Tag Archives: pinterest

Pinbusters – Colored Lemons

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Have you ever wondered if the stuff people post on Pinterest is true? Well I have, and I test them all so that you don’t have to, ’cause ain’t nobody got time for that.  Click here to check out all of the pins I haven taken on. You might be surprised by some of the results!

Most Pinterest users have seen this picture (from Visualize Us – click picture for link):

The pin states that you can inject food coloring into lemons and insinuates that this is photographic evidence of the results.  When you actually go to the source of the photo, the first giveaway is the caption – “excellent fruit photo manipulations,” a/k/a Photoshop. Never one to be defeated by simple blatant debunking, I tried it anyways.

My accomplice.

I diluted my food coloring a little bit.

I settled on my injection site.

I used a big metal turkey baster with a sharp stabby end for the injection.

Ouch. I don’t envy this lemon.

I wiggled the baster around a bit, injecting as much food coloring as I could.  However, lemons by their very nature are pretty “full.”  They can’t take on much excess liquid. Therefore, it wasn’t long before the lemon was spewing blue.

Blue-splosion.

I rolled the lemon around a bit, squeezed him gently, dubbed him Lemony Snicket, and let him chill on the counter for a few hours.  Lemony Snicket did not get blue in the face. He did not get green with envy (yellow + blue = green??).  He was pretty blue from the injection itself, but not in the literal sense.  Finally, the moment arrived (when I remembered there was an injected lemon on the counter):

The big reveal!

Blue? Are you in there??

Well needless to say this was a pretty underwhelming result, and I smell some lemon-scented BS, if you know what I mean.

Pin BUSTED.  (Hope this saves you some time and trouble, Marty!)

Pinbusters – The Nutella Cookie

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Have you ever wondered if the stuff people post on Pinterest is true? Well I have, and I test them all so that you don’t have to, ’cause ain’t nobody got time for that.  Click here to check out all of the pins I haven taken on. You might be surprised by some of the results!

The first and most delicious Pin I am tackling – the Nutella cookie.

It looks deceptively simple to make, and makes my mouth water.  I have to confess that I was not aware that this hazelnut-chocolate-throw-in-a-marshmallow-and-swirl-it-around-and-fish-it-out-with-a-spoon-and-then-eat-it-to-die-for deliciousness existed until a few years ago, when my amazing Latina girlfriend introduced us.  It was love at first taste.

Flash forward five years, and I am pinning every Nutella recipe in sight.  The stars aligned last week, when Nutella was on sale (and I had a coupon!) and we were the proud owners of not one – but two! – jars.  Happy fat kids over here.  The recipe called for the following ingredients:  1 cup magical deliciousness (a/k/a Nutella), 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar (more sugar??), and one egg.  Here are those pretty little maids all in a row:

Sounds easy, right?  Until you get all of the dry ingredients together and then realize you have no eggs and it is 9:30 on a Friday night so your Publix is closed and you have to drive to three gas stations before you strike gold on a dozen eggs that are NOT expired.  However, if you pretend that didn’t happen, and we were a normal household with eggs on stand by, very easy indeed.

Nutella does not want to part ways with any container that it is in (the container is probably holding on for dear life!), so if you have a magical trick for measuring and then dumping into the bowl without losing ounces of this precious resource, please fill me in. Luckily I have The Boy, who was very pleased by this turn of events and “cleaned” the measuring cup and spoon exceptionally well.

Mixing the ingredients takes time and a little bit of strength, but eventually begins to take on the consistency of Play Doh, seen here:

Delicious Play Doh.

From there, you simply make little dough balls and put them on a greased cookie sheet.

Here is where the recipe gets a little squirrelly, though.  It says to bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.  Only 8 minutes to warm, hazelnut, chewy, chocolate amazingness?!? Too good to be true, indeed.  I set the timer for eight minutes.  Cookies were not done. Another 3 minutes.  Not done.  An additional 4 minutes.  Ahem.  I did the poke it with a stick test, and the stick was most certainly not clean.

Finally, after an additional 4 minutes, The Boy could not stand it any longer, and I took the cookies out of the oven.  I have to clarify that they were NOT burnt in any way, but it might have been better to leave them gooey.  Touche, recipe maker.

THE TASTE TEST:  These cookies are good.  They really are.  I mean, there is no cream-filled Nutella center, but they are sweet and vaguely taste of Nutella.

The Boy Approves!

However, given the rarity of the existence of Nutella in our house, and how delicious it is in its raw form, The Boy said, “Eh, they are good, but I’d rather have the Nutella by itself.”

So there you have it, ladies and gents.  Decent cookies, but I recommend using your Nutella with much greater care.