On Sunday afternoon, Tom and I went to the annual barbeque that our friend Jim hosts in celebration of his wife Colleen's birthday. I had already promised early on to bring a dessert, but on Sunday afternoon I found myself tackling an additional last minute culinary project.Around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night, we dropped off Jim at his house after watching The Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers with live symphony musical score at Wolf Trap, and he mentioned that Colleen was frustrated with her inability to procure a watermelon roll for the barbeque the next day. I was perplexed and asked what the heck a watermelon roll is, and Jim described it as watermelon ice cream with chocolate chip "seeds" that is shaped into a roll that looks like a watermelon. It turns out that in Colleen's hometown of Syracuse, NY, it's a rite of summer to pick up a "Wattamelon Roll" from Friendly's. I immediately thought that a homemade watermelon roll might be something I could actually pull off, and after chastising Jim for not giving me more notice, I volunteered to put forth my best efforts to come up with a watermelon roll knockoff by the next day.
I browsed the internet for recipes and decided try Watermelon Sorbet with Chocolate Seeds from epicurious.com. Although this wasn't exactly a watermelon roll, I liked the recipe because it only involved making one flavor of sorbet (as opposed to a real watermelon roll, which apparently uses lemon ice cream for the "rind"), and I was amused with the idea of shaping sorbet into slices on the real watermelon rind.
Despite my best efforts, there just was not enough time to finish up the sorbet slices (which have to be refrigerated for 6 hours after they are assembled) in time for the barbeque. The picture at the top of this post shows some slushy slices starting to melt around the time I abandoned any idea of trying to transport them to Jim and Colleen's house. But after we stuffed ourselves silly with burgers at the barbeque and came back home on Sunday night, I made up another batch of sorbet, shaped it into slices on frozen bits of watermelon rind, and put the slices in the freezer overnight. The end result was quite a convincing illusion. While the watermelon sorbet itself is pretty mild flavored, the Callebaut bittersweet chocolate chip seeds that I made added a terrific punch of flavor and texture. And there is something so fun about eating something that looks like a regular watermelon slice but happens to be a frozen dessert. This dish definitely gets an A+ for pure novelty!
As for Colleen's birthday baked goods, I decided to try the recipe for Georgetown Cupcake's Chocolate Ganache Cupcake. Last winter the Washington Post food section ran an eight-week series on local cupcakes and declared this particular cupcake the best the town of D.C. has to offer. The ladies at Georgetown Cupcake were good enough to share their recipe with the Post. Below is a brief video of co-owners Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis' reaction to winning the Post's "Cupcake Wars."I've never set foot in Georgetown Cupcake (the idea of having to find parking in Georgetown and then stand in line is incredibly unappealing to me), but I have had the pleasure of tasting a few of their treats when others have been nice enough to bring me a cupcake or two after a visit to the bakery. They're not bad. I've never tasted the chocolate ganache cupcake, so I can't compare mine to the real thing. My version came out very dense and moist, and the cupcakes got a lot of compliments at the barbeque. That said, I was not a huge fan. The cupcake itself was not very chocolate-y, and I don't like my cake to be so heavy. But it was a solid performer and a crowd pleaser, so I'll probably come back to this recipe again sometime.
Recipes:- Watermelon Sorbet with Chocolate Seeds from epicurious.com.
- Georgetown Cupcake's Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes, published in the Washington Post on November 5, 2008.
Comments
You're the best friend anyone could ever wish for, really!!!