Chocolate eggs, deconstructed

While browsing Reddit the other day, I came across a link to this post, by the exceptionally talented (or should I say 'egg-ceptionally'?) Steph, a food blogger from Sydney. I couldn't wait to try it out, and make my own chocolate cheesecake eggs for a party tomorrow. Since I didn't know where to buy hollow chocolate eggs on short notice, I decided to buy a dozen Cadbury eggs, cut them open, and hollow them out.

Here's what I learned: this does not work. You can't cut the top off smoothly without causing the entire egg to collapse. Or if you do manage, you will find that the filling is pretty much an integral part of the not-so-hollow-as-it-first-appeared egg. So...I decided to deconstruct it.

And that brings us to today's post - Deconstructed 'fried egg' cheesecake tartlets.

Here's what you need:
For filling -
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar)
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Not for filling -
7 graham cracker tartlets (alas, this is all that it makes. Feel free to double the recipe though!)
apricot jam (I used Smucker's Spreadable Fruit)

Put all the filling stuff in a bowl and beat it with an electric mixer until it is uniformly smooth. It should taste like no-bake cheesecake (because that's what it is!). Fill the tartlet shells. Use an ice cream spoon or other very small teaspoon to make a round scooped depression in the center of each tartlet. Put a small dollop of jam in that depression, so that they look like eggs, sunny side up. See how easy that was? It takes ten minutes, tops, and tastes delicious! Next year I plan to buy chocolate shells and try Steph's version, but in the meantime, I'm pretty pleased with the way these turned out. It just goes to show, there are no mistakes in cooking that you can't turn into something great. Happy Easter, everyone!

The coolest language learning site ever

Lately I've been trying to learn Spanish because, in contrast to my previous home state of Ohio, I now live in an area where a lot of people speak Spanish, and it just doesn't make any sense to me not to be able to communicate with all of the people around you. So, I like, when I have the time, to search out new and exciting ways to learn languages. Changing things up keeps them interesting. Years ago, I used this site,eTandem, to find a French pen pal, and it really did help a lot with my French, not to mention just being fun - it's not often, as an adult, you get the chance to have a pen pal, something most of us left behind in elementary school. [Viktor from Russia, wherever you are, I hope you're doing well ;) ]

But back to eTandem. After using it once, I then lost the address for years, and for some reason, Yahoo and Google searches do not turn it up, or at least they didn't for me. I think it was because I forgot the crucial 'e'. 'Tandem foreign language penpal' didn't cut it. And now, here it is again! I'm excited to be able to use it, and I thought I'd take this opportunity to tell the rest of you about it. What is it, you ask? Well, it's a free penpal matching service that asks you a few questions (age, country, language you know, language you'd like to know, how good you are at it already), and uses that info to pair you with someone who commits to writing to you in your respective languages (and possibly communicating in other ways too, if you're up for it and you both agree - such as letter, phone, chat, or video chat). Anyway, it's fun and free, and it deserves to be more commonly known about. So, give it a try, if it sounds like your cup of tea. Why let all those high school language classes go to waste?