Tag Archives: Dessert
So, yesterday at 5pm, I was making Dorrie’s Party Cake, to take over to an impromptu dinner party at our friend’s J and A’s home. Was I crazy to try to make a cake at 5pm for a 730pm dinner party!?!?! Kind of……. The recipe is so simple to follow, everything just started falling into place, so easy. The house smelled of sugar, buttermilk and sweet Meyer Lemons – was delicious! Then came the time to whip up the buttercream …. I could not keep my fingers nor my sweet little god-daughters out of the shiny meringue and buttery goodness – we were being pretty naughty over the kitchen aid! I used tart raspberry preserves for the filling as the recipe calls for. I was worried I may run out of buttercream to frost the cake so I did skimp on the buttercream between the layers – now I know better. I opted out of the coconut part of the challenge only because I am not a big fan of flaked coconut. I was finished with the challenge by 645pm, just enough time to wipe off the flour from my hands and pretty up for a dinner party. The cake turned beautiful and what a wonderful combination of flavors. The tartness of the buttermilk, the sweetness of the raspberry preserves and the freshness of spring that came from the Meyer Lemons was really nice. The cake was light and not to dense and the buttercream was amazing light and fluffy. We served the cake with a chilled glass of Lemoncello – everyone loved it! Thank you L for convincing me not to give up on this challenge and Thank You Dorrie for creating a beautiful recipe – we will be using this more often!
As for the cooking portion of the RSBC challenge, the food was Quinoa or Beets and it had to be a dessert. Well, since I could not figure out a way to add a beet to dessert and for that matter, L. does not really like beets, I went with Quinoa. We love Quinoa – we actually eat it a lot; but, mostly as a side with dinner, not a dessert. This was a challenge. I found one recipe on the Food Network for a pudding . Figured it would be somewhat like rice pudding so I went with it. It came together easy enough, smelled good, looked good and tasted okay. I put it into some cute little bowls, put it in the fridge to chill while we had dinner with some friends and half way through dinner I just had second thoughts – thank god I did not serve it, it was terrible!!! Oh well, guess we will stick with Quinoa as a side with dinner. Great challenge, though, Chou!
Now, since I LOVE to cook as well, I know L. was expecting the big fancy french meal; but, I surprised him with a Jamie Oliver pizza of Pancetta, artichoke hearts and an egg! He was quite surprised! For dessert I made L.’s favorite dessert, Iles Flottantes – a big Thank You to Tartelette for a wonderful recipe! Not only was it delicious but very easy.
with essence of fresh Seville Oranges. I love Seville Oranges and I always buy them when we are in Europe. Unfortunately, I have never seen them in the Bay Area; which, has bummed me out as I have wanted to try making David Lebovitz’s Orange Marmalade. Today was my lucky day. I stumbled upon Seville Oranges at one of our favorite little neighborhood markets, Bi-Rite. I had to buy them! All the way home I thought about what I would do first besides the obvious …. devour them! Then it hit me, I had to come up with something sweet and chocolately – Death by Chocolate like – as well, I wanted something for L. to take back to Boston for his family. These little cakes are perfect for someone you love or for a sweet sinful little snack – as well they are simple to make!
make pie! Jen, from The Canadian Baker, was our hostess this month and she challenged us with making a Lemon Meringue Pie. This was my first time making a Lemon Meringue Pie and I even got L. to help out – we actually had a lot of fun doing it together! We made it for a dinner party we had a couple weekends back and our guests loved it. We loved it so much we made, it again, the next day and then again the following weekend! We did use our lemon of choice which is the beautiful Meyer. As well I do not own a pie pan so we used a tart pan. The pastry dough was light and flaky and the filling was a beautiful shade of yellow and had just enough pucker! Meringue well you just can not go wrong with any sort of meringue. The first two pies came from the same recipe and unfortunately, once you cut into the pie it was more like floating islands on lemon soup – great flavor though. The second time around, we cut the water down but it was still rather runny. The flavor was so fantastic that it really did not matter to us nor our guests! Want a taste of the drool fest click the blue link!
bit·ter·sweet (btr-swt) There have been a few episodes the past couple of months that have been “bittersweet” for me. This event came at a perfect time. As well, I am a chocolate addict. I would eat it everyday of the week if I could. The darker and the deeper the chocolate the better. No semi-sweet, milk chocolate for me!! It is like a bad drug. For this event which was hosted by Apartment Therapy The Kitchen, I choose a bittersweet chocolate tart – I love it because it is incredibly bitter (70% chocolate) and just a little sweet (hardly any sugar). I love to have it drizzled with olive oil and sea salt, or a drizzle of cream, or maybe a ripe red raspberry; but, this time around, the slight bite of the chocolate and the slight sweetness of the crust went incredibly well with a deep dark espresso! Pure sin ….. all things bad turned into one good thing! Unfortunately, for you the viewers, the photos are terrible. As it was a very last minute decision, I forgot until half way thru the process that I was suppose to take a few photos of the baking process as well a few of the finished process. Because of chilling times, etc.. I missed all the wonderful natural light and had to work with what I had. I can assure you all … this is a fantastic tart and you should definitely make it when you are feeling the need to be a little bad!
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