Because ref cakes are awesome

Whoever doesn't enjoy desserts is missing an integral part of his/her life. Yes I'm saying it. Integral. Desserts are an embodiment of pleasure, indulgence, simple joys that sould be taken with moderation, but never permanently skipped for whatever reason.

It's a natural high.

*cue superhero music* Ghoent. Defender of the swee-universe.

Kkk.

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This is one of my favorite desserts to make at home (aka the ONLY dessert I can make from scratch, huhu). Ze familia enjoyed this version when I first tried it, so prepared another batch and this time made sure to document it.

This is not something new, but because I like looking at it and seeing how pretty it is, I will put it here. blahblahblah.

Presenting...

The Peach (or Mango) Oreo Ref Cake!

Ingredients:

Good for 1 ~11.5x7x2in tray (i used a 2.5L tray)

1 pack Graham Crackers

1 pack vanilla cookies

4 packs cream

1 can condensed milk

1 can peaches or 3 pieces mangoes

I made 2 trays for this batch. You may use any type of vanilla chocolate cookies, as you can see I combined Oreos with Bingo, aka I used one pack of oreo and added a few more cookies (because the more cookies the better). The brand of cream's not an issue also, I usually use Nestle though. And please use condensed milk, not condensada. I don't know why, let's just say I have more faith in the condensed milk.

First up, as soon as you get home with these ingredients, shake the cream (to remove whatever settling that has occurred) and then chill it for at least 2 hours (or as long as when you shake the pack, you know it's no longer in liquid form). NOT freeze. Relax. Chill. This is an important step. When we make the filling, the consistency of the cream should be - surprise! - creamy. Not runny, not liquid.

While the chillin' is happenin', get a big bowl (emphasis on big. You'll be mixing everything in here, aka 4 packs of cream and a can of condensed milk) and in here start breaking your cookies into bits. So I do the "oreo twist", scrape off the filling, then break the cookies. Breaking them with the filling inside makes it really messy, so I find this method more efficient (and less likely for me to eat the cookies). Take note, I use the term "break the cookies", and not "crush". We'd like to eat chunks of it on the ref cake, making it very "cookies and cream" only more awesome. Set this aside.

Let's get to the peaches (or mangoes). Slice it according to however you like. A can is more than enough for the tray, but if you prefer to have plenty of toppings then go ahead and slice as many as you want. Set aside.

2 hours of chilling done? If so, pour the 4 packs of cream and can of condensed milk on your big bowl with the cookie bits. By this time you may come across 2 problems:

1. The cream's runny. Deym. I told you to chill it for at least two hours. The thing with this is that if it's still runny then your graham crackers will just float in this mess and not settle on where we want it. That's fine, but the OC in me won't be too happy. Chilling it in the ref won't really help by this point so, prevention is better than cure. Something like that. Y'all know what I mean.

2. Your bowl's too small. That's an easy thing to deal with. Transfer it to a bigger bowl. But that's messy, will waste some of the mixture, and time consuming. The question here is: why didn't you use the big bowl in the first place?

Mix mix mix mix mixture. Done? Get your tray and Graham crackers. Dip the Graham in the mixture, and layer as base. This makes our base moist and yummy, since usually the base of ref cakes are dry as the cream doesn't get to be absorbed by this layer. Fill in gaps with crushed graham. Pour half of the mixture on top of the base, then layer another graham. This time the dipping's no longer necessary. Pour the rest of the mixture on top.

Some people like to top this with crushed graham right before finishing with the fruit, but I like it bare with just the peaches/mangoes as top layer. If you have extra graham then let's just put this on record: do what you want to do. It's the only way you'll be happy. Yep. Because desserts have subtle life messages like that.

Chill overnight. I'd prefer you not freeze it because the thawing that follows kinda skews the consistency (other parts liquidy while the others rock solid), so just chill it in the ref overnight. THIS IS THE ULTIMATE MARSHMALLOW TEST. EQ on the line. My advise: Wait for this worth it piece of heaven!! I suggest then that you prepare this at night so that right after preparing, sleep-immediately-and-wake-up-and-get-your-spoon-and-knife-and-plate-ready-and-slice-and-eat-away. 

Sounds like a plan to me. Happy eating!