Congratulations, Tracy Lea!! You are the winner of a whole heap of tacky Hollywood souvenirs.

Here are your random numbers:

2

Timestamp: 2010-06-25 19:36:04 UTC

Please contact me at kristanroland@hotmail.com to claim your prize!! 

Oh, and I forgot to tell you, if I find out that you are not displaying these items proudly in your kitchen for all the world to see, I will be coming to repossess them. ;)

I’ve got some great treats baking up for next week and can’t wait to share.

Have a happy weekend!!

Yesterday was one of those kind of days.

You know…the kind that basically suck really bad.

It started at about 5:55 am when I got up so that I could shower and get my son and myself ready in time to be at his golf lessons by 7:50.

And while I was rubbing my eyes and chugging Red Bull on the drive to the Big City, I was thinking about how maybe one day my son will get really good at golf and he’ll be super famous and ESPN will play a clip of him saying how dedicated his mom was to drive him an hour to golf lessons at the crack of dawn, just so he could pursue his dream. 

But then during the lesson, I saw this kid teeing off right next to my son and I swear this boy looked like he could already give Tiger Cheater Jerkface a run for his money. And I started getting really  mad, because this kid probably just stole my future mansion from me. 

That’s when I first started thinking that maybe my day wasn’t going so awesome, because it wasn’t even 9am yet, and I’d already lost like, a million dollars to some little know it all in an Under Armor shirt.

And of course, since I just got back from vacation, my house was void of all groceries. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and hit Walmart Supercenter while I was in the Big City.

Things at Walmart started out promising until I got to the shampoo aisle and realized that I’d gotten a bum cart. But not the kind that squeaks or does that weird thumping thing, but the kind that pulls really hard to the right so you basically have to steer it with both hands pushing left to get it to go straight the whole time. And I would have taken it back, but I was at that funny spot in the store where it’s kinda too far to want to go back up to the front. Plus, I had already put like 6 things in it. 

Fortunately for me, it also turned out to be sample day, which meant that I had to fend off about seven sweet old ladies pushing anything from lunch meat to chocolate peanut butter fiber bars. And those women are brutal, because after I’d  politely say “no” they’d turn their attentions on the kids and do the sweet grandma thing. And what kid do you know that can say no to a sweet grandma handing out bite sized squares of fiber bars? None, that’s how many. So then I got to stand and wait as they doled out treats and pointed out precisely where mom could find the yummy fiber bars for only $4.98 a box.


That moment was the moment I truly understood that the world was kind of hating me.


And as I steered my bum cart over to the checkout, I thought about how relieved I was to be done and heading home. I was so deep in my thoughts that I didn’t realize whose line I had gotten in until it was too late.


My Walmart cashier enemy.


This woman….she should be Walmart OUTLAWED. Because she is a “stuff commenter”. Meaning that she looks at the stuff I’m buying as she’s ringing it up and says stuff about it. Which I hate: 

1. Because I don’t like explaining that I’m not buying 19 boxes of cake mix because “someone must me having a birthdaaayyyyy” but because I am a freak who hates to run out of stuff and I live an hour away in a small town and our little grocery store charges twice what Walmart does and that’s a lot of money for cake mix.

2. Because I don’t like to think about the fact that cashiers pay attention to what I’m buying because what if I’m also buying hemorrhoid cream or laxatives or even liverwurst. I mean, that’s embarrassing.


So as usual, this woman commented on basically everything I bought and as usual I didn’t even know what to do about it except cringe and wish I was jumping off a bridge or doing anything else but explaining my purchases to this freak. And in the midst of all this, the kids are asking if they can have a snack size can of Pringles or breath mints or a Walmart gift card because “I know it doesn’t have any money on it, but it’s got a cool picture and I can put it in my wallet”.


Thankfully, I finally made it out of there alive and loaded my groceries in the back of the car in peace. In 102 degree heat. And that’s a humid heat, guys…which means that it feels more like 157.


So basically by the time I got home I had lost a million dollars, was drenched in sweat, and my right arm muscle was way huger than my left. Oh, and I had this big box of fiber bars that the kids didn’t want.


And I thought to myself, “Dude, you sooo need to find a way to salvage this day. You can’t go down like this.”

That’s when I remembered an awesome treat that I recently discovered at a 7 Eleven in California. And I wanted to badly to relive that moment.

Chocodiles. Heard of them? 


I hadn’t, so when I first saw one, I thought it was a mirage. A trick of the mind. My brain conjuring up something that could only be possible in my wildest dreams.


But it was real. It was awesome. It was a chocolate covered Twinkie.


So decided to see if I could save the day and make some myself. 

*Adapted from Joy the Baker

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

Place rack in center of the oven and preheat oven to 350.

Spray a Twinkie pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl of an electric mixer at medium high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at time, beating for 1 minute in between each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture alternately with the milk in 3 batches, starting and ending with flour. Beat until just incorporated.

Fill each cup in the prepared pan about 2/3 full of batter. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the cakes are slightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Remove from oven and let pans cool on wire racks. Do not try and remove Twinkies from pan until almost all the way cool or they may fall apart.

Once Twinkies are completely cool, fill with Twinkie Cream

Twinkie Cream (From Todd Wilbur)

2 teaspoons very hot water
1/4 teaspoon salt
7 oz jar marshmallow cream
1/2 cup shortening
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the hot water and salt in a small bowl and mix until salt is dissolved. Let the mixture cool. 

Combine the marshmallow cream, shortening, powdered sugar and vanilla extract in a medium bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy.

Add the salt water to the filling and beat well to combine.

Scoop into a pastry bag with a small tip and pipe into cooled Twinkie cakes. 

**I allowed my Twinkies to cool in the refrigerator overnight before dipping in chocolate. This allowed them to firm up so they wouldn’t fall apart when rolled in warm melted chocolate.

You will need a bag of Milk Chocolate Candy Melts and a bag of Dark Chocolate Candy melts. Pour about half of each bag into a medium sized bowl and melt in the microwave according to instructions. Mix well so that the milk and dark chocolates are well blended and not marbled. Place one Twinkie at a time in the bowl and roll around to coat, spooning chocolate over the Twinkie if necessary. Place coated Twinkie on wax paper until set. If you want sprinkles, be sure and sprinkle them on before the chocolate hardens.


Repeat until all Twinkies are coated (there should be about 12 total). It may be necessary to melt the other half of the chocolate coating to finish.

I can honestly say that when I found out about Chocodiles, it was one of the best discoveries of my life. Make some yourself and see.

Happy Wednesday!!


**My Hollywood Bomb Scare Giveaway is going until Thursday. Scroll on down to the previous post to enter**