Dual/Duel Review: Wafer Wars!

 Dual/Duel reviews are an online smackdown between two books, movies, games, podcasts, etc. etc. that I think are interesting to compare, contrast, and comment on. For a list of other dual/duel reviews, go here.

Going to the grocery store is sometimes a more interesting experience than you expect. Often the shelves have competing versions of the same product, like store brand versions of name brand cereals. On one trip, I discover two distinct types of vanilla wafers. But this was not just a store type and a brand name. This was two different products with virtually the same names:

You'd think there would be a legal battle over this

I might never have noticed the close connection of these two products except that they are shelved very close to each other, at least in stores where I have shopped. Voortmans is new to me, so the classic Nilla Wafers will get the first treatment.

A Nilla Wafer

Contender #1: Nabisco Nilla Wafers

Nilla Wafers by Nabisco are a popular American treat. I've been eating them since my childhood. The circular, rounded wafers look a bit like a cookie. They are dry and crispy like a cracker. Any hot beverage (hot cocoa, tea, coffee) goes well with them. Milk, a cookie's classic companion, also goes very well with them. They can be put in pudding (I've had it most often with banana pudding) to give it some nice texture. If you could find some round chocolates, I bet they'd make a great alternative to graham crackers in smores. 

By themselves, Nilla Wafers are a bit plain. They do have a hint of vanilla flavor, but just a hint. The list of ingredients does not include vanilla, unless it is covered by "natural and artificial flavor," the last ingredient listed. That villainous sweetener, high fructose corn syrup, is listed much higher. No one really eats dessert for its nutritional value, so maybe these defects are not so important.

Voortman Bakery Vanilla Wafer

Contender#2: Voortman Bakery Vanilla Wafers

These wafers look much more like the wafer cookies that are sold in stores and seem to be the inspiration for ice cream cones. I've never liked wafer cones. They are disappointing after eating the ice cream on top. We used to get wafer cookies, those tiny rectangles that usually came either in one flavor or in a "neapolitan" blend of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry wafers. Of all the desserts in the pantry of my youth, they would be my last choice for dessert. Too dry, too saccharine sweet for me. And the texture reminds me of styrofoam.

Voortman Bakery wafers go a long way to reforming the underwhelming character of wafer cookies. The wrapper even says they are baked "with real vanilla" and they have no high fructose corn syrup. They do taste a lot more natural and appealing. The texture is much crisper. I've grown quite fond of them.

Which is better?

I wouldn't have guessed from looking at them, but the Voortman Bakery Vanilla Wafers won out. They both have light, crispy textures, though the Voortman is more so. The Voortman taste is great. Will they make it into an ice cream cone worth eating?

Even so, I still enjoy the Nabisco version. Either won is worth snacking on!

Winner: 



Loser: 

Cute Kid Pix November 2019

Here's some more photos that didn't make it into their own post...

My son's Cub Scout pack had a fun pack meeting where they put together care packages from the troops serving abroad. Part of the package is a photo of the boys saying thank you!

I had a side shot of the boys in formation

At school, the kindergarten class celebrated Thanksgiving by making stone soup. All the kids brought in contributions. We were asked to bring in grapes, which naturally did not go in the soup. In addition to the soup and grapes, they were served popcorn and applesauce they made that morning in class. Adult volunteers came in the morning to cut up the apples and the veggies for the soup. I came with my wife in the afternoon to celebrate.

Our son enjoying his meal

Proud parents

We bought a new car, a Toyota Highlander hybrid. We are looking forward to the better gas mileage (and smaller environmental impact) and the fun of having our first Bluetooth-enabled car.

Posing at the dealership with my brother and sister

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. My daughter made another fabulously-decorated pumpkin pie!

Garden pumpkin pie

We often play Telephone Pictionary Players sit in a circle and each has a piece of paper and a pencil. First, players write a sentence at the top of the page and pass it to the left. The next player reads the sentence, folds the paper back so the sentence isn't visible, and then draws a picture of the sentence. Then the paper passes left again and the new player looks at the picture. That player folds back the picture and writes a sentence. And so on until the paper goes all the way around. The game yields some hilarious results:

Click to enlarge

Macaroons!

In our ever expanding quest to try out a vaster variety of home-made desserts, we used some leftover egg whites to make macaroons. Macarooncraft involves two steps. First we made the cookies that are the "bread" part of these delightful dessert sandwiches. Second, we made the creamy filling that is the, uh, "filling" part.

Making the cookies involved a lot of work with the mixer. And testing to make sure the flavor was right.

Sampling from the mixer

Back to work

Scrapping down the sides

One last taste

After getting the dough just right, we colored half of it with red dye and put the two halves in two different pastry bags. I guess we could have swirled them together, but that might have been too much work. The bags made it easy to squirt little one inch blobs of dough to be baked in the oven. They came out perfect.

Great cookies

The cream filling was more fun to make. Since we had some leftover pineapple chunks from some other recipe, they were put into the mix. A teaspoon was just right to add a dollop of filling between each pair of cookies.

Some assembly required

Waiting for reunification

Placing with pinache

Finished product

The most fun was, of course, eating them.

Sampling

Approval

Key Lime Pie!

Another fantastic (and pre-Lenten) dessert we tried was making Key Lime Pie. It hardly seemed seasonal in wintertime (thank goodness spring has started as of the posting of this blog post!) but the stores certainly have more than enough ingredients to get the pie done.

In addition to juicing the limes, we also had to zest them. We made a very important discovery--it's better to zest a lime before you juice it!

Zesting the lime

Mixing took a lot more hands-on work than we were expecting. Such hardships hardly stopped us. Many hand do indeed make light work.

Whipping up some pie filling, literally (my hands were busy taking pictures)

The crust (made from graham crackers and butter with a little sugar) is pretty close to what we make for cheese cake. That was easy to make. Baking went very well. We cooled the pie for a couple of hours then put in the refrigerator overnight (covered by cling wrap). The plastic wrap took little bits of our perfect pie top with it when we removed the wrap.

The cool and refreshing pie

Hiding the blemishes was easy. Instead of a meringue, we opted for a whipped-cream topping. We've crafted home-made whip cream dozens of times so it was very easy to make and just as easy to spread.

Adding the whip cream

Artsy shot with the pie reflected in the mixing bowl

The pie came out wonderfully and we are very happy that we only used half of the bag of limes.

Another artsy shot

Making Cream Puffs

Chou pastry is the new hotness in our house. We've made stuff with it several times. I'm pretty sure we picked it up from a Great British Bake Off episode (or maybe several). The dough is great for puffy hors d'oeuvres or snack-sized desserts. This time, we made profiteroles, which are little balls of light pastry with a creamy filling inside.

Making cream

There's two schools of thought for getting the cream into this dessert. One choice is to cut the pastries in half, fill the middle, and put them back together. The other choice is to inject the cream. We chose the injection method.

Filling a pastry bag

Adding cream

To make them even more sweet, we concocted a honey glaze that helped make a small pyramid of desserty yumminess.

Like building a snow fort

Finished product

Another shot

The work came out splendidly in both appearance and flavor.

Sampling the goods

St. Mary of the Mills Christmas Bazaar 2018

We enjoyed going to our church's annual Christmas Bazaar, held in the new parish center. (See last year's bazaar here.)

Bazaar sign on the Keesler Center

Inside, we saw Granny's Attic, the biggest garage sale in the area. Parishioners donate items, then come to the sale and buy other parishioners' donations. We found some good deals last year but didn't find anything this year. The center also had a silent auction, food sales, and a wine grab. We put a bid on Washington Nationals tickets and bought some cake for a snack.

Food and silent auction items

More sales

The cake came with an awesome box which we will most likely reuse for other occasions.

Truly a joyful box

Anticipating the tastiness of the cake

The most fun for the kids was downstairs. Beanie Baby Bingo occupied most of our time. As the name implies, we played bingo in hopes of winning a beanie baby. Our youngest child was mildly upset at not winning his first game but was persistent and won on his third try.

Bingo set-up

Prize tree, much like the lollipop tree

Brothers working together

Trying to be patient

Going up for a prize

We had a moment of nervousness because two kids declared bingo at the same time. Happily, the organizers gave away two prizes for two winning bingo sheets.

Choosing a beanie baby

My son found the most macho one he could--a pet named Stinger who is a scorpion!

Back upstairs, I bought two tickets ($20 all together) for the wine bottle draw. I reached in a bucket and pulled two corks which had numbers corresponding to spots on the wine rack behind the table. One number I picked was 50. Since it was a multiple of ten, I got to choose a gift certificate as well! I picked the $15 Panera card. Added to two bottles of wine, I definitely came out ahead.

Wine draw winnings!

On our way out, we saw a funny scarecrow.

I thought Scarecrow was a villain

Later in the day, the organizers called and said we won the baseball tickets, so we will be going to at least one game next year!

Chocolate Lava Cake

After making Baked Alaska, we thought we'd try something Hawaiian--Chocolate Lava Cake. Now this isn't really a Hawaiian recipe but volcanos are Hawaiian, right? It's a dessert and it's chocolate, both great bonuses.

We found a recipe on Food Network by Ree Drummond from The Pioneer Woman show.

The ingredients are basic:

• Cooking spray for the ramekins (or other small baking/serving dishes)
• 1 stick of butter
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 2 ounce semisweet chocolate
• 1.25 cups powdered sugar
• 2 whole eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• Vanilla ice cream for serving

The first thing we worked on was separating the eggs.

Using the egg separator

Eggs!

After pre-heating the oven to 425 Fahrenheit, we put the butter and chocolate in a bowl and melted them in the microwave (about one minute).

Unwrapping the butter (which we let go to room temperature)

Butter and chocolate, yum!

Out of the microwave, we whisked the mixture to make sure the chocolate was melted and well combined.

Whisking the chocolate

The sugar came next.

Adding sugar a bit at a time

The final batch

The eggs went next, then the vanilla, then the flour.

Final addition

Next, we divided the mixture among our dishes. The recipe is supposed to serve four but we thought we'd try some larger and some smaller dishes and wound up with five.

Filling the big cups

Careful work

After baking for 13 minutes (check that the sides look firm but the centers soft), we took them out to stand for a minute.

Fresh from the oven (use a cookie sheet to avoid spills inside the oven)

Close up

We inverted the dishes on a plate and the cakes fell out easily. Both sizes came out well which surprised (and delighted) us.

Lava in the cake!

Gooey goodness

Delighted cook/taste tester

Good to the last drop!