Yeah.
So...
Okay, so we had this big bag of frozen raspberries left over from a berry-picking excursion back in August. And I am once again making a conscious effort to add at least a little bit of nutrition back into my fried bread lifestyle.
Last week, I was able to make a perfectly fine hippie cobbler (like a regular cobbler, but short on sugar, oil, and white flour) using frozen blackberries, despite those berries' initially horrific acidity. Let's just say that a lot of our berry-picking happened when it was too late in the day to tell ripe from underripe.
So, anyway.
Last week, trying to get good use out of the underripe, frozen-then-cooked blackberries, I tried something that I'd never done before. In a fit of desperation, I dumped several tablespoons of baking powder into the cooked berry mash.
It foamed like a child's volcano experiment. I sampled a spoonful and experienced an intense nausea. While I have no photographic evidence to prove or disprove my guess about what took place inside of my stomach (those cameras are expensive!), it felt like the baking powder had the same reaction to my stomach acid that it did with the berries' acidity.
The experience was fascinating, if a little heavy on the regret.
Still, being a cheapskate, I certainly wasn't going to throw the berries out. So I rinsed them thoroughly, running water and swishing them around in a colander.
And somehow(!) the berry mush that remained was delicious, and did not taste poisonously much like baking powder. I stirred in some cooked-from-frozen blueberries, a little brown sugar, probably a little flour(?), topped it with a mix of oats and applesauce, which also had a little flour and brown sugar mixed in. I sprinkled turbinado sugar on top and baked it in a toaster oven until the oats were golden.
The resulting brick of squishy fruit pulp and cemented oats was actually very edible, especially once served in a shallow bowl of milk.
So it was full of arrogance from that culinary triumph that I decided to force lightning to strike twice today.
I swished cooked-after-freezing raspberries in baking powder and watched the surprisingly dark foam more than double the contents of the bowl.
Because I hadn't decided to write about it at the time, I didn't take a picture. But I definitely want to encourage you (whoever's reading this) to try it at home, because it's truly weird. The foam turns "fell asleep after eating Pepto Bismol" dark. If you are a chemist, and you're reading this (Emily and Caroline, I'm looking at you), please tell me why this acid/base reaction triggers the color change, because I'm too busy wallowing to look it up. Thanks!
Anyway. I thought I'd done everything right. But I'd failed to acceptably neutralize the raspberries' sour, acidic flavor, because the damned things are raspberries, and raspberries are the devil.
Still, I soldiered on, hoping to throw enough things into the berries to save the day.
I threw in some frozen-then-cooked blueberries. I threw in some crushed walnuts, for some reason. I threw in some raisins, because I like throwing things. And in a fit of what I'd assumed had to be genius, I stirred in a few heaping spoonfuls of that eerily shelf-stable, creamy peanut butter that we keep in the pantry for baking with.
"Peanut butter and something-vaguely-like-unsweetened-jelly" was the idea. "Chemically dilute the raspberries profane, deeply evil acidity" was the thought. "Make my gums stop hurting long enough to eat these fucking things." was the bottom line.
Now, a wise person wouldn't have really over-brushed her teeth this morning, scraping up her gums like a toothbrush rookie. A wise person may have just stuck to low-acidity foods while her gums felt raw.
I am, in this context, gloriously unwise.
But I am also stumped.
The peanut butter and whatever slurry is ugly to look at, delicious on the tongue, but murder on the gums.
I know that a sophisticate would use it sparingly, as a sauce. This stuff would be revelatory spooned over custard.
It would also work gloriously well as a layer in a trifle.
But do I have the patience to pick up and cube an angel food cake?!? Do I have the stamina to throw a custard together?!? Do I remember how to buy whipping cream at the grocery store?!?
And HOW will this affect my participation in tonight's "mostly dessert" 100+ person potluck?!?
(My dad's hired a live band, and has asked all of us partygoers to bring snacks to share.)
Because really, I'd planned to just eat the nuts and berries for breakfast, and then bring cookie dough to the potluck.
Haaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh.
So much angst over here!
Also, don't the photographs give you Ghostbusters II flashbacks? Because that's what I think of.
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