Jun. 16: Birthday cake fudge sweat

I’ve mentioned Pinterest, haven’t I? There are so many fabulous things to be found there, and it’s a total time-suck and I love it so much that I almost hate it. Every time I realize I’ve wasted an hour searching and pinning and repinning and liking, I curse Sherilee’s name a little. She’s the one who introduced me to Pinterest and that means she’s a very, very bad influence on me and my new way of wasting tremendous amounts of time IS ALL HER FAULT.

Anyhoo…

Among the many lovely/evil things I’ve found on Pinterest are recipes for many delicious-looking foods. Do I have examples? You bet I do:

• crockpot mac and cheese
• strawberry bruschetta
• cinnamon roll waffles
• sugar cookie truffles
• watermelon balsamic appetizer
• gin and tonic cupcakes
• veggie bouquets

See what I mean? How’s a girl NOT supposed to pin those things??? And make them? And eat them? And regret eating them?

The night before our last-day-of-school party last week, I made birthday cake fudge, another Pinterest recipe find. It’s like regular fudge, but has a bit of cake mix thrown in that’s supposed to make it taste like cake. It also has a lot of sweet things to make it taste like fudge. It was quite sinful. I don’t know if I’d ever made “real” fudge—the kind that requires extensive stovetop work and things not normally found in my kitchen, like marshmallow crème—and I didn’t really like how much effort was required. The ingredients, though, could only turn out to be delicious, so I forged on.

Three cups of sugar, evaporated milk, and butter, boiled to perfection… white chocolate chips, marshmallow crème, aforementioned big ol’ spoonful of yellow cake mix, vanilla… spread in a shallow pan… topped with sprinkles… is your mouth watering? If it isn’t, it’s because you’re body is too busy sweating sugar right now; how could it NOT be? This is some very sweet stuff.

The recipe said to swirl blue food coloring on the top, but I thought it called for a more summery color, and went with a light orange color instead. It was very pretty. After putting the pan in the fridge to cool, Vic and I “cleaned” the spoon and saucepan—can’t waste all that chocolate, right? We both felt sick within a couple minutes. Did I mention how sweet this stuff is?

The next day I cut the fudge into small squares and arranged them on a plate, then put it on the table with the other snacks our guests brought. And there, next to bagel chips and a veggie platter, my fudge looked like cheese cubes. Cheese cubes with sprinkles. See for yourself:

If I were to make birthday cake fudge again, here’s what I would do differently:

• Use less sugar. Even a nibble of this stuff was overwhelming. Seriously. I love sweet stuff, but this was insaaaane.
• Swirl a color other than orange. Why would I want fudge to look like cheddar cheese? That was a bad choice on my part.
• The only thing “birthday cake” about this was the sprinkles. I don’t know if more of the cake mix would make it taste more cake-y, or maybe less sugar would do the trick. I didn’t think it tasted like cake at all, and that was disappointing.

What I liked about this recipe was that the ingredients were all yummy things. There wasn’t anything offensive—as in strong orange or mint flavors, for instance, like some fudges surprise me with—and although I would use them in different proportions in the future, I would probably stick with the same stuff. There’s big potential for this being extry-good. I also loved how fun and festive the sprinkles looked on the top. The recipe source shows a photo of the fudge cut and packaged in cellophane bags as party treats—what fun, different goodies! I love doing fun, and I love doing different.

Let’s move on to a savory recipe now. Today might be a good day to try that crockpot mac and cheese. Or maybe I need to head back over to Pinterest for some more searching and pinning and repinning and liking and OMG SHERILEE YOU’RE GONNA GET IT.