Let Them Eat Dirt... Cake - Dirt Cake/Triffle

Every once in awhile, I become the victim of my own "cleverness".

Case in point.....

Our Family reunion was this weekend and I was asked to make dessert. Pies are a given, but I wanted something special for the little ones. When I was younger, we use to love Dirt Cake (though it's not so much a cake, as it is a trifle). For anyone who has never had Dirt "Cake", it is simply ground up Oreo or Hydrox which is layered, with a instant vanilla pudding that has been fortified with butter and cream cheese which then has Cool-Whip folded into it. It's actually pretty darned tasty. BUT

There is that big "but" again.. ;)

If you read the instant pudding ingredients you will find a lot of junk that really is unnecessary. I mean, Vanilla pudding is white, so why does it contain artificial coloring. Evidently it's the wrong shade of white.... Which is insane, considering that vanilla pods and the caviar contained therein are brown. Apparently, "egg shell white" is not as appetizing as "ecru". LOL
Be that as it may, I come from a chocolate loving family. So the issue of the vanilla pudding color was kind of a mute point, since we always used chocolate pudding anyway. However, it is also artificially colored and flavored these days.

That being said, I decided that I was simply going to make the "chocolate pudding" from scratch. Then, somewhere in the twisted depths of my mind I suddenly decided that a simple chocolate pudding wasn't good enough for my nieces & nephews. That was how the mousse came about. And while I now have a Dirt Cake that is blessedly free of foreign contaminates and fairly low in sugar, it is extremely high in fat... I used a quart of whipping cream. This was an issue that I did not foresee.

Pudding is made with milk, mousse is made with whipping cream (and raw beaten egg whites, but I left those out) The original Dirt Cake then has whipping cream (Cool Whip) folded into the pudding, thus I had to fold MORE whipping cream into my already whipped cream laced mousse. Not my most brilliant of endeavors, but it was REALLY good. :)

Oh, and I hunted down Newman's Own, Chocolate sandwich cookies. Not so much because they are Organic, but because they lack High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Hydrogenated oils. That was another one of those "things" that I climb on my soapbox about. Cool Whip is nothing more than sweetened whipped hydrogenated shortening (Crisco) so I avoid it like the plague. But the filling in Oreo & Hydrox cookies is also sweetened shortening. This along with the artificial colors, flavors, & preservative chemicals.... It was clear that I needed a less "deadly" cookie.

Don't get me wrong... I love Oreo & Hydrox, but I'm an adult and I am fully aware of the consequences when I introduce "counter-productive" foods into my system. Children are not, thus it is our responsibility to protect and educate them, so when they grow up they can make informed bad food choices too. LOL

OK, That is enough of my insane babble. Let's get this Mousse on the road!

Dirt Cake

Chocolate Mousse
16 oz Bittersweet Chocolate (at least 62%)
3 oz Espresso
1 TB Cointreau
1 1/4 tsp Gelatin
2 1/4 cup Light Whipping Cream; Divided

Cream Cheese mixture
4 oz Butter
8 oz Cream Cheese
1 cup Confectioners' Sugar

To Complete the cake
1 3/4 cups Light Whipping Cream
a small bag of Gummy worms
24 oz Newman's Own Sandwich Cookies
1 Clean plastic flower pot (run it through the dishwasher on the top rack)
1-2 bunches of silk flowers (wash the stems with soap and water; you can insert a straw and slide flowers down the tube, but I had a "bunch" and it was too big in fit in the straw)

Makin' Mousse...
Begin melting Bittersweet chocolate in the top of a double boiler.

Add Espresso and Cointreau.

Stirring until smooth. (you can add a pinch of cayenne as well, if you like)

Remove from heat and let cool a little.

Place 1/4 cup of the Whipping Cream in a small heatproof cup and sprinkle with gelatin, allowing it to bloom.

Melt Gelatin over low heat (I use a small Corningware dish filled with water over low heat)

Pour the melted Gelatin into the cooled melted chocolate and stir to combine.

Move the mixture to a large shallow bowl and let it continue cooling (this will make folding easier)


NOTE: Normally, if I were only making this as a mousse, I would have whipped the 2 cups of light cream, folded it in and spooned it into old fashioned champagne glasses and chilled it for at least 1 hour and up to 4 without covering. But since I was making the dirt cake I had to switch it up a little bit.

Place Butter, Cream Cheese and Confectioners' Sugar in a medium bowl.

Beat them until they are light and fluffy.

Fold in the cream cheese mixture into the gelatin laced chocolate in 2 additions.

Now, whip 2 cups of Light Cream until light and fluffy (do not add sugar to the whipping cream)

Fold the whipped cream into the chocolate in 3 additions.

Cover with plastic wrap on the surface, and chill.

Final Assembly:
Remove the chocolate/cream cheese mixture from the refrigerator and let it warm up a little bit.
Take your Newman's O's and toss them in a food processor (24 oz is 1 1/2 packages, which leaves 1/2 a package for you to enjoy with a big glass of milk)

Pulse them until you have fairly fine crumbs.

Place 1 3/4 cups light whipping cream in a bowl and whip until firm. (Again, don't add any sugar)

Fold the whipping cream into the Chocolate mousse in 3 additions, to further lighten it.

Grab the flower pot (make sure you ran it through the dishwasher)

Sprinkle the bottom with 1/3 of the cookie crumbs.

Spoon 1/2 of the Chocolate Cream Cheese Mousse into the pot.

Sprinkle with 1/2 of the remaining cookie crumbs.

Add some gummy worms.

Spoon the remaining Chocolate Mousse into the pot and cover the worms.

Add a few more worms.

Sprinkle the remaining cookie crumbs over those worms, making sure that a couple of them are peaking out of the top.

Cover with plastic and chill for 8 hours.

Before serving, grab a bunch of silk flowers and wash the stems and insert into the "dirt" and set it on the table as a center piece.

Serve with a washable plastic trowel for the ultimate effect. The kids were a little suspicious at first, but once they realized there were gummy worms in it, they were ALL over it. LOL

Mangia!!
~~

I Wanna Be a Cowboy......

And you can be my Cowgirl... er, I mean, Cookie....

Bad 80's Music aside, I apologize for not being around the last week. Not only was I tinkering, like a mad scientist, with Hot Air Poppers and Green Coffee Beans, but it appears that after 13 years of living in San Diego, I am no longer resistant to Pacific Northwest pollen... Oye! Whether 'twas sinus infection or an actual cold, I have been feeling wretched for the last week.

Then I suddenly remembered something of importance, through my Sudafed induced haze. (Yes, I crossed the border and got the REAL stuff from Washington cause that Sudafed PE junk is worthless) Anyway, the point is that, though I was doped up on Sudafed, so I could breath, the pseudoephedra cloud lifted just long enough for me to remember that I already had, in my possession, the perfect medication for a sinus issues...

OK, bear with me now, cause my logic is a little questionable (I was drugged up, remember?) So, since sinus pain is the byproduct of the pressure created by swollen membranes caused by a histamine reaction within the blood vessels, I decided that it might be wise to increase my circulation. How do I do this? Well via chocolate of course, cause Theobromine dilates blood vessels. Not to mention chocolate is full of antioxidants and flavinoids which will make me healthier. Right?

Oh, and since I am SO health conscious about these sorts of things, I figured as long as I was at it, I would improve my serum cholesterol levels too by consuming oat fiber. Yeah... Make that arteriol plaque a thing of the past! Thus, increasing blood flow even more... YAY!!! And walnuts, I need walnuts because they contain tannins which are antiviral and antibacterial. Yep, it was settled.... I need Cowboy Cookies.

OK, so my logic is a little twisted, but it made sense at the time. Gimme a break. LOL

I have NO idea why these are called cowboy cookies, but the recipe is my Great Grandmother Ruby's who traveled, via covered wagon, down the Oregon Trail to The Dalles, OR when she was a little girl at the turn of the century (the 1900 one). I assume that she actually KNEW real cowboys, and probably knew why the cookies had been given their peculiar name. Alas, that tidbit of information was not passed down and the internet has been less than helpful in deciphering the mystery surrounding the name. Although I did notice there seem to be a lot of "Cowboy cookie" recipes that include coconut. This perplexes me. Where is a cowboy going to get coconut? Yet another mystery. But one that points to the fact that cowboy cookies may not have been named so, because cowboys ate them. Hmmmm

Luckily, though the origin may remain elusive, at least the recipe has been passed down, intact from G G Ruby, to Grandma Reva, to my Mom and finally to me... Woo Hoo!

So here is my Great Grandma Ruby's Cowboy Cookie recipe. They're good for what ails ya. Oh, and as an added bonus, they go GREAT with Freshly Roasted Coffee... ;)

Cowboy Cookies

8 oz Unsalted Butter
3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Large Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Cups AP Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
2 Cups Quick Oatmeal
12 oz 63% Bittersweet Chocolate Chips (or higher) Not Semi-Sweet, they usually contain milk which will aggravate sinus problems
1 cup Chopped Walnuts

As with all cookies, the best place to start is by preheating the oven to 350 degrees; after which, begin creaming the butter and both sugars together until they are light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and vanilla, beating until incorporated

Whisk the flour, baking soda and baking powder together in a small bowl, then add slowly to the mix.

Mix until a soft sticky dough is formed.

From here, I fold in the remaining ingredients, starting with the oatmeal.

Once the oatmeal is distributed evenly, add the chocolate chips and fold some more.

Now if your not a nut fan, you can simply stop here.... They will spread a little more in the oven, but they will still be delicious. :)

But I come from a loooooooong line of nut hounds, so I always add the walnuts.

Using a cookie scoop, measure out the dough onto parchment lined baking sheets, keeping at least 2 inches between the cookie mounds.

Bake for 13 minutes, until golden; then cool on a rack.... (although I like them best when the are still slightly warm and the chocolate is still gooey)

I'm not really a Doctor, I just play one on this blog.... So if you are feeling under the weather for any reason. Take 2 of these and call me in the morning. :) It worked for me.

Mangia!!
~~