My Stupidity Amazes Me Sometimes

So last Saturday morning, I was up bright and early (5 a.m., thank you very much, boy with the thimble-sized bladder) and time to kill before the human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker needed to hit the road for a rendezvous with Mum. Since I'd agreed to make some "shamrocks" for my dear friend and world's best Spin instructor for her St. Patrick's Day ride, I whipped out the half-block of almond bark I had tucked away in the cabinet and dug out the giant bag of miniature pretzels I'd stowed away in the freezer after Halloween.

By the way, I'm amazed by the desperate creativity of crafters. Miniature pretzels dipped in green-tinted almond bark look nothing like shamrocks. No way no how. Now if I'd seen this take on shamrocks with pretzels, I might have been bold enough to give it a try. Sure would have saved me some time (hand-dipping 175 or so pretzels isn't exactly a quick task) and some heartache (read on).

I get the bark pretty much melted in the microwave, but I then transferred the bowl to sit in a pot of simmering water (let's here it for jerry-rigged double boilers!) so I could add in the green food coloring and keep the stuff melted while I dipped pretzels for the Spin class. I'll admit that, going in, I wasn't sure how many pretzels I'd need since I wasn't sure how many bikes the Spin room at the downtown gym has. I figured I needed enough--which I'd define later--for more than a dozen people but probably not more than two dozen people since the room is more like a large equipment storage closet than an actual aerobics classroom.

With my undefined enough looming over me, I thought about how I could potentially stretch the bark so I'd be sure to have enough. After all, color-matching dyed almond bark isn't the easiest thing to do. I've tried it with frosting, and it's a pain in the arse. Thus I struck upon a brilliant idea: Why not add a bit of that fat-free sweetened condensed milk I had left after the batch of ooey-gooey peanut butter brownies I made the other day for the husband?

Can you tell, Gentle Reader, that I have incredibly limited experience working with confectionery stuff such as almond bark? I've seen competitors temper chocolate on various Food Network Challenge episodes, and at 5 frickin' a.m. on a Saturday, the thought never occurred to me that adding cold, sugary milk to fairly hot almond bark would not be the best thing to do.

No, I discovered that lesson the hard way. Within moments of adding just a drizzle of the sweetened condensed milk to the bowl of melted almond bark on the double boiler, my bark began to solidify. And by solidify I don't quite mean become hard as a rock. No, it became very...well, kind of homemade Play-Doh-like. (You remember making your own Play-Doh out of flour, water and salt because your cheap-ass parents wouldn't buy you any, don't you, Gentle Reader, only to have your mother yell at you for wasting her flour and making a mess? Yeah, those were fun times, weren't they?)

Well, so much for making pretzels this morning!, I told myself as I mushed a spatula into my almond bark-doh. But I couldn't just let the stuff go to waste. No, I'm not about waste. Then I pinched off a bit of the dough, rolled it into a small ball between my palms and, just to satisfy my curiosity, popped it in my mouth.

Inspiration struck at that moment: I've got modeling chocolate!

If you've never watched any of the cake or chocolate episodes Food Network Challenge, then you've probably missed the incredible things that can be done from modeling chocolate. I did not do any of those wonderful things. No, at 5 frickin' a.m. on a Saturday morning with one disaster under my belt, I was a bit bereft of ideas for things to sculpt from almond bark-turned-modeling chocolate.

So I made snowmen.

I also attempted an R2-D2 (that's him on the far right--the misshapen garbage can propped atop two blocks). The husband came in later and made a Jabba. Bastard.

Jabba also has a beach ball. Or the head of a snowman whose body he ruthlessly let melt somewhere in the Dune Sea of Tattoine. I'm not sure which.

Just in case you're wondering, Gentle Reader, the pretzels did get made. I spent four hours or so the day before St. Patty's Day making them. That was a real joy. But the class really enjoyed them and showered me with thanks. That's always nice.

Cinco de Mayo's also on Tuesday. Perhaps I'll have to whip up some of those tequila bars I first made back in mid-January. Maybe--since I like my fellow Spinners--I might even spring for some better tequila. Eh, maybe not. The class is full of boozehounds. (Hey, it's Austin. The place is lousy with boozehounds.) They'd probably appreciate the boozy smell of the cheap tequila I do have.