Dr. Kitchenstein Presents: Brownie-Cookie Pie & Ring Ding Bread Pudding

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Sometimes all it takes is a simple question –  “you wanna bring one of your famous desserts?” – to get the brain parts firing (when it comes to food, it doesn’t take much).

I have been known, among those who know, to get experimental in the kitchen…often taking existing foods and re-presenting them in new forms (i.e. Spinach Pie as a Mac ‘n Cheese) or combining two foods that might not otherwise be combined (i.e. Bacon, Lettuce & Mango Sandwich). Some of these experiments are wonderful successes or surprises and others glorious failures (for the record, both of the above: successes). So recently, when asked to bring desserts to a cookout, I got creative.

A handful of ideas popped into my noggin and I settled on two, determining to save the rest for another day. So now I present “the making of” Brownie-Cookie Pie and Ring Ding Bread Pudding.

Brownie-Cookie Pie came first. The concept of baking a brownie in a pie crust isn’t the most novel idea, as a matter of fact, as much as the idea occurred to me one day, I’ve seen it out in the world, so I wasn’t the only one. As a result, I tried to think of a way to re-think it. I was considering a graham cracker or Oreo cookie crust (and with the graham cracker, maybe a marshmallow icing/frosting, essentially making a s’mores pie), but worried the baking time for the brownie filling could lead to a dry or even burnt crust. Talking it out with someone, they misunderstood, thinking I meant a pie crust made out of cookie dough…an actual cookie crust…an idea I’d (surprisingly) not even considered! And with that I was off to the races.

The prep was pretty simple, really. It started with the forming of the crust:

cookiebrowniepie01

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Re: Comics!

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I met the fine folks from Acme Comics (of Greensboro, NC), last September at the Baltimore Comic Con. At that show we spoke, naturally, of comics. That led to some e-mail exchanges and now, Stephen Mayer (one of the aforementioned fine folks), has invited/asked me to participate in a column over at their site (acmecomics.com), … Read more

Swabby Luke

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At some point circa 1999, in the pre-Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace days, there was a slew of new Star Wars action figures being released. One such figure, Luke Skywalker “Escape from Mos Eisley”, was referred to around the office as “Swabby Luke”, on account of his wearing a “Swabby Hat” (see Fig. 1)

swabbyluke_fig(Fig. 1 – Luke Skywalker “Escape from Mos Eisley” – note “Swabby Hat”)

Credit where credit’s due, the use of “Swabby” was not my doing (credit goes to one Mark Powers who may have picked it up from Mike Rockwitz, if memory serves), but regardless, a good handful of us in the office found it quite entertaining…

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The time I got to draw everyone.

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My first work in comics, in 1997, was penciling issue #104 of the comic book title WHAT IF? (Vol. 2). The comic starred the Silver Surfer and a character called The Impossible Man, a shape-changing last survivor of the destroyed planet Poppup, a planet of shape-changers. In his appearances, The Impossible Man typically wreaked impish havoc for the heroes he comes across (typically the Fantastic Four).

In this particular comic, the Impossible Man, using newly acquired infinite power, recreates his home planet, Poppup.

The result of this action plays out on the last page of the comic, when a variety of Poppupians appear. The last page of the plot (the text document a comic artist works from to draw the comic) for this story, written by Tom Virkaitis, read as follows:

PAGE TWENTY-SIX

This is an epilogue. We are now back on Thanos’ old altar. The Impossible Man (as Santa Claus) is returning the gems to the Elders of the Universe (who Impy resurrected). The Silver Surfer is also in attendance. The Elders thank Impy who transforms into Captain America and salutes them all. The Elders teleport away as a group. That’s when another Poppupian shows up as the Red Skull and tries to shoot the Impossible Man. Another Poppupian shows up as the Captain America werewolf and yet two others are arguing as to which one is the “real” Bucky (one is the original, the other is the Heroes Reborn Bucky). The Silver Surfer stands silently as all this craziness surrounds him. We pan back as the Surfer tries to convince himself that he made the right choice. “Right?”

Seems simple enough. A good amount of stuff going on, but pretty straightforward.

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“IT IS ON! We are approved.”

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Remember that story about the “NEW Marvel Tails” project that never happened? (if you don’t, scroll down two entries and learn all about it) Well, following that second attempt, the editor we spoke to had suggested possibly exploring another Marvel Comics property for any potential story ideas. After a bit of brainstorming, a new proposal … Read more

The Attic Sketch

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Today is tax day, which means local and national news outlets will undoubtably have a reporter “on the scene” at a post office, commenting on the long lines and waits for people to get their returns out postmarked by the 15th. Seems to happen every year, despite April 15th falling pretty much on April 15th … Read more

From the Reject Pile: The NEW Marvel Tails

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A couple of years back I submitted a proposal to Marvel Comics for a 4-issues series starring Spider-Ham and the rest of Marvel Comics’ “Funny Animal” characters. Working with me as the artist was the very skilled-in-his-own-right Jacob Chabot. For those who understood about 8% of that sentence: Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, is a … Read more

Oreo v. Hydrox: Taste Test & Analysis

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It is rare for there to exist one version of a thing. Superman is not the only super-powered hero. MS Word is not the only word processing software. And Kellogg’s Raisin Bran is not the only raisin bran.

This is the case with chocolate sandwich cookies, which is the generic name for “Milk’s Favorite Cookie”, the Oreo. But if you visit your local cookie vendor, you’ll discover Famous Amos makes a chocolate sandwich cookie…Newman’s Own has their Newman O’s…and there are always the more generic, off-branded versions as well.

In the beginning, however, there was the Oreo and the Hydrox. And any trivialist or food nerd will quickly tell you that the Hydrox pre-dated the Oreo.

But the Oreo is the most well known. Oreo, like Xerox for photocopiers and Kleenex for tissues, has become the common-use term for the chocolate sandwich cookie (by way of example as MS Word spell-checks this very document, “Hydrox” gets the “you spelled this wrong” red underline; “Oreo”, no problem. In fact, it only corrects you if you fail to capitalize the O). This was the case for me even as a child, where I just assumed Hydrox was the “off-brand” version of the Oreo. I may not have been the only one, as years ago the first cookie, the Hydrox, was no longer available for purchase.

More recently, however, the Hydrox has returned. Labeled as a 100th Anniversary Limited Edition, you may once again find Hydrox in your local grocery.

Which led to the question: despite their chronology or popularity, what’s the difference, really?

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“New Look” Hatter Entertainment Dot Com

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In 1964, Batman debuted with his “New Look”. This “New Look” amounted to essentially the appearance of a yellow oval around the bat symbol on his chest. A simple change, to be sure. In that spirit welcome to the “new look” Hatter Entertainment Dot Com…a two-point-oh, if you will. Aside from the surface aesthetics, you’ll … Read more

End of 2008: No News Is News

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It seems my slow-going revamp of this site isn’t quite ready just yet. But please, check back in the early part of 2009 for what I hope will be a hardly noticeable yet distinctly different Hatter Entertainment Dot Com. In the meantime, have a happy holiday and all the best in the coming new year. … Read more