Shindiglet: Battle of the Batter

Shindiglet - Like a grand shindig, only a much smaller to-do. There are times, when even a small group of people getting together creates an occasion for celebrating with a theme. And if it is within my power, I always try to make that happen.

An across-the-miles triple throwdown baking challenge, for me, is such an occasion.

Over the past few years, my bestie, Toni, and I have exchanged recipes. A couple of times we've even tried new recipes at the same time and compared notes. That was fun. But recently, Toni kicked it up a notch, posting a challenge on facebook... challenging me, and another gal, Toni-Lynn, to a baking THROWDOWN! What was the objective? Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes. None of us had made them before, but we all exuded confidence. Check out our game faces:

Toni

Tanya

Toni-Lynn

What followed was some bakers' smack talk. After a few days of that, we separately conducted our baking experiment, using different recipes, of our own choosing. As the three of us live in three different states, we couldn't actually judge the recipes side by side. We would have to be the judge of our own creations, with input from friends and family all-too-ready-and-willing to sample the end product. :)

Here's how it went down for me.

I started with just a few ingredients: 3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, 3 oz. milk chocolate, butter, cocoa, egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar.

I melted the chocolate and the butter together in a double boiler.

The egg whites were beaten together with the cream of tartar and sugar.

I folded the egg whites into the chocolate.

And then scooped the batter into the buttered and sugared muffin tins.

After about seven minutes, they came out of the oven like this:

They look good, don't they?!

Turned out onto a plate, aside a scoop of coconut ice cream, and dusted with cocoa powder, it looks like this:

Anticipating the molten chocolate that makes this dish "lava cake", I cut it open and mmmmmmm.........

Look how my youngest is eating it up!

OK, so I would love to just leave it at that and feel all proud of myself, but....

I kinda cheated.

I'll come clean.

My lava cakes ended up being not-so-molten. I'd describe them more like chocolate mousse cakes. Still completely delicious. And rich. And dangerous... because I couldn't stop eating after just one. Here's what it really looked like inside:

And my secret molten-ator?

Hey, living a stone's throw from Hershey, PA makes it all okay. :)

Be sure to check out Toni's and Toni's re-cap of this chocolate lava cake triple throwdown!

What will you Fuzzoodle?

Wow, it has been a while since I've written a post! What better reason to dust off the Shin-dig-it blog than to write about the latest shindig: A Fuzzoodles Fiesta!

Every guest to our Fuzzoodles Fiesta wanted to know: What is a Fuzzoodle? Before House Partypalooza sent me this product to experiment with, I didn't know what a Fuzzoodle was either. Fuzzy Noodles = Fuzzoodles. A simple, back-to-basics, creative product from Giddy Up! (think Blendy Pens, Surprise Ink, Water Wow...) that takes the classic pipe cleaner (or chenilles to you florists out there) to a whole new level. They are bendable like pipe cleaners, but these are so fluffy! And the kits come with accessories such as eyes, feet, noses, and mouths.

Before going into further detail about this product, I would like to talk about the theme development of this party. The Fuzzoodles were obviously the start of the show, but this was no ordinary party - it was a FIESTA! Not the most obvious choice for a fall party, but who doesn't love a fiesta, I want to know!? I used Punchbowl for my party planning and invitations. I love planning my parties using Punchbowl. The designs are top-notch and the options are so easy to use. My guests electronically received a realistic sealed envelope:

This envelope, once opened, revealed the invitation:

To decorate the party area, I set up a table for the food and covered it with a southwestern blanket. Guests munched on tortilla chips with salsa and queso, cocoa roasted almonds, and pizza. For dessert, we had fiesta cookies. Water and juice pouches refreshed the kids, while the adults enjoyed a sparkling blood orange beverage. The fuzzoodles and accessories were loaded into the brims of two sombreros in the center of the work table.

As soon as the guests arrived, the kids enjoyed figuring out just how the fuzzoodles worked. Each creation triggered new ideas, as the creatures developed into even more elaborate inventions.

I saw bracelets, glasses, headbands, door knob cozies, critters, and acrobats... yes, acrobats! The creative juices were flowing, and weren't just limited to the kids. The adults couldn't resist trying their hand at twisting life into the supplies. I seriously could not have predicted how much fun it would be to have a party around these fuzzoodles.

The festivities lasted about two hours, with the adults completing a survey at the end to evaluate the Fuzzoodles Fiesta experience. I was thrilled to be able to give away a $10 gift card to Toys R Us, which House Partypalooza provided, to a randomly selected guest!

You can find Fuzzoodles at many stores as well as online. Amazon has this large kit and Toys R Us also carries Fuzzoodles in store and online.

In exchange for House Partypalooza sending me this product, I agreed to invite other parents and children to my house for a product demonstration. I was able to keep the items our guests didn't take with them. The words and opinions in this review are 100% my own.

Safe and Bright Holiday Decorating House Party

The House Party Company did it again!

I was selected to host another House Party Event, this time sponsored by UL (Underwriters Laboratories). The whole idea this time was to have a wreath decorating extravaganza while sharing safety tips that are especially important to remember this time of year. So, I invited my neighbors over for some festive fun. And, boy was it ever that!

I couldn't believe the size of the box containing the party pack when it was delivered! It was so exciting to open it up and inspect all of the contents. Included were: 15 individual 12" wreaths, 15 strings of UL certified lights, several packets of mini ornaments/decorations, a bunch of ribbon, and magnets with safety decorating tips. I purchased some additional decorative items at Dollar Tree including decorative birds, more mini ornaments, silk flowers, pine accents, pine cones, bows, and jingle bells. I also provided cinnamon sticks from my own supply. I set it all up on a table in the party room.

And although I hadn't begun decorating for Christmas yet in my house, I arranged a few painted wooden decorations around the room to get us all in the spirit. A little Christmas music, some munchies, and a few friends made for a completely enjoyable afternoon!

One of my guests is a seasonal florist, and has a great talent for turning ribbon into beautiful bows. She made and shared several bows for us. I may yet enlist her help in turning the rest of the leftover ribbon into bows for future use!

The kids at the party (including my own) were eager to join in the fun. With a little help in winding the light string around the wreath, they got right to work making their own creative wreaths. This one was made and proudly displayed by my daughter.

While decorating, we shared different holiday traditions that we each found special. From Christmas Eve road trips, to weather-inspired fun, there was no end to the engaging conversation. We did also manage to discuss the safety tips that were listed on the magnets, such as reminders about having smoke alarms on each level of your home, and the importance of turning lights and decorations off before bed. (My husband took some left-over magnets to work and handed those out too.) To go along with that, I downloaded a "Safe or Unsafe" quiz from the House Party site. When posed with a question like "You took the family out to pick out your Christmas tree. After three hours of 'too big, too small, kinda lopsided' you found the perfect tree. And, 'hurray!' the cut end of the tree didn't even have any of that sticky stuff on it that always gets all over the rug." you would of course answer "Unsafe" The reason being, "You can tell that a tree has been freshly cut if the cut end of the tree is sticky with resin and when tapped on the ground, few needles fall off. The most important factor in tree safety and fire prevention is freshness, so choose carefully." (source) It is such useful and practical information, you'll want to read more from UL when considering safety at home all year round.

I managed to snap a picture of only a couple of the finished wreaths amidst all the fun.

Here's wishing every Shin-Dig-It reader a safe, fun and memorable Christmas season!

** As customary with hosting a House Party Event, I received the party pack for free. However, this summarization was written of my own volition because I love to share theme party information. **

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter House Party

After the much lauded Domino's American Legends Pizza House Party I threw this summer, I was very excited to get a chance to host another party through the House Party website. This time, it would be sponsored by I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. No joke! How does one have a party based around butter (or "non-butter" as the case may be)? Well, it actually took the form of a bake sale planning party. What a cool concept! As President of my daughter's school's PTO, this opportunity fell into my lap at just the right time. Our PTO is launching some new programming and events, and a bake sale was a good start to fund our efforts.

The party pack that came in the mail contained enough material for 15 guests. My party ended up being much smaller, so there was plenty of stuff go around. Each guest got a tote bag with the ICBINB logo (and another one tucked inside the bag, too), a refrigerator magnet/notepad, a recipe booklet, 6 $1.50 coupons for ICBINB sticks, and entries for a sponsor-related contest to use and to share with friends. To this, I added $1.60 Nature Valley Nut Clusters coupons that I had received from Pssst... that I was supposed to share with friends. I also added a pen (that I got free from CVS with all of their back to school shopping deals!) to go with that fridge magnet list, and a Zobmondo coupon and AMC theaters popcorn coupons that I still had leftover from the Domino's House Party. Not a bad little reward for people coming together to plan a charitable bake sale!

I gave the guests a baking-related word search to do as people arrived. I also had a jar of chocolate chips on display for the guests to study and make a guess as to how many chips there were in the jar. EVERYone who took a stab at it guessed in the mid-300's. Well, except for my three year old who guessed that there were FIVE chocolate chips (we need to work on those counting skills, sweetie...). In reality, there were 700 chips in that little jar. The guest with the closest guess won the prize, which contained two coupons for free ICBINB and an ICBINB butter dish from the sponsor's party pack, and a candle holder with season-appropriate scented candles for it and hand lotion... you know, to moisturize after all of that baking and washing up. The supplements were things that I pulled out of the stash of things I've gotten for free with deal/coupon shopping.

In the midst of the bake sale planning, we enjoyed some light refreshments - cheese and crackers, chips, chocolate chip cookies the size of your head (!) and lemon squares. To make things interesting, I prepared one batch of lemon squares with real butter and one with ICBINB. I asked my guests to take part in the butter vs. ICBINB taste test, just for grins and giggles. My guests actually uttered the line "I can't believe it's not butter!" afterwards. And so, yeah... maybe I prompted them just a little to actually say the line... but the consensus was that the lemon squares I baked with ICBINB were better than the ones I baked with real butter!

In the picture, the ICBINB batch is in the foreground, real butter batch in the background. And now, a few notes about my baking experience. Working with ICBINB was just the same as using real butter. The real test was tasting the crust of the lemon squares. The ICBINB crust allowed easier removal from the baking pan, but the real butter crust actually crumbled less when biting into the squares. One guest thought the lemon flavor was more enhanced with the real butter squares, but she still preferred the ICBINB batch. I'm the type of gal who buys what is on sale for most things, which includes ICBINB from time to time. I was glad to have done a side-by-side comparison for this product.

And while we didn't actually set a date for our bake sale yet, we did talk about a lot of school related projects and camaraderie was enhanced. We have some details to check on and some avenues to pursue, and we'll be well on our way to having our "better bake sale." What fun!

While you're here, don't forget to enter my Giveaway for a Premium Account at MyPunchbowl! I reviewed MyPunchbowl here. Check it out!

Wordless Wednesday: Pizza Party Aftermath A.K.A. Pass the Tums

Check out more WW here and here!

Domino's American Legends Pizza House Party

So, say someone offers you a gift card worth $75 at Domino's and asks you to sample their new line of pizza - American Legends ("the classic American flavors without the road trip"). Now, say that all you have to do is invite over your friends so that they can sample the new pizza, too. Wouldn't you go for it? I sure did - and what a fun time it was indeed!

It all started several months ago when my sister-in-law forwarded me an email from houseparty.com announcing a French Cocktail Hour party. Prospective hosts need only apply online (easy and free) and the houseparty computers would select a set amount of hosts via a cross-comparison of applicants against the sponsor's (in that case, the French Government) marketing needs. Although I had applied for that house party, sadly, I was not selected to be a host. But did that stop me from applying for other house parties? No way! The very next party I applied to host was the Domino's American Legends house party. This time was I selected? You betcha!

From start to finish, my experience with the house party was superb! They have an internal national party blog that allows you to hear from other party hosts as well as getting information directly from the site. I received timely emails with information on what was coming up next in the party planning process and tips to get the buzz going about my party.

The house party site has the added functionality of inviting all of your guests online, making it a breeze to spread the word about your party. I did have one person who I needed to invite in person, and the site made that so easy, too. What fun it was to watch as my guests responded to the RSVP and left messages on the party message board (also built in to the site).

Once my party was customized to my taste, and the invitations were issued, I began the theme development of which I am so fond. How to play up the theme with the food? American Legends combined with legendary food tastes brought me to the challenge that I issued to my guests: to bring a food or drink inspired by a legendary American person or place. Being an Elvis admirer myself, I had notions of fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches... or a spin-off of that in a banana & peanut butter dessert pizza. Yes, that is what I would make! Well, to make that long story short, the brownie "pizza crust" broke as I was turning it out, so I just cut them up into squares and forewent the Elvis connection. Brownies are an all-American dessert, so I cut my losses and just went with that. I did, however, stumble upon a fantastic recipe for a non-alcoholic mint julep. The recipe is based on the beverage served at Disneyland. See that? I combined the legendary drink of the Kentucky Derby with the legendary all-things-Disney and got myself a two-fer. It was delicious to boot! In honor of Hawaii (American legendary paradise), I also cut up a fresh pineapple.

And that brings me to the variety of the Domino's American Legends line of pizzas. Are you stuck in the typical pepperoni pizza rut? Domino's has the answer to your problem. Are you ready for this? They have the Honolulu Hawaiian, Philly Cheesesteak, Buffalo Chicken, Memphis BBQ Chicken, Cali Chicken Bacon Ranch, and Pacific Veggie. Whew! We enjoyed one of each on the hand-tossed crust. Let me tell you, folks... Domino's reputation has skyrocketed in my opinion! You do not want to miss the Memphis Chicken BBQ. It is sweet and smokey, and totally to die for! It was my personal favorite, and not only because it made me think of Elvis (OK, yes, Elvis was smokey and sweet, but it was the Memphis connection that made me think of him initially. Come on folks!)

So, feeling that the food was covered, I wanted to add a few other details to bring the theme out even more. I turned to the public library for help. I took out several books on the subject of American Legends. This included: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", biograpies on Judy Garland and James Dean, a tourism book on Hawaii, and a foodie book about New York. I added a couple from my own collection, including a book on Elvis (of course!), and one about the Kentucky Derby. From the house party site, I downloaded and printed out a top ten list of popular American travel destinations. I set copies of this list around the sitting area with the books. So for a casual shindig, I was feeling pretty satisfied that the theme would be developed.

A couple of weeks prior to party day, house party sent me a party pack which arrived via UPS. I got quite a kick out of the fact that it was shipped in a Domino's pizza box. How fun and odd to see the UPS man delivering pizza! Inside the box were several goodies. There was a Domino's pen and notepad (good for making party planning to-do lists), Domino's pizza coupons, free popcorn coupons for AMC theaters, and coupons for Zobmondo games. To my delight, there was also a free Zobmondo "You Gotta Be Kidding" card game for us to use at the party. Squee!

Party day happened to be the same day as the scheduled community-wide yard sale, in which I had hoped to participate. The good Lord must have known I was trying to do too much, because that morning it was raining cats and dogs. The yard sale being rained out did provide me the luxury of having plenty of time to get the house tidied up and in order. This was good, because I had planned a backyard bash, but had to change it to an indoor party. It was just too wet outside.

Let me share with you another cool facet of my Domino's experience. I love coupons. I ordered my pizza early via the phone instead of online just to make sure the large order could be handled adequately and would be ready on time. I explained about the house party promotion and asked about the online coupons. We hashed things out with no problems, and I managed to take my $75 gift card from the Domino's/house party promotion and get 12 pizzas instead of six thanks to the coupon deal. Lesson here is always, ALWAYS look for coupons and ask the salespeople if they can work with you to use them to the max. There was even enough left on the gift card to throw in a 2-liter of soda. Sweet! It was such a weird thing to see my husband and brother-in-law carrying in so many pizza boxes at one time. But we were a good sized crowd, and we were hungry! Late afternoon found us welcoming our guests, which numbered about 30, to our humble abode with smiles on our faces and feasting on our minds.

I had printed out cards with the names of each American Legends pizza that I placed aside the appropriate pizza box so that everyone knew what each one was. It was surprising how much fun everyone had just talking about the variety of pizzas and what we all liked most about them. The most popular AL pizza was the Cali Chicken Bacon Ranch. On the house party site for the Domino's party, most people indicated that the Philly Cheesesteak was the most popular at their parties. Here in southcentral PA, we are cheesesteak connoisseurs, and while it was delicious, it didn't quite taste like what we thought of as cheesesteaks. Where was the cheez wiz? Heh! One of my guests remarked that all of the pizzas were delicious but only the pepperoni and the cheese variety were actually pizzas. Her Italian background wouldn't let her identify the AL line as pizzas.

The "You Gotta Be Kidding" game had several of us rolling on the floor it was so funny. With questions like "Would you rather dig in someone else's nose to get out a booger or have someone else dig in your nose to get out a booger?" you can imagine the amusing discomfort that took turns on everyone's face. Groans and laughter did abound, nonetheless.

After several hours of pizza-fueled fun and games, the party guests dissipated, managing to roll home after having so much to eat! There was even some pizza sent home with guests, we had such a bounty. When it was all said and done, I figured it cost me all of about $20 to throw this party. That was for the soda and munchies. What a bargain! Many thanks to Domino's and house party for a wholesome and terrific event to be a part of! We couldn't have been happier! I am totally aching to host another house party. If you've never checked them out before, go at once to houseparty.com and sign yourself up. And hey, if you get selected to host a party, don't forget to invite me! *wink*