Tragic shell

let's replace the magic with tragic

Hello to the greatest clowns on planet Earth!

You. I’m talkin’ about you, my favorite payasos en el mundo. I know. I briefly switched into a different language to show you how metropolitan I am.

West Coasters, I hope you’re hanging in there and not roasting too badly. I heard you’re all miserable in the heat wave, so even if I can’t send you any ice cubes, I can write about cold desserts this week to cool you off and revolt you at the same time. When the tears start evaporating on your face you’ll feel better, I promise.

Now, this week, I will not be making any more refreshing beverages because my SodaStream is officially dead. I explained what happened in the paid-subscribers post last week, so those of you in the know, feel free to revel in the glee of what happened. I’ll be here shaking my head at myself.

Now, one of the easiest, most fun, and impressive things you can do in the kitchen is make your own magic shell for ice cream.

I say that, because magic shell is just plain entertaining. You pour it on as a liquid, and then through the powers of Satan, it turns crisp and solid in front of your very eyes. How cool is that?! Then when you spoon that sundae in your mouth or ass, your body temp makes it melt down into a silky sauce for either end of your body.

When it comes down to it, however, making your own magic shell is very easy. All you need is some form of chocolate (although I think you might be able to use candy bark and such) and one special ingredient.

The secret ingredient in magic shell is not pee. It’s coconut oil.

You see, coconut oil is solid at room temperature. When you mix it into chocolate, the two combine into a mixture that stays liquid at room temp, but as soon as it hits the cold surface of ice cream, it firms up to make the shell. That’s it, that’s all you need, chocolate and coconut oil. If you’re boring, that is.

You can put any kind of dry flavoring into homemade magic shell. Sure, there’s some very nice things you can mix into it, like matcha, cinnamon, and chili powder, but I prefer my food disgusting, thank you very much. Do not mix anything watery into your magic shell, though, because it’ll seize up, get all nasty, and you will cry. (Oils are okay, like crude oil and Vaseline, however.)

So I said to myself, “Dannis Ree, you are the greatest food writer in all of history. Nobody asked for you to ruin magic shell, but you were about to do it anyway, weren’t you?”

The answer is yes.

For today’s poison, I decided to go with three seasoning packets from the grocery store: Egg drop soup mix, Italian beef au jus seasoning (!!!), and brown gravy mix.

Wait, did I just say poison?

I used instructions based off this blog, Live Well Eat Often, which suggests you use two tablespoons of coconut oil per cup of chocolate chips.

I chose white chocolate chips because I wanted pure unadulterated gravy magic shell flavor, and the flavor of regular chocolate would just get in the way. People talk shit about white chocolate, but I really like to have it now and then. I wonder how it would taste with carbonated fish.

All you have to do is microwave the chocolate and coconut oil in short bursts, up to 30 seconds, and mix it until everything is incorporated into a smooth sauce.

That’s it. If you’re a normal person, you’re already done.

Unless you’re me!

In which case you mix gnarly shit into the magic shell liquid in attempt to shorten your own life. Mmm. Brown gravy. I like that it’s just called “brown” and isn’t indicative of any clear flavor other than brown.

The Italian beef au jus seasoning was a new find for me.

For you non-Chicago natives, an Italian beef is a local specialty sandwich that’s adored by Chicagoans, including yours truly. Part of the deliciousness comes from the au jus, and I did not know people made it at home frequently enough for this packet to exist. That’s actually pretty cool.

Italian beef is usually seasoned with a mix of garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano, among a few other things, but those are the main flavors you’ll get.

The egg drop soup mix was the most curious find of them all.

Egg drop soup is okay and everything, but the fact that there’s enough demand for a powdered base is very curious to me. Did any of you knew this stuff existed? Next time you’re at the store, go poke around the dry packet section to see if you can find anything interesting. Then make your own magic (tragic) shell with it.

The end products looked pretty harmless.

The magic shell turned out well; if you’re making a nice one, I recommend you use a squeeze bottle to put it on your ice cream for a consistent layer.

Otherwise, you’ll end up with a gross-looking pile that looks like candle wax.

This is the egg drop soup mix magic shell, which is the one I was looking forward to the most. I snapped into it with a spoon and took a bite. Then I busted out laughing, because it turns out egg drop soup base tastes like chicken-flavored instant ramen. With the ice cream, it tastes wrong, but that doesn’t mean it tastes terrible, it just tastes confusing. Overall, I’ll call this one a win.

I handed the ramekin over to Davida, who tried a little bit of it, and said, “Unfortunately this tastes good.”

That is the highest compliment I’ve ever received for my cooking.

After cracking into the Italian beef au jus magic shell, I made a shocking discovery.

What the fuck. It actually tasted like au jus. I could not decide for the life of me whether or not that was a good thing, because my mouth was running off in all sorts of different directions, with cold, creamy, and sweet coming from the ice cream and white chocolate, and the salty punch of garlic and onion powder moving on a completely separate trajectory. This one was a real trip, and the Chicagoan in me is both proud and ashamed at the same time.

I decided to take the brown gravy magic shell in yet a different direction by using mashed potatoes as the base, because that only made sense to me.

After my first bite I realized I was trolling myself at this point.

My brain kept thinking I was digging into ice cream, and when I realized I was eating mashed potatoes, I felt like I was in some alternate universe or something. The magic shell certainly wasn’t helping the cause, because my brain kept screaming ice cream while my mouth was extremely confused by the cold starchy spuds. And as to the flavor, the best thing I can use to describe the magic shell is that it tasted…brown.

I’d say all in all, today’s experiment ended up better than expected. Congratulations to me! Nothing made me immediately want to retire from food writing, so I’ll take that as a win. I think.

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One of you needs to try your own version of magic shell. Lipton onion soup mix magic shell, anyone?

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As always, I love you guys, and West Coasters, please be safe. Hey, you could always visit Chicago to cool off for a few days. I’ve got just the treat for you.