desserts
Desserts
Perfect Hot Chocolate
Hot cocoa is all well and good. A mug is a great way to satisfy your after-dinner chocolate cravings. And cupping the warm mug between your hands after playing in the snow or shoveling the driveway is simply heavenly.
Desserts
Raspberry Custard Cups
This is such an easy dish, delicious dessert. I like to serve it for special guests.
Desserts
Almond Rice Pudding with Toasted Meringue
The idea for this recipe comes from a 19th century dessert called Huntington pudding, which has a lemony rice pudding base, thickened with egg yolks, and a lemon meringue cap. I love how the airy meringue lightens the dense rice pudding as you eat it. So with this old-fashioned dessert in mind, I decided to maintain a similar design but change the flavors and textures. I made an almond-flavored rice pudding base, because I love almond and lemon together, and kept the base loose with lots of milk. And I topped this with a lemony meringue, which, after a little toasting in the oven, is a real showstopper. If you don't eat this pudding right away, it's also good cold, but don't let it sit in the fridge for more than a day or two or the meringue gets weird.
Desserts
Airy Rosemary Citrus Pignole Bread Pudding
This recipe was inspired by fluffy chiffon cakes (fluffing the egg whites separate from their yolks), my love for making flan and creme brulee, as well by Lemon Pignole cookies. I used several varieties of citrus since I lacked Meyer lemons and flavored the pudding with honey and rosemary for a garden-like twist. And just so ya know, this is the most bowls you'll every see me dirty in the making of one dish!
Desserts
Grilled Watermelon with Tequila
Spiking fruit with alcohol, grilling fruit with spices usually leads to a fun and tasty summer treat! This recipe can be an appetizer or a savory dessert. Either way, this is a fun way to cool off the hot August nights.
Desserts
Peaches with Creme Fraiche, Brown Sugar, Cinnamon and Nutmeg
This was inspired by the recipe headnote for a contest winner: a delicious peach cake by Savour, who recalled how her mother often served her cut-up peaches with milk, sugar and nutmeg for breakfast as a child. I opted for a dollop of crème fraîche in place of the milk, used brown sugar instead of white and snuck some cinnamon in alongside the nutmeg. If you don't have crème fraîche, just use whatever is in your fridge -- yogurt, cream, mascarpone, even ricotta.
Desserts
Tipsy Maple Corn
We were initially seduced by "tipsy" in the title, but once we tried thirschfeld's recipe, we fell in love with much more than the Jack-Daniels-infused syrup. There are the peanuts (we used dry roasted) and the tiny dots of pancetta -- neither of which stoops to merely accessorizing the corn. The nuts give the treat heft, the pancetta salt and richness. The most important step is the oven-crisping. Be careful not to burn the edges and don't worry if the popcorn isn't totally crisp when you take it out of the oven -- it will continue to firm up as it cools. We loved this as a Halloween treat, but it would be just as delicious paired with a good movie.
Desserts
Bourbon Chocolate Bread Pudding
Amply boozy yet not too sweet, we liked student epicure's unabashed take on the bread pudding. The dessert takes about 5 minutes to put together (not counting 45 minutes of soaking, during which time you can assemble the rest of your meal). And it calls for ingredients that you probably have lying around the house (if you don't have bourbon—why don't you!—you can use rum). We see this as the perfect impromptu dinner party dessert.
Desserts
Fresh Ricotta Ice Cream
Just by looking at the ingredients in this recipe I was intrigued. I was imagining the taste of a cannoli, and after making the recipe I was not disappointed. The ricotta taste really came through, while the addition of the heavy cream made it smooth and rich. I really enjoyed the hint of lemon -- it was just enough. It was also super easy putting all of the ingredients together. I give it 3 thumbs up: 1 for me, 1 for my husband and 1 for my son!
Desserts
The Kitchn's One-Ingredient Ice Cream
Making one-ingredient ice cream couldn't be simpler. It comes out like the frozen bananas you ate at the boardwalk as a kid, except (thanks to the high pectin content) it whips up like Marshmallow Fluff. Vegan and raw foodists have long known this trick, but a few years ago, The Kitchn published a photo tutorial and one-ingredient ice cream went mainstream. Bloggers spread the gospel and suddenly it wasn't just a workaround for ice cream, but an exciting dessert in its own right, regardless of its pure reputation.
Desserts
Panna Cotta Infused with Bergamot Tea
I loved the addition of bourbon to the panna cotta; it was a beautifully smoky background to the milky flavor. And the cherries made a tart, boozy complement to the creamy panna cotta. Next time, I'll steep the tea a bit more for a stronger flavor.
Desserts
Blueberry Schlumpf
I got this recipe from my father's distant cousin, Hasso, who serves it each year in Sorrento, Maine. Make a double batch, serve it hot and gooey, and be sure you have some vanilla ice cream on hand.
Desserts
Gingered Cranberry-Pear Pie
Pie is something I take very seriously, both the making and eating of it. My mom and grandmothers set the bar high (learning how to make a good pie is practically a rite of passage in Midwest farm country), and my husband grew up in a family of pie lovers. On both sides of our family, the Thanksgiving dessert table typically consists of several pumpkin pies, pecan, and sometimes apple -- and in the case of my husband’s Nebraskan family, sour cream and raisin. As much I love all of those options, I often find them too rich and sweet after a big meal. This contest gave me the perfect excuse to create my ideal Thanksgiving pie, and this gingered cranberry-pear one is the result.
Desserts
Black Bottom Oatmeal Pie
This pie has slowly but surely become a sort of cult favorite in the pie shop. We loved it from the start for its oatmeal–chocolate chip cookie quality; it’s like a pie version of that classic recipe. In olden days, this pie (minus the chocolate) was dubbed “poor man’s pecan pie” because oats are far less expensive than pecans. We up the ante by adding a decadent layer of dark chocolate ganache on the bottom.
Desserts
Shoofly Pie
I have mellowed the molasses a touch with corn syrup -- when I make this pie I go whole hog and use all sorghum molasses. It's your call. I also found I really liked the rice flour streusel because it is very tender but either flours work great here.
Desserts
Deep Chocolate Cake with Orange Icing
Lovely cake. Had company in town and wanted a dessert I could pull together on the fly. The cake was super moist and the icing was delicious. I am a frosting freak so I doubled it. Delicious!
Desserts
Grilled Watermelon with Tequila
Spiking fruit with alcohol, grilling fruit with spices usually leads to a fun and tasty summer treat! This recipe can be an appetizer or a savory dessert. Either way, this is a fun way to cool off the hot August nights.
Desserts
Pioneer-Style Orange Sour Cream Cake
I'm calling this "Pioneer-Style" because I mixed it all by hand. The house we're renting isn't equipped with any sort of electric mixer. It worked out fine, but you don't have to do it that way. This recipe can be doubled to make a layer cake but I made one layer. Vacation isn't a time for architecture.
Desserts
Best Cream Cheese Cookies
Since you’re using so few ingredients, it’s important to use the highest quality versions you can find. We recommend European butter, which has a higher butterfat content than American butter, meaning that it’s richer, butterier, and all-around better. To amp up the flavor even further, try adding citrus zest from a lime, lemon, or orange to the cookie dough. For the holiday season, add ¼ teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, per one baker’s suggestion; the warmth from the spice cuts the sweetness of the cookie and makes it that much more seasonal. A five-ingredient cookie recipe that feeds a crowd is all we need this holiday season (or any time of year, for that matter)