to think this is an OK pudding to take to friends this evening?

[emeraldgirl1]

I would normally make something proper puddingy but I am pregnant and drowning in work and could happily live without hours slaving over a stove.

So how would you react, if I came to your house this evening and you had cooked a starter and main, if I brought the following:

Strawberries
Luxury vanilla ice-cream from the posh ice-cream shop down the road
Homemade (this afternoon) chocolate chip cookies.

Does that sound OK? Would you think I had made no effort?

(will take wine too...)

Are you boasting OP?

Baking cookies is making effort to me.

Sounds wonderful and I'd love you forever. But if you came round to me with a 6 pack of Cornettos I'd love you too. You sound like a lovely, thoughtful friend and I hope your host realises that.

Arctic roll - yum...

I am not pregnant and took co-op chocolate puddings round to my friend's for dessert last week [lazy emoticon]

Your dessert sounds amazing, cookies are far better than boring shortbread, my green grocer has strawberries in still so they are clearly still on the edge of seasonal this year, and poached pears are what the devil serves for dessert in hell.

If you can find half decent strawberries, chop them into pieces, sprinke with sugar and add a tbsp of curacao before you go round. Then, just before you serve with the delicious ice-cream, grind quite a bit of black pepper over them.

It sounds bizzare but is fantastic, and makes a quick and easy pudding into something really special.

It sounds lovely, not lazy :)

Sounds lovely. I'd probably go with the Eton Mess that someone on page 1 suggested!

This is what you do when you are busy and pregnant - it sounds lovely and perfect; but I'm wondering what you do when you have time and inclination

Oneflipflop, I am v v v far from domestic goddess!! Absolutely loathe cooking and am awful at it but oddly am a great baker (blowing own trumpet briefly) and find it genuinely relaxing. A mystery to me as I can't peel a carrot without wanting to murder someone. Must be because I like cake so much more than main meals... :)

Anyway if non preggo and not busy I would probably do an apple crumble or my version of chocolate nemesis, the friends we are going to are always v appreciative of my puds (probably because they've just suffered through a main meal cooked by me usually) and they're being so nice to do all the boring main cooking that I just want them to know we appreciate it.

I agree with one of the other posters, unless you got some very good strawberries (which is possible, I just had some for lunch) I would not take strawberries.

Instead, you could get a tin of halved peaches and once arrived, fill each peach with your lovely ice cream and top with one of your cookies. You could do the same thing with pear halves (but nicer with chocolate ice cream imo).

Have a nice dinner party.

at the strawberries not being in season!

emerald it sounds absolutely fab and the fact that you are home baking cookies means that more than enough effort has gone into them. However, I am also loving emmeline's suggestion of the curacao, sugar and black pepper as well, drooooooooool!

Emerald, I'm with you on the baking v cooking; I'm still pretty rubbish at that though, muffins turned out green the other day, and they were for school cake sale I'm not pregnant and had oodles of time, so no excuse either - so in comparison, you are a domestic goddess.

Oh and I should add that the cookies are Hugh F-W's 10 minute ones, quite seriously they do take only 10 mins to make (obviously longer to actually cook) - I am generally v sceptical of such claims but these are about as quick and easy as falling off a log.

Just because am feeling a bit guilty/fraudulent about all the lovely people who are saying I am making major effort! This is really relatively minor effort as long as I don't accidentally eat all the cookies before they're cool and then have to waste time making another batch

:)

You need to keep very quiet on the ease of the recipe, revel in the glory.

Yes, flipflop, good thinking - will try to look exhausted (not that difficult) and imply I was slaving over a hot oven for HOURS... :)

I think you'll find I bagsied her first cheeky devil!!!

I would be delighted. Please come to our house ASAP

Sounds good

I would have cheated and also brought fancy cookies from cookie shop :/

You did upper I stand corrected. Sorry .

poached pears? blurk.. Strawberries, ice cream and cookies? YUM.

Is my in depth assessment..

So where are you emerald? I got fish fingers and every fink but they're cold now!

That's ok cheeky, she didn't even turn up!!

Any pudding is a good pudding!

Ha ha upper emerald came to mine instead. She is right, she bakes a good cookie!
burp

I know the dinner party has come and gone (hope it went well Emeraldgirl) but I just wanted to say that not only does your pudding sound absolutely lovely, but also that if I were hosting a dinner party and someone was bringing pudding, I'd consider a completely bought pudding (which yours isnt, as youve made cookies) to be entirely 100% acceptable eg I'd be delighted if someone bought Gu or similar. It's not an exercise in everyone having to spend time in food preparation; it's a dinner party amongst friends, and at the end of the day everyone just wants a nice pudding. I appreciate that the host is going to the effort of cooking the main meal, but that's because they're the host - they have to set aside the time to plan and to cook and they have invited peoplle round on that basis. Doesn't mean everyone else has to put themselves through the mill as well, especially assuming the position is somewhat reciprocal and that you will be hosting them one day. In a place as foodie as France, nobody would bat an eyelid at someone having picked up something lovely from a patisserie rather than making it from scratch; I don't know if it's a British thing of us feeling not worthy unless we've suffered in the name of the pudding.

Ok, now I really want some pudding.