It is a little known fact that Ninja are excellent confectioners. Obviously they excel at all they do, but the traditional Ninja Bake Sale that takes place every autumn is unknown to many, even those who have attended year after year.
Perhaps you've been walking down the street, any given day after the end of Daylight Saving Time, and suddenly a cream puff begins melting in your mouth. Is it your cream puff? Odds are it's the result of many years' effort by a skilled master of pastry and death. So even if your pockets have been slashed and all the change removed, thank a ninja the next time a donut lodges in your windpipe some blustery day. They made them with love.
(This has been one of my late-night "WTH am I going to post next week?" posts. I made it with love. And throwing stars.)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Ninja Bake Sale at Sundown
Sunday, July 29, 2007
How I Almost Ruined Meringue.
I woke up slurring. But that was not it. I could hear just fine. What I heard were instructions to gradually add the sugar when the egg whites were "frothy."
"AH DA ESS NOW!" I believe I said, then realized it was the eggs bubbling, and said, "DE SUGR! AH DE SUGR! DEY SAH FROHY! SAR ADDIN IT!"
I actually enunciate a little better than this when my jaw's all locked up thanks to my ventriloquism fixation of 1986, but I have to give an idea of what I must sound like to people, and that's the one I'm going with today. Anyway, I heard the word frothy, saw bubbles, and commandeered the making of meringue.
Fifteen minutes later, meringue was just beginning to form. Why? Because "frothy" is not when you add the sugar. "Frothy" is like when you get rabies from drinking too much peroxide (don't do it, kids) and a quick look at "How to akme merigue" on Google told me that the egg whites had to be way past frothy to start getting some sugar.
Notice how I develop dyslexia when I'm slurring. I love Sunday. Not as much as I love pie.
(I am happy to report that two days later the pie was gone, but we were all still alive. Meringue can work if you add the sugar too soon, but only if you burn it to a crisp in the oven to avoid death by raw egg whites.)