A successful failure.

This weekend I endeavored to make an angel food cake with chocolate whipped cream icing (both recipes found on Epicurious here and here). I was headed to a a "favorite things" party on Friday night and needed a treat to take along. The cake turned out beautifully - my best angel food cake yet - and I was really excited to try this icing. I love light, fluffy, whipped cream based toppings.

I had been on a dark chocolate fix lately, thanks in part to my doctor who prescribed it as a natural cough suppressant for my pneumonia, or whooping cough, or whatever it was that was going on with me for the last 4 weeks. The idea of chocolate whip cream made my heart sing. Only I was in a hurry. So I read the recipe and got started - without double checking the amounts. I should have learned by now not to trust my short-term memory so instead of 1/2 cup of milk and 2 cups whipped cream I ended up measuring out 1 1/4 cups milk and compensating by reducing the cream by 3/4 cup.

Long story short, it will not hold stiff peaks regardless how fast you swirl the stuff around in the mixer. It looked like an unusual type of chocolate soup. I gave up, took the cake to the party plain, and popped that chocolate mixture in the fridge. It's a shame to waste all that good whipping cream.

Yesterday we popped that failed topping into the ice cream maker. Once it had completely frozen I drizzled in some melted Ghirardelli 86% cacao chocolate and let it cool and break into thin whispy strips.

The verdict?

It's pretty darn tasty. Not such a bad outcome from my epic failure after all.


BTW- have you ever been to a Favorite Things party? It was pretty fun. Each person brings a few (in our case 3) of something that is their favorite for under $5 each. I brought bright purple nail polish (my current toes of choice) and Lindt Intense Orange chocolate bars. When you arrive at the party, each person put their name on three pieces of paper and dropped them into a bowl. After some chatter and girl talk we started going around the group and sharing what we brought and why it was our favorite. What an interesting way to get to know people!

When everyone had finished, we passed around the bowl of names. We each drew a name, then got the item that that person had brought. (Doesn't it sound strange to say that that?) At the end of the night each person went home with 3 different favorite things brought by others and a whole slew of funny moments. It was a blast and I highly suggest you try it with your friends. It's amazing what you'll learn :) The plan is for ours to be an annual affair. I don't think this idea would ever get old.