Angel Food Butterfinger Dessert

This post is in keeping with my tradition of shamelessly copying recipes. However, there is a caveat -- my mom has been making this dessert for about 30 years. I'm not sure where she got the recipe but it wasn't cooks.com!

About a year ago, I had a hankering for this dessert and I couldn't get in touch with my mom -- so I googled. To my surprise I found the recipe at cooks.com. The only variation that my mom had on this is the addition of walnuts.

• Freshly baked angle food cake (you will have some cake left over)
  
• 1/4 cup butter (1 stick that has been softened enough to blend)
• 4 egg yolks
  
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 pint whipping cream (2 small cartons)
  
• 3 2.1 ounce butterfinger candy bars (sliver with a knife along length of candy bar)
  
• very finely chopped walnuts: quantity is to taste

After the cake is cool, remove it from the pan and break into small pieces and set aside.

Sliver the candy bars and chop the walnuts. Combine and set aside. The exact quantity of walnuts and even candy bars is really a matter of taste.

Whip butter, egg yolks, powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Whip the whipping cream until light and fluffy and then combine with the sugar mixture.

Next, we will layer cake, candy bar and the creme mixture in a 9-inch pie dish/pan/tin. Spread an even layer of cake pieces over the bottom and then using a spatula, spread a smooth layer of the cream mixture over the cake. Sprinkle the candy/walnut mixture over the cream layer and then add another layer of cake and so on. The 9-inch pie dish will be heaping when you are finished. I usually end up with about 3 layers and its likely you will have about 1/4th of the cake and a small amount of the cream mixture left over. I usually make another small cereal bowl full with the left overs. Enjoy but be careful -- this dessert is rich and will fill you up almost instantly.

Polar Bear Triathlon 2007 White Sands Missile Range New Mexico

Based upon my experience I would say: Avoid this triathlon -- story below.

I'm hoping that a lot of folks find this blog so that they won't get hosed by this triathlon.

I live in Albuquerque NM and its a 4 hour drive to white sands missile range. The race was scheduled for Saturday Dec 8 2007 at 8AM and I drove to Las Cruces Friday night -- I arrived at about 6:30PM and then checked into my hotel and set my alarm for 5:30AM. I woke up Saturday morning and did my pre-race food routine and checked out of the hotel. I left the hotel at about 6:40 AM and arrived at the entrance of white sands missile range at 7:14AM. There was a large line of cars waiting at the base entrance and the line was moving very slowly but I didn't worry -- I had heard that they would hold up the start of the race until they could get everyone in the gate -- oh boy was I wrong on that.

At about 8:10AM a guy came running back along the long line of cars and trucks with bikes affixed to their bumbers etc. He went by me as I heard him say "the race is already started." He kept moving down the long line of cars and trucks behind me apparently repeating this message. I suddenly was very pissed off and then a minute or so later he came back by me. Now he was pissed off and he was yelling "don''t ask me any questions -- I'm very busy and I don't have time for it!" He did say that if we wanted to stick around there was a possibility for credit towards next year's events. I wasn't in any mood to wait any longer and I was angry. So I just left.

Bottom line:
Information on this race is very difficult to obtain and you can have a very bad experience as I just described.

• There is no real website about the race. Just a website that says that there is a race.
• The website incorrectly states that the race begins at 0900 hours -- I just got lucky: I called Thursday to confirm my registration. By chance I found out that in fact the race begins at 0800 hours
• There is absolutely no information on the matter of getting into the gate -- like arrive at 6AM so that you can have time to get through the gate. They were taking about 5 to 10 minutes to process a single car. There were maybe 50 cars in front of me. I didn't time their process time but they were moving very slowly.

This turn of events was very disappointing as I've been training and recovering from an injury over the last 7 months. This particular race is essentially the very very last race of the season in New Mexico but it would have been my first of the season as I was finally healthy and prepared. I drove back to Albuquerque and on the way decided I would do my own triathlon -- just a training session where I push myself just a bit harder than normal.

I got my bike, helmet and shoes set up in the garage for a quick transition. I have a 3 mile run circuit and I pushed myself a bit (22:53). Not as fast as I would have run in a race but not bad considering there was no competition. Then I quickly transitioned to my bike and rode into a 25MPH headwind along with some rain. I was determined and so I pushed ahead. I rode out 6.2 miles and turned around. Now I had a tail wind and I hauled some butt. At times I was going 28MPH and I could see the leaves flying around me at the same pace -- thats how I know the approximate speed of the head wind. 42 minutes later I was done with the ride. The total time for the run, transition and bike was 1 hour 6 minutes. I was happy with that but I'm still not happy about the management of the Polar Bear Triathlon.

Now its the off-season and I'll have about 3 months of easy training. I'll be back next year with a vengeance but I won't be back to White Sands Missile Range for any races -- and I would recommend you do the same (especially if you don't live in the immediate area).