What are You Making for National Chocolate Mint Day?

So tomorrow, Sisters and Brothers, is "National Chocolate Mint Day".  I wanted to make something, you know, that was my new goal for this blog for 2011 and I've all ready failed for health and weather reasons.

My partner has been wanting me to try and make a grasshopper pie which is frankly not nearly enough chocolate for me.  I tried a call out for a recipe on Foodbuzz but received no answers.  I looked through several foodie sites and was annoyed at either the complexity of the recipes or the ingredients that just didn't seem to match what he told me this pie should taste like.  Finally I used an Emeril recipe which I'll talk about later.

We'll try it tomorrow, which is the actually fun food holiday but as you know it is a Saturday Sacrament day.  So for now, leave a comment please and tell me what you will be making or buying to celebrate "National Chocolate Mint Day" tomorrow.

We actually tried it the evening of February 18, 2011, or I should say my guys tried it.  Honestly I've never liked grasshopper pie, too little chocolate.  First you should know that I made two -- one with the traditional chocolate cookie crust and one with a pastry crust because one partner likes less chocolate than the other.  Here you can see them in the frig after I made them.  I added a few drops of green food die which a lot of recipes suggested, I figure it couldn't hurt things too much but maybe I was wrong.

My partner whom I made these for said it looked like he remembered but as the hours rolled by I didn't like how it was not setting up.  Frankly I didn't like how the heavy whipping cream and the unflavored gelatin was setting up before I added it to the egg and sugar mixture.  The result was that the pie has almost two parts, pieces of the gelatin and pieces of the eggs/sugar, all flavored with Creme de Menthe and Creme de Cocoa which I could only find in big bottles for $11 each!

I am not happy!  I will admit that I bare blame here.  I looked and looked for a good recipe that seemed to fit what my partner described.  I asked on various foodie networks I'm part of for recipes but no one replied.  Marshmallow or cream based?  Real Creme de Menthe or just mint flavor?  Refrigerate or freeze?

I decided to go with a famous chef's recipe Emeril Lagasse's Kicked Up Grasshopper Pie -- I found on the website "Food & Health".  This recipe was vague like telling me to "add the gelatin and gently heat and remove from the heat and set aside" -- what exactly does that mean?  Shouldn't the gelatin dissolve?  Every time I've used gelatin the recipes have said to dissolve it but that was in water not heavy whipping cream.  I'm only one person I could only beat the eggs and sugar so fast and then as for drizzling in the cream gelatin mixture while it mixed... that was actually difficult to manage without burning myself.  Emeril's mixer must have a much wider rim than mine does.  Then while many of the ingredients were in cups the Cremes were measured in ounces.... so I had to do some figuring using a magnet I have on my frig but still I was trying to get close so I do not have ounce measuring spoons or cups.

I'm so angry now.  I spent over $25 on ingredients for something we threw away because it was terrible.  It was like cough syrup and gummy bears -- YUCK!

I hope you all had a much better "National Chocolate Mint Day" than I did.

Comments

Victoria said…
Chocolate and mint is one of my favorite flavor combos! I didn't even realize there was a whole day devoted to it, haha. Sadly I hadn't planned on making anything with chocolate and mint, and instead I am doing something with chocolate and peanut butter... not a bad combo either ;-)
WriterLisaKaye said…
I nibbled on Mate's mint oreo blizzard from DQ. then went back to my Midnight truffle blizzard
Victoria, there is not seem to be a chocolate peanut butter day... I'll keep looking for one.

Lisa, I'm glad you have something with the flavor but I have to say yours sounded better to me if it's as dark as the name suggests.