinded by chocolate. Once again, I dared to look back at Granny and she was calling me an idiot with her eyes. When I turned back around, I saw the mess that I had made in my mother in laws kitchen. Chocolate on my shirt, on the microwave above the stove, on the counter, on the stove, on the wall behind the stove on the wall BEHIND me, everywhere. I gave up at this point. I would make do with my one bowl.

I let it freeze for a couple of hours. I was able to let the air out of the balloon without it exploding but as much as I tried to get it out of the chocolate, the bottom just wouldn’t budge and it was stuck. My last attempt at getting the balloon out ended in part of the bowl breaking off. And to add insult to injury, the bowl was stuck on the cutting board.

I tried. I tried really hard. I really need to learn to read directions thoroughly.

-http://thepinningpirate.blogspot.com/2013/04/nestle-crunch-bowls.html