Experimental Dessert: A Brilliant Creation or a Terrible Disaster?

In March I started offering My Pampered Chef Hosts and Hostesses free dessert when they host a party in the month that their birthday is in, and today (Saturday) I needed to provide a free dessert. I actually had this particular culinary adventure on Friday, but it's been a busy weekend (you know, homework, facebook, planning for the Pampered Chef party, facebook, housework, facebook...)

Originally I was going to bake a cake, but then I thought that was too boring. Then I was going to make a cookie dessert pizza thing, but decided that was too much work and too many ingredients. So I looked in my cupboard and I looked at my cookbook and I had a rare moment of total and utter recipe loss - I had no idea what I should make, and I had 12 hours until time to leave for the party (sleep took up a big part of the 12 hours). So I sat down and balanced my checkbook (math soothes me, don't ask because it probably won't make sense to you, I'm just that strange). While balancing the checkbook I came across the receipt from groceries earlier that day and on that reciept was two kinds of cheerios and an idea began to form.

I had both chocolate cheerios and cinnamon cheerios and at first I wanted to just cover and smother them all with a simple chocolate coating (2 cups chocolate chips, any kind, and 2T+2tsp shortening). It turned out I didn't have enough chocolate chips for that so I thought about the cheerio flavors - I'd already represented chocolate so more cinnamon would probably bring a nice balance to this thing I was making. I googled "cinnamon fillling" and found an amazing recipe for cinnamon rolls that I promptly stole the cinnamon filling from. I thought I would mix the cheerios in the cinnamon filling and then coat them in chocolate, like little coated candy treats. (Later I saw that cinnamon filling wasn't sticky enough to lend itself to this idea, so I came up with a new one.)

I mixed up a half batch of cinnamon filling in a mixing bowl and then a half batch of simple chocolate coating in the Double Boiler (then set to simmer so it wouldn't re-harden). I checked my cinnamon filling, and for cinnamon rolls, it would have been perfect, but I wasn't going to be making any sort of roll. So I doubled the butter (I know, I'm so bad, but it tastes so good!) and that gave it a smoother more "spreadable" consistency - but not at all sticky the way I had hoped it would be. I had another idea though, so all was not lost. But before I went and ruined two perfectly good things, I took a small bowl and mixed a spoonful of each sweet to give it a taste combined - the taste was good, the chocolate drowned the cinnamon a little in my sample, but overall there was more cinnamon filling than there was simple chocolate coating, so that wouldn't be a problem with the full size mixture.

I added the simple chocolate coating to the cinnamon filling and stirred until they were well combined, then I added 1 cup each of chocolate and cinnamon cheerios and stirred to coat. There was a lot of chocolate-cinnamon goo left so I added another 1 cup of each flavor of cheerios and stirred them in. This time they were all evenly coated without an excess amount of leftover chocolate-cinnamon sauce.

I spread out waxed paper onto two cookie sheets and cleared space in the refrigerator - chocolate sets best when chilled. I used my Small Scoop, which holds about 1 T, to scoop up about 65 of these little cheerio treats. I wanted them small because they had a lot of flavor, and if they ended up too big they'd be too sweet to eat. Once I had dished them all out I put them in the refrigerator overnight.

After packing up all my show supplies (cooking gadgets and toys, catalogs, order forms, netbook, first aid kit and aloe - I'm a little accident prone, and Pink Zebra demo products) I almost didn't remember to pack up my little creations! But luckily for me, since I had promised a free dessert, I did remember to pack them up (after sharing a few with my husband of course!) According to the guests, my brand new Chocolate Cinnamon Cheerio Treats are a brilliant creation, because there were only a handful leftover!

Next time I promise a dish, I think I'll plan ahead. (Even if these did turn out, you never know when a terrible disaster will land on your cookie sheet!)

My First Cooking Show

So maybe you're already wondering, "What's a Cooking Show?". You're lucky I'm such a nice lady, I'll tell you what it is! When I talk about a Cooking Show I'm referring to going to someone's house and preparing a meal in 30 minutes or less in front of a group of people, usually mostly women. During the show I explain how to use and why I use the tools I'm using. Why would I do this? I sell Pampered Chef products, the most amazing things that can happen to your kitchen! :D

In any case, my first Cooking Show was at my own home, just in case I chopped off a finger I would know where my first aid kit is! I invited all sorts of people, and practiced the recipe the day before by making it and feeding it to my husband, while he pretended to be a guest. He won two cookbooks and played with all the gadgets I used. Then he got to eat the little pizzas I made, so he had a good night!

So the day of the show comes, and at first I was really nervous, I'm wondering what was I thinking to sign up for this? I started cooking, and I started talking, and before I knew it the pizzas were baking and I was playing a game with my guests - I asked them their favorite fruit and vegetable and recommended Pampered Chef (PC) tools that could make preparing that food item easier or faster. I remembered how much I loved public speaking and how easy it is (I was a competitive public speaker in high school through an amazing program called Forensics) it was fun and natural to talk to this crowd, even if it was a small crowd of people I know.

Apparently my demonstration was a hit, and so was the fruit and vegetable game, because those were the top selling items! I was really pleased with how well I explained the Round Up From the Heart program (you round up your change and it is donated to Feeding America: http://feedingamerica.org/) because EVERYONE chose to round up!

When I started I didn't have high hopes for making money, and that hasn't really changed. What has changed is that I think I might really enjoy this. I've always loved cooking, I wanted to be a chef, open a restaurant or be a caterer. The thought that someone might not like my cooking, send me back a plate of food or special order something so it doesn't even resemble the original meal made me not want to do these things. Now, I get to do something I love for people, with none of those concerns. If I'm lucky, I'll more than break even, and if I'm not, I get to play with food and kitchen toys and meet new people.

Happy Cooking!