The Silly Pearl {Handmade}: April Fools Day with #TCBYGrocery #cbias

I love playing little pranks on my dad. My favorite thing to do as a kid is to sneakily re-close a peanut shell while he’s snacking, only to have him pick up and open an empty one and then watch his reaction. Teeeeheeeeheeee!

When I was asked to trick my family with TCBY Frozen Yogurt on April Fool’s Day, I didn’t know what to do at first. But then I realized my dad would be visiting on April Fool’s weekend. And I knew just what to do. You see, he does not.like.cheese. Not a bit. Eeeexcellent. And, I also wanted to see if my family could tell if they were eating ice cream, or frozen yogurt.

TCBY Frozen Yogurt is a relatively new product. It is not yet available at any of the Walmart stores close to me in San Francisco Bay Area. After calling many, many stores (everyone I spoke to was super nice, by the way), I learned it was just arriving at Fairfield, American Canyon and Napa Walmarts, in the northernmost (and a little bit east) of the Bay Area. We headed to Fairfield which was 40 minutes away. But the girls were excited to go somewhere new, and we were going for something yummy so that helped!

I was so happy to see the TCBY Frozen Yogurt quarts and pints in the freezer at Walmart. I remembered the associate I spoke to on the phone said the product was so new that there weren’t even correct price tags on the shelves yet, and she was right!

We picked Classic Vanilla Bean, Mint Chocolate Chunk, and Chocolate Chocolate.

I also picked up these Nilla Wafers because they look the most like crackers. And giggled to myself a little more.

When we got home, I stowed away our TCBY Frozen Yogurts in our extra freezer in the garage, so my family wouldn’t see them. Check out more pics of our TCBY Shopping Story at Walmart on my Google+ page.

Before dinner, I started working on my not-bleu-cheese. First I lined a ramekin with plastic wrap.

Then I used a spoon to scoop out small pieces of the Mint Chocolate Chunk. I wanted the green and the chocolate chunks to look like splotches within the Vanilla, to mimic the bleu of the bleu cheese.

Then I spooned some Classic Vanilla Bean on top and pressed it down, and repeated the process until the ramekin was full.

I smoothed the top (which would become the bottom) with a spoon.

Next I wrapped the plastic around the top of the frozen yogurt.

And stowed it in the freezer to harden back up. And I crossed my fingers…at this point, I wasn’t sure if it would even work! So I made some extras.

After dinner, I snuck to the kitchen to plate my not-bleu-cheese. First I dipped the ramekin into a bowl of warm water to loosen it from the sides.

Then I ran a knife around the sides to further loosen it, and flip it over onto a plate.

My mom (who had caught me in the act and quickly became my partner-in-crime), had her own ideas. She’s the one who came up with making it really look like a cheese plate, with a fanned out apple (too bad I didn’t have grapes!) and placing a baguette in the final picture. She also had told me to use a cheese board and a bottle of wine but I totally forgot (and the not-bleu-cheese was melting so it was getting too late to make any changes).

Then she insisted that I add some regular crackers along with the Nilla Wafers to further disguise the dessert-ness.

So we had my dad sit down and he skeptically peered at the “cheese plate”, and spread some onto a Nilla wafer…

…for my mom to try first, while he gawked! (If anyone reading this knows me in real life, you now know where my funny facial expressions come from.)

Okay okay, by this time, he knows it’s not bleu cheese because the frozen yogurt is melting, but he played along anyways.

Taking a bite…

…and behold his acting skills. “WHAAAA? I can’t believe it’s not bleu cheese!” But he truly WAS surprised that it wasn’t ice cream. Both my parents said they tasted no difference. They said it was smooth and not chalky, which is why they had previously steered clear of in-store frozen yogurt in the past. My mom said she hoped there was some TCBY Frozen Yogurt available at the Walmart near her house in the Sacramento area.

Ah, I wish I had also grabbed the Mango TCBY Frozen Yogurt. I could have made that into “cheddar”, with chopped nuts sprinkled on top to make it look like a cheese log! Oh well…next April Fools!

I do hope that TCBY Frozen Yogurts will be more widely available soon, but it was very well worth the trip to try it out. Thanks Dad for being a good sport, and thanks Mom for the great ideas!