Mobile Photography – iSights – ‘Nailed it!’ by Janine Graf

‘Nailed It’ – ©Janine Graf

This is my son’s 14th Birthday “chili cheese hot dog” ice cream cake.  I found the recipe in the June issue of Food Network Magazine.  Epic cake fail.  Oh Hell, let’s just call it what it truly is shall we, an abomination.  Well, it looked easy enough and I’m a pretty darn good baker (if I do say so myself) so I forged ahead with the utmost confidence.  How hard could it be, right?

Allow me to present problem No. 1:  the recipe says you need red and yellow food coloring gel, but they don’t specify how much.  I bought two small tubes of both; I probably needed a cup of each.  The red food coloring gel is added to a pint of regular chocolate ice cream to give it that nice fleshy hot dog color.  You then roll the ice cream in parchment paper, shaping and molding it into a hot dog form, and then freeze.  Sounds easy, right?  Problem No. 2:  by the time I mixed in the entire tube of red coloring, the ice cream was VERY soft; borderline melted.  I’d work it into a hot dog shape only for it to immediately start collapsing; the more I worked it, the more it was melting.  I worked quickly, and messily, and got that sucker in the freezer knowing full well it was all going to be downhill from there.

The “bun” is comprised of frozen Sara Lee pound cake.  Hollowing out the insides of that thing, let me just say it’s short of a miracle that I didn’t end up in ER requiring stitches.  That thing was a bitch!  The final product looks like the hot dog is just plopped right on top of a solid cake; my hollowing / excavating work not even noticeable.  I risked fingers for this?  Harrumph.

My oldest son, who was visiting us from Seattle, was in charge of making the “chili” and I have to say it was the most impressive part of the whole damn thing; what a show off.  The chili was diced strawberries and chocolate sauce.

The “cheese” was one cup vanilla frosting and yellow food coloring gel. Now, it was supposed to also contain a bit of red food coloring gel, however I had used every last drop of red to make the hot dog.  So, an entire tube of yellow food coloring gel and zero amount of red and my “cheddar cheese” looked like mozzarella . . . or mayo, take your pick.  I’ll go with mayo.  I loooooooove mayo.

Put them all together and viola, chili cheese hot dog!

Cost of ingredients:  approximately $23

Time spent:  roughly one hour

My confidence in the kitchen: shattered

The laughter that ensued after presenting my masterpiece:  priceless

Blood alcohol level by end of the evening:  0.081

I will admit that I did not partake in eating this abomination.  I knew how much manhandling went into it, so I lost my appetite.  I had a second margarita instead, hold the mayo.

Last night I was looking over an older Food Network Magazine’s recipe for “Fruit Loops cereal bowl” cake.  I think I may have to try making it . . . how hard can it be?

‘She became introspective and started to question everything, particularly her ice cream skills’ – ©Janine Graf