Sweet week around here. A tray of snacks was gone by the end of the day, I ran a protein snack I had real hopes for, and the recipe book got far enough along that I finally said out loud what I signed myself up for. So this one leans dessert. You get a layered recipe off my master list, the formula behind every dessert bite that comes out of my machine, and something to do with the pudding already sitting in your fridge.
This week's freeze dry
Neapolitan Crunch, straight off my master list. Chocolate pudding, strawberry, and vanilla yogurt layered into a muffin mold.
Prep: make one box of chocolate pudding and chill it overnight. Thaw 16 ounces of frozen strawberries in the fridge overnight, then mash them into a chunky slurry. Layer into a muffin mold in this order, pudding first, then 32 ounces of vanilla yogurt, then the strawberry on top. Freeze solid overnight, pop them out of the mold, and set them on parchment lined trays.
Settings: initial freeze at -10F, drying temp at 120F, and add 2 hours 30 minutes of freeze time only if the trays go in without pre freezing.
Run time: let the full cycle finish, then check for dryness yourself and plan for up to 24 hours of extra dry time. Store them in jars so they hold their shape.
What worked this week
The post of the week was a tray that did not last the day. Ja'Mae has a way of making that happen. The comments went straight to the food, one of you telling me the strawberry shortcake was amazing and that more of my recipes are getting tried, and someone else asking about the jar of marshmallow crème. For the other end of the week, the protein snack I had high hopes for is worth a watch, and the first thing anyone asked for was a Huel dupe. Noted.
The freeze-dry takeaway
Every dessert bite I make follows the same three parts, and once you see it you can build your own without a recipe card in front of you.
Start with a thick base. Pudding or yogurt, chilled a couple of hours at least, thick enough to hold a shape on a spoon. Anything runny spreads flat on the tray and dries into a chip.
Add air. Fold Cool Whip into the base slowly and gently, and stop before it looks fully mixed. Overmixing collapses the pudding, and that trapped air is what gives you a bite that gives a little instead of shattering. For an even softer bite, stir in a few spoonfuls of regular yogurt.
Finish with texture. Crushed pretzels, oats, granola, fruit. Press it into the top of each dollop before it freezes so it stays where you put it.
Then move fast. Assemble and go straight to the freezer or a pre frozen machine, and never let pudding sit at room temperature while you fuss with the tray. That one habit decides how the whole batch comes out.
From the comments
The video about the recipe book brought in the most useful note I have gotten in a while. One of you said hardcover recipe books are a pain in a real kitchen, and that spiral bound with laminated pages would make it far more practical to cook from. That landed while pages are still being laid out, which is the only time a note like that can do anything. Keep them coming.
We also put the next plant experiment up to your vote, and your suggestions are better than anything I would have picked. Sunflowers, strawberries indoors, bucket lemon trees, and one of you asking whether tomatoes taste like whatever you water them with. That is close to the experiment already running in our garden, and I will bring you those numbers when the plants finish proving it out.
Try this before next week
Build one tray of dessert bites with that formula and whatever pudding is already in your fridge. Then reply and tell me what you put on top of yours.
In Freeze-Dry Buddy
Strawberry Puffs went up on my shelf in the app this week, which puts six of my recipe cards in there now, and the newest ones sit in a row of their own. There is a Want to try shelf as well, for the recipes you are not making tonight but do not want to lose.
The part I am most glad about is on the recipe cards themselves. They now show the water loss other cooks measured across their own runs, and how much water to add back per 100 grams of dried food. The calculator runs on that pooled number, so the more runs you all log, the closer everyone's rehydration gets. Freeze-Dry Buddy is on the App Store if you do not have it yet.