My Life

First, pictures of the caterpillars because I know you've all been waiting for those. ;)

Today we decided to move them into a habitat indoors. They are getting big and it may rain later this week so I wanted to make sure they were safe. Also, to make sure we have them contained so they can have somewhere to make their chrysalis'.

Emily kindly donated her bug habitat. I started to snip the parsley but realized once I did, it would start wilting. So we found a plastic bowl and had to cut it to fit the box. We also put a stick going up to the opposite corner as the parsley so the caterpillars can get over there if they want to.

They seem to be doing good. There are two or three runts. I'm hoping they catch up with the others. We have several others who are big and chubby. :)




And now.......the Chocolate Banded Ice Cream Torte (as found at Food Gawker and Food, Family and Fun). Which I think may need to be renamed "Better Than Sex Ice Cream Cake".

First, the butter with the Ghirardelli bittersweet baking chocolate (that melted a little in my purse while in the car yesterday while I finished getting groceries)...


After that is melted together, you add in 1/2 C of sugar and 8 eggs (one at a time):


The first ganache layer in the springform pan:


Getting ready to mix in some frozen raspberries into the vanilla ice cream:


Layer of vanilla/raspberry ice cream:


The second ganache layer:


A layer of vanilla ice cream:


And the final layer of ganache:


And.....the final product!!!! Hello gorgeous!!!





So my review of this recipe is as follows. First of all and most importantly.....SO yummy!!!!! Things I would do differently next time:
- Get a smaller spring-form pan. This would make the layers thicker.
- Let it freeze overnight. Simply because by the time I got to my piece (the last pic above), it was starting to melt and get gooey.
- Experiment with different ice cream flavors. :) The raspberry was fabulous (and my favorite combination of flavors...chocolate and raspberry) but it would be fun to try different kinds.
- Keep it all to myself. Yeah, definitely something I should do differently next time.