Taste the Blood of Chocula Part II— Desserts

Welcome to Taste the Blood of Chocula, Part II. Last time I tried to make several non-alcoholic drinks using a chocolate corn puff and mini marshmallow cereal and learned that hey guess what that’s not a great drink ingredient. So this time I’m moving on to solid foods and starting with something a little less ambitious, dessert. Because if I can’t at least make something appealing out of Count Chocula with all the dark powers of sugar and cream behind me, that doesn’t bode well for the rest of this month’s plan.

I’ve got more ambitious goals for closer to Halloween, but today is just desserts. Which I only learned today is different from “just deserts”, the correct spelling of that phrase. Which comes from an old term meaning “reward or punishment that is deserved”. And I suppose that’s appropriate, since whether this ends up going well or poorly, I have brought it upon myself.

The First Dessert

First up, blood pie. If you’d asked me to guess if that’s a real thing, I would have said it’s probably a local delicacy from some quiet town in the United Kingdom where everyone’s friendly right up until the point that you’re being sacrificed to their ancient vengeance deity. But quick searches turn up only various cultures’ blood puddings, both sweet and savory, none of which are added to pie shells. And then a recipe from Game of Thrones.

I’m making none of those. I first made something like this as a kid, off a recipe from the top of a tub of Cool Whip. It’s a summer-timey, refreshing gelatin & cream pie that I’m trying to make more Halloween appropriate by using the darkest red jello I can find. And replacing the graham cracker crust with Count Chocula.

Chocula, P(r)i(nc)e of Darkness

-1 package (3 ounces) of Black Cherry Jell-O

-2/3 cup boiling water

-1/2 cup cold water

-1 container of Cool Whip (8 ounces)

-1 spoonful marshmallow fluff

-1/2 cup butter

-4 cups Count Chocula

Reduce Count Chocula to crumbs in a food processor. Melt butter. Add butter to Chocula crumbs, mix, and then use that mixture to line a pie plate (mine was a 9.5” pie plate). Preheat oven to 350 and bake crust for 10–12 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Add boiling water to Jell-O powder. Mix until dissolved. Add enough ice to the 1/2 cup of cold water that it measures 1 cup, then add this to the Jell-O mixture. Mix well, then remove unmelted ice.

Add Cool Whip and marshmallow fluff to Jell-O mixture. Whisk together until combined evenly, then refrigerate that mixture for a half hour to let it thicken.

Once filling mixture has chilled, spoon it into the pie crust. Let pie chill overnight.

The same pie filling recipe I remember from my childhood is still out there and was the basis for my version, and the pie crust recipe I used was based on another cereal crust recipe from Taste of Home.

I used black cherry because, first, it’s delicious and, second, it’s the darkest red I could find. And for some reason I wanted to make sure that only the artificial coloring I used was in the original ingredients and not added later, because that way it’s authentic? So it was disappointing to see the deep, blood red of the Jell-O and water mixture dissolve into a light pink when the cream and fluff were added. The marshmallow fluff was also an addition to the original recipe, both to stay on theme to the cereal and to see if I could end up with a filling that’s slightly thicker than the standard recipe.

And the tasting.

So it’s fine, but I’m not really happy with this one. To start with, the Count Chocula crust doesn’t work. The only point of comparison I have for this pie is a graham cracker crust, and that’s absolutely preferable to this. The problem is that the extruded corn puffs, even when turned to crumbs by a blender, are too airy and get too soggy. And it’s not from the pie filling, it’s from the butter that was used to make the crust. So unlike a graham cracker crust, where the crust can get dense and even a little crispy, none of that is happening here. Maybe if the cereal was reduced even further to practically a powder rather than only crumbs that might be different, but I have my doubts.

As for the filling, the small addition of marshmallow fluff didn’t change the consistency at all. The pie is still so light that it’s like eating sugar air. Which is nice and refreshing but doesn’t match well with the crust because the dominant flavor is soggy Count Chocula drenched in butter. Maybe a heavier pudding pie filling would be a better match.

To try to salvage it I had another piece later on, with fresh Count Chocula sprinkled over the top of the pie and then strawberry syrup drizzled over that. It was a slight improvement. Having actually crunchy cereal pieces to pair with the pie filling tasted better than the crust. So if I were to do something like this again, rather than make a Count Chocula crust I’d make it as a trifle instead, with the cereal just on its own as one of the layers.

The Second Dessert

The obvious companion to pie is ice cream. It’s so common there’s a fancy term in another language for it. Remember, “a la mode” just means “in fashion” or “in style”. So whenever you talk about a time you had pie a la mode, you’re effectively saying “we had pie with ice cream, which was the style at the time”.

I wanted to stay on theme for both the blood and the time of year. So the flavor I’m making is based on a chai ice cream recipe I’ve made before, but substituting apple cinnamon spice tea instead of chai. Tea is a great way to infuse flavor into an ice cream base, and I’m hoping the deep red color of the tea also seeps in at least a little.

The Apple Cinnamonic Rites of Chocula

-1 cup milk

-2 cups heavy cream

-4 egg yolks

-3/4 cup sugar

-8 apple cinnamon spice herbal tea bags

-1 cinnamon stick

-3/4 cup Count Chocula

-1 splash of strawberry syrup

Heat milk and cream until warm but not boiling. Remove from heat source, then add tea bags and cinnamon stick. Let steep for 45 minutes. Remove tea bags and cinnamon. When removing tea bags, you may want to squeeze out any excess liquid against the side of the pan to give the ice cream a stronger flavor.

In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks and sugar. Once the cream and milk mixture has finished steeping, reheat it and then add one cup of the milk/cream mixture to the eggs and sugar. Mix the eggs, sugar, milk and cream together, then add that mixture back into the pan with the remaining milk and cream. Heat over a low heat, stirring continuously so the eggs do not cook. Remove after about five minutes once the mixture has thickened.

Transfer that mixture into another container that can be closed shut firmly (for example, I used a glass pyrex bowl with a lid). Place this inside a larger bowl containing cold water and ice cubes to allow the mixture to cool. Once the mixture has been cooled in the ice bath, place it a refrigerator to let it chill completely.

When the mixture has been chilled (give it 4–6 hours, at least) add it to your ice cream maker. About 5 minutes before the mixture is done churning, add 3/4 of a cup of Count Chocula (you may need to crush these pieces if your ice cream maker can’t handle larger ingredients being mixed in). And then a splash of strawberry syrup for additional bloodening.

Once again I was let down by a result that doesn’t look as bloody as I was hoping. The tea is normally a very dark red, and when I’d made this recipe with chai the ice cream came out a pleasant tan color. This time the tea bags were bright red while seeping in the cream but no color actually transferred into the mixture.

As for the taste?

This worked surprisingly well. The ice cream is good, both the cinnamon and the apple come through in the flavor. They’re not the first flavors you’d think to mix with the cereal, but I think I stumbled into a fortunate realization here. The chocolate flavor in Count Chocula is on the mild side. Your brain tells you it’s chocolate, because it’s the right color and it’s in the name of the cereal, but if it’s actually mixed with any other chocolate flavor, or any other strong flavor, it gets overpowered and disappears.

Here, though, the little pockets of cereal keep small touches of the flavor. So there are nice hints of it while you’re eating the ice cream. And while it’s not crunchy, it’s the sort of gently dissolved texture you get from pieces of cookies or cake added to ice cream.

When paired with the pie the flavors work fine, but it’s not exciting. The heavy cream of the ice cream paired with the Chocula crust makes the butter flavor not as noticeable as it was in the pie alone. The pie filling is effectively a whipped topping. And while it’s not a bad combination of flavors, I think I prefer the ice cream by itself.

What can I claim to have learned from all of this?

-Count Chocula’s chocolate flavor is weak. If I’m looking to make the flavor (rather than the texture) stand out in the recipe, it needs to not be competing with other strong flavors.

-Food dyes exist for a reason and it’s because it’s hard to get food to change color without them.

-Having only made chai ice cream before, I’m now curious to keep trying teas as a flavoring for ice cream. I’m surprised how well it works.

-When an ice cream maker instruction booklet says any additional ingredients adding during churning should be chopped into small pieces, it means you can ignore that and there will be some weird noises and you’ll worry you broke it but in the end it will be fine. Everything was fine.

Closing Thoughts

I’m getting a better sense of the challenges of cooking with a puffed corn ghost dusted with cocoa powder. I was able to make one thing I was pretty happy eating, even if the cereal was more of a supporting player in the flavor. So that’s a positive note to end on here before the next installment, where I’ll be leaving desserts and heading elsewhere on the menu. So until then, keep following your bad ideas to a place where they become slightly less bad, or at least bad in a more interesting way.