Baking for the Bach: Fakeout Takeout

Welcome to another exciting week of Bachelor recaps and ridiculous recipes. I know you've been looking forward to this week in particular because absolutely nothing exciting happened this weekend—like in the sports world...

Let's break down some weird and wacky moments from last week, shall we? No one saw Anna's elimination coming that quickly—like in the first ten minutes—but we all kind of needed it, and good on Matt for enforcing some peace. Followed very quickly by Victoria in the rose ceremony, I kind of wished her elimination was more immediate too, but I'm guessing the wait was more producer-motivated than Matt's decision. I also get why people were turned off by his choosing to give new girls roses first and make the OG contestants sweat it out (or why those editing did), but after the bullying, I think it was actually a comforting and thoughtful gesture from him to them.

Now we were 45 minutes in without any dates starting up, so let's get to those in the same manner they were covered on the show—mostly superficially. I was honestly confused what the point of the group date was. Like, they played with chickens and nothing remotely significant or even very entertaining happened... Rachel's date, on the other hand, was the fun and light-hearted kind of content I look for in a show like The Bachelor, and their chemistry is pretty noteable. I also like how, after her date with him, instead of saying how weird it felt that he's going on a date with someone else, like other girls usually do after a one-on-one, she seemed genuinely excited for Kit, whose date actually was the closest to something I'd probably do, and who surprisingly seemed to have a great connection with Matt—though I still don't see her going much further.

So this week we have a prank date with Katie (ft. a cameo from Tyler Cameron), a bowling group date and what seems like a carnival date with Pieper. Since I already tackled the carnival side of things, I decided to go prank for this one. While my original idea was much more ambitious, I tried bringing another idea to life: Dessert Spaghetti and Meatballs—aka a cake "bowl" topped with frosting "spaghetti", truffle "meatballs" and white chocolate "tomato sauce". Lots of elements, but fun concept if I could pull it off—and I think I did.

To make the base, I wanted something beyond a typical cake, something a bit more dense, so I went with a sugar cookie cake instead. The frosting was your typical buttercream (I've got a good recipe for it in one of my other posts) with a little yellow food coloring and cocoa powder added in to make it look more pasta-like.

As for the truffles, I used a tried-and-true recipe of mine for Oreo truffles that are always a hit with my friends (and super quick to pull together in a pinch). All you need is a package of Oreos and a small block of cream cheese. The fun part for this one if the Oreo smashing. Grab a glass, a wine bottle, a rolling pin... whatever you've got really, and get smashing until the crumbs are super fine—you can also use a food processor if you want to move more quickly, but where's the fun in that?! Combine the crumbs with the cream cheese (play it by ear 1 tbsp at a time until it feels like the crumbs are holding together, but not drowning in cream cheese), roll into tablespoon-sized balls and put in the fridge for about an hour (or longer if you prefer), so they can set.

Last stop is the white chocolate sauce. Also easy and quick, just melt your white chocolate chips in a double-boiler or 15-second increments in your microwave and add some red food coloring and cocoa powder until it matches the color you're looking for.

Then comes assembly. Add your frosting to a small Ziploc or piping bag. If using a Ziploc, cut a small (very small) spaghetti-sized hole in the corner of the bag and pipe in the shape of spaghetti, top with your truffles and sauce, and voila!, dinner fakeout.

While you may think the most fun part of this would be trying to prank someone and seeing if they believe it, I veer on the side of flavor. Sugar on sugar on sugar, but let me tell you, you won't mind it. The vanilla from the sugar cookie cake mixed with slightly savory buttercream and the layered flavors from the Oreos make for the best kind of sweet flavor bomb!

And if you feel the need to break it apart by element to eat the "spaghetti"-covered sugar cookie and the truffles separately, I wouldn't scold you for it. You'll enjoy it either way, I promise. Just don't try that Lady and the Tramp trick with these "noodles".