Wondercon

Man, Wondercon was so much fun. I brought two costumes with me- Mandy (from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy) and HIM (from The Powerpuff Girls). I was amused that I was portraying two faces of EVIL at the con.

I made Mandy last year for Fanime. She was super-mega cheap, because I used leftover material from my Katamari costumes. The only thing I bought specifically for it was a seventy-nine cent black headband. The dress was the first thing I ever sewed by myself. It is not so good, unfortunately. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hate the material I used (quilting flannel), because it wrinkles badly. And I screwed up the flower on her dress- it’s supposed to have five petals, not six. I brought Mandy to Wondercon because Maxwell Atoms, the creator of the show, was appearing. My friend TeapotGirl and I went to his panel, and she accompanied me afterwards to get his autograph and take pictures. The Cartoon Network people gave me a bit of swag for dressing up. Yay!

HIM was an entirely new costume. He’s my favorite villain from The Powerpuff Girls. I actually used the same basic pattern for his dress as I did for Mandy’s. My sewing skills actually have somewhat improved over the last eight months, because this dress looks much, much better. It’s also made out of flannel, but it’s way less wrinkly. The tights on my arms and legs are recycled from my first Katamari costume, Kuro. I used a feather boa that Barbara May had given me years ago as part of the invitation to her bachelorette party. The belt buckle is made out of a cheap wooden picture frame painted gold. The wig isn’t really a wig, it’s felt hand-sewn to a wig cap (and god, what a pain that was). The lobster claws are plush. They’re not quite as big as I would have liked, so I may remake them, but they were so hard to do that I may just decide to be happy with them.

Yes, yes, enough talking, you want to see pictures.

Here’s a shot of my scary Mandy eyebrows, and here are two with Maxwell Atoms. He was really cool. I’m going to frame the autograph I got because a) I’m a huge dork and b) it’s actually a really awesome piece of artwork- it’s a tarot card of Mandy as the Magician.

And here’s HIM! More pics of HIM will be coming later, but this is the best one I’ve gotten so far.

I know I’ve just been talking about my costumes, but my friends were also in costume, and man, their work blows mine out of the water. They had a fantastic Avatar: The Last Airbender group, as well as Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Danny Phantom, and The Fairly Oddparents. This weekend was full of incredible costumes and so much fun!

Looks like I’m not even going to have time for a simple ice cream recipe this week. I’m busy sewing costumes for Wondercon next weekend. One of the costumes is requiring a ton of handsewing, which I suck at, and is therefore taking longer than I had planned. Meh. However, if I manage to pull it off, it will be awesome. So I probably won’t have anything to post until next week.

Zed made three kinds of pesto on Sunday. The first is like pesto butter. We’ve just been smearing it on bread. It’s very nice. There’s one with roasted red peppers and one normal one. He got pretty frustrated with the blender when he was making it. He was shoving skewers into the bottom to try and dislodge stuck basil. I thought he was going to electrocute himself or something.

Last night was D&D. Kaya got killed again. So sad. Stupid dwarven waraxes and their x3 criticals. The party got her reincarnated. She came back as a Lizardfolk. So now she’s a pretty hideous reptilian humanoid… but! She got a lot of nice perks with the body swap, the best of which was a +5 natural armor bonus. R☆ pointed out that that’s like I saved over 50,000 gold pieces (what an amulet of natural armor +5 would cost). So I guess it’s not too bad? Also, the +2 strength and constitution is nice. Even though she went down a level, Kaya has more hit points than before.

Blogger made me upgrade my blog. That annoyed me. But I guess it didn’t change anything, so that’s good. I was worried that since I have some special customizations (thanks Barbara May!) that aren’t part of the standard Blogger/Blogspot templates, everything would get screwed up somehow.

If you’re a LiveJournal user and want this blog on your friends page, click here. Rosy set up an LJ RSS feed thingy for me.

Mocha Ice Cream

4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tbsp instant coffee powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

In the top of double boiler set over medium high heat, melt the chocolate. Remove from the heat. (Or use the microwave- watch the chocolate carefully to make sure it doesn’t burn.)

In a medium saucepan, combine the cream and milk, and bring to a gentle boil. Remove from the heat. (This can also be done in the microwave.)

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and salt until slightly thickened. Whisk 1/2 cup of the hot cream into the egg mixture. Whisk in the coffee powder. In a slow, steady stream, gradually add the egg mixture to the pan of hot cream. Cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon and reaches 170 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, 3 to 5 minutes.

Remove the pan from the pan from the heat and strain the mixture into a clean bowl through a fine mesh strainer, pressing against the strainer with the back of a spoon. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla. Pour into a container and cover with waxed paper or plastic wrap, pressing down against the surface to keep a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

When cold, pour into the bowl of an ice cream machine. Churn and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. When the ice cream has come together, transfer to an airtight container and place in the freezer until ready to serve.

I keep making ice cream!

On Sunday I made honey-cardamom ice cream. I think it’s wonderful, although I’m guessing that I added a little too much honey, because it’s not hardening properly (the picture that accompanies the recipe? I could not do that). It tastes lovely, though.  R☆ thinks it’s a little too cardamommy, but Zed and Jer seem to like it.

Last night I made mocha ice cream. I have high hopes for this one. But I always have high hopes. I’ll try it tonight.

I brought the subpar Earl Grey to work. We’ll see if the strategy of “there’s nothing else to eat for lunch, so why not ice cream?” works.

Fabulous. Go read this. It’s Anthony Bourdain being acerbic, what more do you need?

The Earl Grey ice cream? HORRIBLE. It tastes incredibly fake. R☆ said, and I agree, that it somehow tastes even faker than those milk teas we love so dearly (no bubbles, please). And beyond the taste is the texture. I’m not sure what I did, but I ended up making what is essentially butter clumps in it. I melted the ice cream, strained it, and refreezed it, but I guess I just made new butter. It’s weird. And disheartening. I guess I’ll just go over to Ice Cream Ireland and read in awe, because I am failing at this stuff.

I made another to-be-frozen custard last night. After work, it’s going to turn into Earl Grey ice cream. So the taste will be a little citrus, a little tea- I think it’s a great concept.

The recipe I used was confusing. It mentioned adding the sugar twice. Plus the recipe didn’t have enough sugar in it, in my (and R☆’s) opinion. And it never told me when to add the cream. So I was kind of winging it. The eggs coagulated on me a little bit because I was too overzealous with the heat.

But I think it’ll turn out well.

Sour Cherry and Black Pepper Ice Cream

1/8 cup dark rum
1/2 cup dried sour cherries
4 egg yolks
5 Tbsp sugar
1 cup sour cream/creme fraiche
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 Tbsp black pepper
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, bring rum and dried cherries to a simmer, cover and remove from heat. Let stand for 30 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together egg yolks, sugar and creme fraiche. In a 2 quart saucepan, let simmer for 5 minutes the condensed milk, heavy cream, black pepper and vanilla. Temper the eggs, combining the yolk mixture and the hot dairy. Strain and chill.

Stir the cherries into the chilled custard, discarding the rum. Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer’s instructions.