Weekend Update: Week 5 Sugar Coma

I was so fucking hungover today, I almost missed church. After a disappointing attempt to ogle other people's fetishes Friday night, Saturday night I indulged in one of my own. I went to a dessert party--every dessert made from scratch by my decadent friends, Chicken Grrrl and Martini. That's right. Three-and-a-half hours of nothing but really fucking yummy desserts and great company. If I can't get my cookie, the next pleasure in line for me is sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. And fat. And more sugar. Sweet, moist mouth orgasms. I showed up late for church this morning with the worst sugar hangover I've ever had and it was so worth it.

I can't describe every dessert I pounded down because even I don't write posts that long. But I've got photos and even a recipe. And, OK, maybe a couple of comments. Let's start with the menu, shall we?

• spiced pecans (made with sugar, chili, and coconut oil)
• selected chocolates (milk to 85%)
• cinnamon almonds
• pistachios
• fried peach pies
• matcha green tea sugar cookies
• orange and hazelnut torrone
• salted bitter caramels
• raspberry truffles
• daquoise with cherry french buttercream filling
• assorted cheeses (stilton, camembert, dubliner--one of those had chocolate in it. Not kidding.)
• grapes, pears, apples
• zabaglione custard
• greek yogurt with honey and thyme
• lime and mint sorbet
• pink grapefruit sorbet
• flourless chocolate cake with espresso ganache

And booze. Plenty of ports and lickers and a bubbly, sweet Sara Bee Moscato.

We started with a nut and chocolate sampler as we waited for everybody to arrive. At the same time, we endured the most tantalizing aroma as Chicken Grrrl fried up little southern peach pies made from local peaches she dried last summer. I could have eaten a dozen and stopped for the night, but we had many calories to go before we became completely engorged.

My grandma would ask for Chicken Grrrl's super flaky pie crust recipe--and that's high praise.

Knowing this was fewer than half of the desserts they had planned, I tried to pace myself. Massive fail.

Cheese and fruit, daquoise, candies, and flourless chocolate cake

Cookies!

I don't know if you noticed that some of those cookies look like vaginas. I didn't either until someone who was not me brought it up. Chicken Grrrl's cookies are so pretty it's hard to eat them, but green tea is a surprising, fresh flavor in a cookie. (I just love saying cookie. Cookie.)

Sean had fun eating his vagina cookie.

Next we gobbled up some of Martini's hand-made confections. He went to a conference in DC last year to learn about things like tempering and other scientific terms that I can't think about as my mouth pulses with pleasure. He gave me a bag to bring home -- thus my descent back into the sugar dungeon today. I'm especially enamored with his newest recipe, the salted bitter caramel, which is crunchy with salt and just the right side of burnt. It should lie on satin sheets ... with me.

With our blood sugar numbers in the hundreds, we shot up some insulin cut into the daquoise with cherry french buttercream filling, which was one of my favorites of the night. A daquoise is a crunchy macaroon meringue, and this one was layered with sticky, smooth cherry buttercream. It's one of the sexiest desserts I've eaten in a long time. I can still feel it in my mouth ....

This is the mother of all cookies.

Knowing we were going to gorge ourselves sick, our hosts threw in some healthy courses that were intended to bring our sugar -- although not our fat -- levels down.

Yogurt made from whole, raw milk, served with honey and fresh thyme.

Even the cheese had chocolate in it.

I had barely finished a taste of zabaglione (not pictured), which deserves another go, when the sorbet was served. After all the rich decadence we'd been seduced by, you wouldn't think a sorbet would compete, but both of these did. And they're really easy to make. For the grapefruit sorbet, just use a 4/1 ratio of fresh grapefruit juice and cane sugar. Boil up a simple syrup, add the juice, freeze and stir a few times. The lime and mint is similar. So easy to make and you won't believe how refreshing.

By the time we licked our sorbet spoons clean, we were all ready to explode, but we still had the flourless chocolate cake to dive into. Dark, rich, creamy, slightly bitter .... I feel a little moist just thinking about it. I ate it with just a taste of a sweet ruby port, a Quinta do Noval 2005. I'll be looking for a bottle of that for my own bar.

Don't you want to lick it?

After everybody else had waddled out the door, I stayed and helped clean up just because I felt like I needed the exercise - any exercise -- after all that sugar. And I was buzzing so hard I knew I wouldn't sleep until the wee hours. I was right. I am a woman of big appetites so it rarely happens, but I left sated. In a coma, yes, but sated .... at least for a few hours.

Who taught that kid to talk?