Chopped!

Sunday evening we had our friends the Salts family over for dinner. It was a blast! That evening, instead of making dessert ahead of time, we planned an activity similar to the cooking show Chopped! except it was more about the design, not necessarily the originality. Basically, we had four teams and we all had the same three ingredients we had to use in our dessert. We could make it into anything, but those three ingredients had to be recognizable in the finished product. Our three ingredients were yellow cake batter, Oreos, and peanut butter puff cereal. Avery and Brynley were the judges and Mom was the Kitchen Supervisor/announcer. We had around 45 minutes to think up and create our 'masterpieces'. Chloe and I were a team, and we came up with an idea quickly and nabbed the griddle before anyone else could (not that they would've). I started turning our cake batter into chocolate chip pancakes while she whipped up some peanut butter frosting (YUM!). The pancakes worked, but the batter was obviously not meant to be flipped on a griddle. I wish I had a picture to show you! ;) But thankfully we had plenty of batter to end up with as many decent-looking pancakes as we needed.

When that was all ready, we stacked up all the stuff in layers: pancake, broken Oreos, pancake, peanut butter frosting, peanut butter puffs, pancake. We drizzled the stack with chocolate syrup and sprinkled on a little powdered sugar. I have to say, they looked amazing!

Our delicious creation

When the time was up and everyone was ready, we all gathered in the dining room to present our desserts to the judges. Mr. Salts and Noah went first, then Dad, Sam, and Gabe.

Dad, Sam, and Gabe presenting

Mrs. Salts, Olivia, and Layney went next, and lastly Chloe and me. The judges took note of the presentation (they all looked incredible!) and then tasted a piece of the dessert. When they had tried all four, the ran off to another room to discuss. And left the rest of us waiting in suspense. When they got back, they stood up on the couch to make the announcement.

Avery reminding Brynley who won

The winners were..... Dad, Sam, and Gabe, with their little bumblebee cupcakes!

Keep in mind this was an extra, the originals were even cuter!

To celebrate we all tried all of the desserts (just little bites, not whole plates!) They were all so yummy and the whole evening was so much fun! 

Our crazy kitchen in the last few minutes before the judging

The judges tasting one of the desserts

Chloe and me getting ready to present

All four contestants (again, these are extras)

One of the coolest parts of this activity was that everything we made was dairy-free. Since Sam and Dad are not eating dairy until further notice, we had to find a way for them to eat the desserts too! So the ingredients we picked were all dairy-free, we used dairy-free chocolate chips, almond milk, etc. so they could still enjoy them. It was fun to see how much variety could come from just three ingredients and to see how many possibilities there are even with dietary restrictions. Maybe sometime we can try gluten-free! Maybe. ;)