Hey buddyroos! I’m sure you are now familiar with Bonaparte’s “Dessert Challenge”. What’s that? You’re not? OK—I’ll go over the backstory. Long ago, Long, long ago, when Monsieur Bonaparte was “un petit garcon” in France, he had a dessert.

Little Bonaparte, many, many, many years ago!

It was actually on a trip to Switzerland that he enjoyed this dessert named “Omelette Norvegienne”—cake and ice cream covered in a sugary soufflé. He spoke so fondly of this dessert that I thought he was speaking of a long-lost lover for cryin’ out loud! So me, being the complete selfless giver that I am, promised him I would find a recipe and attempt to make this “Omelette Norvegienne”.

All I could find on the internet was the American version—Baked Alaska. In trying to piece a few recipes together, the genoise that I made was too dense—and I became determined and obsessed with this darn dessert. Thinking Bonaparte’s age was creating dessert delusions, I did have to apologize to him after I ended up finding an old-school recipe for the “Omelette Norvegienne” in Ginette Mathiot’s  “I Know How To Cook”—the translated version of the infamous French cookbook.   To make a long story short, I decided to bake BOTH desserts and host a challenge of sorts to see which one was the better.

The infamous recipe was found here–but it kind of fell short for Bonaparte!

Friday’s dessert was the “Baked Alaska”. The Italian Meringue turned out fantastic. In fact, I plan to make this meringue for other desserts. The genoise was just way too dense—a fail on that element. The chocolate layer was fine as was the ice cream.

The Baked Alaska–Covered in Italian Meringue and a bit of fancy piping–baked in a high oven for ten munutes. Looked nice when it came out of the oven too!

It would have been so much better without the dense genoise–I was surprised Martha Stewart’s geniose recipe was so incredibly heavy!

Last night’s dessert was the old-school “Omelette Norvegienne”. The soufflé batter, in my opinion was a bit on the liquidy side and had there been a touch of cake flour in the ingredients, I think it would have been much better.

The soufflé batter really was too liquidy–even after folding the egg whites into the yolk and sugar mixture! Oh well, ya win some–ya lose some!

Truth be told, even though instructed to “place the omelette under the broiler”, it created a very uneven soufflé. Too done on top, not done enough inside. However, the gateau savoy was fantastic.

Omelette Norvegienne–before the soufflé covering. The gateau savoy cake layer was great…but the soufflé……..

The Souffle covering looked ok before it was placed under the broiler. The finished dessert. It didn’t look that great–it would have tasted much better had the soufflé covering been cooked more evenly!  We all have our fails–but the fails just make it better for the next time around!

Monsieur Bonaparte was far more critical. He didn’t think the cake was needed at all. He insisted kindly suggested, that I experiment with the soufflé batter, ice cream and no cake. No wait—the Italian meringue, gateau savoy and ice cream. No wait- just ice cream and soufflé. Finally he suggested my just making a sweet omelette and folding it over with ice cream inside. When I mentioned making a crepe, he suggested back to me “Non! An omelette!”

Tonight I will be making a sweet, sugary omelette and using the remaining ice cream.

This little challenge may not have produced the best dessert I’ve made by a long shot. But there’s always something good in what’s done. I learned to make an epic Italian Meringue and a new cake—gateau savoy! It’s the kind of cake that’ll do well in the summer—the kind that you top with loads of fruit and the cake won’t get mushy. It’s all good!

Thank goodness that’s over with though. It was murder on my Weight Watcher’s points. My train of thought was that the ice cream had plenty of calcium so it was good for my old-lady bones!

Being with a Frenchman is just to enlightening to me! I’ve learned so much from my Svengali better half!

He mentioned, and not in passing either, that we needed “proper” soup bowls. I opened the cabinet to show him the many bowls we have in our two-person household.

My multi-tasking soup/cereal/oatmeal bowls……

Although somebody else I know refers to them as “Café au Lait” bowls!

The conversation basically went like this:

Bonaparte: “Cassee. We nid pwopahr zoop bowls.”

Me (opening the cabinet and pointing to the bowls we have): “We have enough bowls”

Bonaparte: (waving his finger) “Zay ahr not zoop bowls. Zay ahr for Café Au Lait—or American sea—ree—ahl an’ oatmill. We nid zuh pwopahr zoop bowls for when we ‘ave zuh guests for dinn-air!”

Me: :”You HATE soup!!! I’m the only one who eats it and you never want me to serve soup when we have dinner guests anyway! Besides, I use those regular cereal bowls when I make gumbo!”

Earlier today we went to Ikea. We purchased the soup bowls. The proper soup bowls. Actually, I think this is a good thing.

Our “proper” soup bowls–found at Ikea!

It’ll help me with portion control when I have a craving for my beloved comfort food “Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup” (Don’t judge—we all have our guilty pleasure comfort food. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup does it for me..Those little squares of chicken and carrots, those overcooked noodles in that briny broth. Heaven!)

Don’t judge–it’s my beloved guilty pleasure!

Yeah, our Ikea visit was originally meant to purchase some plants and planting pots. Ikea has a decent selection of house plants. The think with Ikea is you go for one item and end up going home with something entirely different. Hence the soup bowls. We also picked up a lampshade that has to be returned because it didn’t fit the lamp—no problem there, I’ll gladly return the lamp shade later on in the week! We did end up buying two terra cotta plant pots. Unfortunately, today’s selection of plants was just way too large in size for what we wanted. We need some greenery in the sunroom and we need to think about prepping the deck for the warmer weather.

More Ikea haul–the lampshade goes back!

Today’s weather is so deceiving—the sun is bright and is getting warmer, but the wind just makes it still so cold. Spring needs to get with the program!

Oh. I forgot to tell you, the other day I went back to Sephora to make the exchange of the Hourglass Veil Foundation I purchased by mistake for the Veil Mineral Primer that I meant to buy.

When I had the “makeover” at Sephora, I wasn’t paying too much attention to what the primer looked like in the bottle. I must admit, I was too busy talking. Anyway, when I took the primer out of the box I noticed the product was white. It just struck me as odd because the other primers I’ve used are clear!

In all honesty, the primer looked more like a moisturizer–there it is on my hand!

I put the primer on my face anyway. WOW!!!! No. Really. It was a “wow” moment. I could not believe how light this primer felt on my face. Even though it isn’t clear like other primers, it “glides” on the face, but it isn’t “filmy”. Normally, I have to wait a few minutes between primer application and foundation application. There was no wait time with this. It just soaked into my skin. The foundation seemed to go on easier as well.

I have the primer on but I didn’t put foundation on today. Even without foundation, the Hourglass primer really smoothed out my skin.  When I did apply foundation, it made the foundation really go on nicely! I highly recommend the Hourglass Veil Primer!

The finish it gave to my face was worth the $52.00. Yeah, it’s a bit pricey, but just a small bit goes a long, long way—I’ll have this bottle for a long time.

That’s about it for today!—Oh. Look at how pretty these onions and peppers are.

Green and purple look so lovely!

It’s so funny, our Saturday evening dinners are usually pretty fancy deals, but Bonaparte had a craving for sausage, peppers and onions last night! I ended up having Sushi. Well, the dessert was fancy—right?

XOXOXOXOX! Speaking of desserts…Here’s a song that reminds me of the old Punk rock days: New Young Pony Club singing “Ice Cream”!! Enjoy!