Sunday, October 28, 2012

Frankenpie

There is a lot of scary shit going on this week. A hurricane mega-storm is whipping our way. There is a cut-throat presidential election turning us all into frothing maniacs. It is also the creepy Halloween season.

And I made this:

The Pie of the Dead

That's right. I may have actually conjured up the most disgusting thing ever created in any kitchen since the beginning of food and time. My husband took one look at it, and declared it "The Necronomicon of Pies" and begged me to throw it away. I have been lovingly referring to it as simply, "Frankenpie". Jean Nidetch officially calls it...

Fluffy Chocolate "Pie"
Grand Illusions

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups chocolate flavored dietetic carbonated beverage
artificial sweetener
1/2 teaspoon chocolate extract
1/4 teaspoon imitation butter
dash salt
few drops brown food coloring

Dissolve gelatin over beverage in saucepan over medium heat. Add remaining ingredients. Chill until slightly set. Whip with rotary beater until thick. Transfer to 9 inch pie plate. Chill until firm. Makes 2 servings.

First of all - how funny is it that Jean Nidetch actually printed the words "Grand Illusions" under the title of this recipe in the 1972 Weight Watchers Program Cookbook? Like this recipe would actually fool anyone into thinking they are eating a real piece of pie.

A Slice of Hell

 If I served this to any normal person, they would look at me like I had totally lost my mind. They might even call the local authorities to have me committed. And they sure as shit would never eat it. Grand illusions? Um. No.


Also - There are two problems with this recipe.

1 - It is not easy to find dietetic chocolate flavored carbonated beverage in the year 2012.

2 - It is not easy to find chocolate extract in the year 2012.

So I decided to go with diet cream soda and vanilla extract. I wound up with a vanilla flavored Fluffy Brown "Pie" which actually turned out to be a sort of a khaki-grey color. And it really wasn't fluffy at all. And it was frankly upsetting to even have it in my fridge.

What a freaking nightmare.

It didn't taste too bad, but honestly I couldn't get past the horribly freakish color and the truly pitiful state of this dish. To call this a pie is really just a tragedy. I know I have made a lot of crazy-ass excuses for food on this blog, but this is where I have to draw the line.

Some things are just plain wrong.

source: arcaneimages

Have a creepy Halloween! Hope your treats are yummy!

7 comments:

Jana said...

It looks like despair suspended in gelatin.

Sparkleneely said...

I love your blog so much. And thanks to you (and my fat jeans becoming my skinny jeans), I just started WW again... However, I'll skip this recipe. But how many activity points to I get for laughing out loud? Thank you, thank you!

Unknown said...

Haha! I love how some foods are appetite suppressants just by the sight of them. This brings new meaning to the word creepy.

:-) Marion

veg-o-matic said...

Holy...! Wow. I give you credit for actually tasting this mess. That color! Dare I ask what the lumps are?
'Round these parts, we can get Canfield's chocolate soda (diet and regular.) I could send some to you if you wanted to try this again (though I'm not sure why you would.)
I do not think I've ever seen chocolate extract in my life. Nor brown food coloring.

Anonymous said...

Hey veg- the lumps are just areas where the gelatin and food coloring clumped in a weird way. I actually have an old can of WW diet chocolate soda that I bought on eBay. But its empty :-(

XO Mimi

Shoes15 said...

Oy! I remember my mom making some kind of Weight Watchers "ice cream soda" with chocolate soda when I was a kid. How foul!

RetroRuth said...

Oh my god! This is AWESOME! It totally looks like the dessert in Better Off Dead. You know, the one that crawls off of Lane's plate? Here is a link to a post where I show a picture of it. Next time, you will have to add raisins!

http://www.midcenturymenu.com/2010/06/mid-century-menu-seafoam-cantalope-pie/