Praline Cream Wishes and Pâte à Choux Dreams…

I like challenges. Hey, I’ve got two kids, right? Even more, I like challenges that involve butter, cream, sugar and, well, you get the idea. Enter the Paris-Brest Cake.

Named for the famous Paris to Brest bicycle race, the Paris-Brest Cake is a showstopper. It’s everything you want in a dessert and then some – be warned though, it’s not for the faint of heart.

You can find photos of the decadent pastry here. I’ll post the test recipe as soon as I find my electronic copy. In the meantime, look and drool, look and drool.  :)

You can find the Cook’s Illustrated recipe and more in the December issue. I’m not a paid endorser, unless you count the helpings of praline cream I enjoyed while testing this one. 

Success or Mess: Fruit vs. Chocolate Conclusion

When I started this challenge, I had every intention of finishing it. The thing is, I’ve made some great fruit desserts and my family loved them.  An occasional fruit crumble topped with streusel or ice cream is great; however, my family prefers chocolate.

This weekend we went to a local festival and I knew it was time to call it even. Lovely autumn weather surrounded us as we walked the park and took home an amazing apple pie. That night we warmed some and topped the pieces with ice cream. That’s when I knew we were finished. It was that good. Plus, my husband said it was a great fruity dessert. That’s all I needed.

Now that we’re done, I just have to say whatever dessert you choose, fruit is good and chocolate is good, sometimes better. Today though, I’m just waiting and salivating until we can grab a couple forks and dig into that last sliver of sweet cinnamon apple goodness. I’m trying to hold off until tonight, but talking about it is making me hungry, so I better go. 

Berry, Berry Pound Cake to Make You Merry

I’m sitting here after having a couple pieces of pound cake wondering if this success or mess challenge is worth the extra lbs. All it’s proven is that it doesn’t matter if it’s chocolate or fruit I love dessert.

This week was the third attempt at getting my family on board with the ‘fruit as dessert’ thing. We enjoyed it, but I feel weighed down and I know pound cake is goo all on its own. Instead in my attempt to take fruit over the top for dessert, I, well, took it over the top. 

Thinking about a trifle or using some of the season’s freshest berries with a pound, I chose the latter. Although I ended up making a bit of both and made Vanilla Pound Cake with Mixed Berries and Custard. Or something like that. I should have known when I didn’t know what to call it (because there was so much going on); I might need to rethink things. But, I kept going full steam ahead.

So, you can take a look at this and decide for yourself what to keep and what to exclude.

Homemade pound cake topped with a couple spoons of vanilla pudding, topped with mixed berries, topped with whipped cream. Uh, yum. And way too much!

Here’s a picture, the info and tips. Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I go work it off my thighs. 

Vanilla Pound Cake with Mixed Berries and Custard

Ingredients:

·      2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

·      2 1/2 cups sugar

·      6 large eggs

·      2 1/2 cups flour

·      1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

·      1/2 teaspoon baking powder

·      1/2 teaspoon salt

·      1 cup heavy cream

·      2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Leave the oven off. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt cake pan. Cream the butter and sugar together in the mixer. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add flour mixture and cream to butter-sugar mixture, alternating between the two, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and stir. Pour into the cake pan and bake at 325º for about 1 hour and 25 minutes, keeping the oven closed the whole time. No peeking J Take the cake out and let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Turn it out onto a plate.

Custard: Just mix a small box of vanilla pudding with 2 cups milk and let is set up for about 10 minutes.

Mixed Berries: Rinse and cut up 1 ½ cups strawberries and put in a medium sized bowl. Add 1 cup of raspberries and 1/2 cup of blueberries (optional) or use your favorite berries. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar. Cover and let sit in the fridge for at least an hour.

Whipped Cream: Well, just go buy some and make it easy on yourself.

Cut a piece of cake. Top it with some custard (pudding), then add a helping of fresh berries, add a dollop or three of whipped cream and enjoy!

There's an App-le for that

Apple pie is great, á la mode it’s even better. Since we’re approaching apple-picking season, I thought about mini apple desserts that, I must admit my family loves. Here’s what I did.

Using store bought piecrust, I had my daughter help me cut out small shapes. You can use a medium-size glass or get creative with cookie cutters. We placed the shapes on a cookie sheet, poked them with a fork a couple times and baked them in a preheated 400º oven until they were golden brown, about 10 minutes.

When the crusts were done, I pulled them out and let them cool a little while I made the following recipe for yummy, warm apples.

Next, I pulled out some French Vanilla Ice Cream and let it soften a little.

We assembled the desserts, layering one piecrust shape, a helping of the apple mix, a whipped cream dollop, another piecrust shape, more apple mix, another whipped cream dollop and served it with a side of ice cream. They were like double-decker apple tarts. Wow, so good!

Warm Apples

2 Granny Smith Apples

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Dash of nutmeg

Dash of cloves

1.   Dice apples into small bites.

2.   Heat butter in sauté pan over medium heat and add the apples. Cook 7-10 mins.

3.   When apples are coated and warmed through, stir in brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves and continue cooking about 4 mins.

4.   Assemble mini desserts or serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a wonderful treat!

Got another fruity dessert idea? Share it here and it could be the next one we try.

SYOAS – See you online again soon! 

Fruit so good it should be illegal

I started my Success or Mess Fruity Dessert Challenge using a Paula Deen recipe.  If you know of her cooking, you know it’s got to be good. Let’s just say dessert that uses a pound of butter, biscuits and brown sugar is worth a try.

This looked drool-worthy and since it’s got blueberries, I figured we were in business. Let’s just say it’s so good I started eating it right out of the pan and did not want to stop. Then I remembered the point was to convince my family that a fruit based dessert could be delicious. So I had to share.

It was a definite success. If you’re looking for a yummy recipe that uses blueberries, try Paula’s Granite Steps Country Blueberry Coffee Cake. You can eat it for breakfast or dessert and try it plain or with a side of vanilla ice cream. Delicious!!

Success or Mess: Fruit vs. Chocolate

We’re Choc-a-holics, no doubt. If it’s got choco in the title we’re all over it. Especially when it comes to desserts. When we’re out I’m the only one who experiments with desserts other than chocolate. If there’s a Raspberry this or Blueberry that on the menu that sounds good, and maybe has ice cream with it, I’m up for it. My husband knows it. Nearly every time I try said Fruity dessert, I end up asking for part of his chocolate decadence anyway. He warns me, but I’m still learning.

Perhaps, I really do believe fruity desserts are healthier or maybe I’m just a glutton, but this year I want to find something that comes close to the wow factor of triple chocolate ganache cake. 

Summer’s the perfect time to attempt such a feat since so many fruits are in season. Over the next five weeks, I’ll try to convince my family that fruit's great for dessert too.

I’ve already got my first idea, it’s a coffee cake and cobbler mash up. We’ll see how it goes.

Got another fruity dessert idea? Share it here and it could be the next one we try.

SYOAS – See you online again soon!

Judgement Day: Last Meal Cravings (Babble) has me thinking

Let me first say that you can check out the inspiration for this post over here at Babble.  

I like where she starts. The author's not sure if Judgment Day is tomorrow, probably not, but why eat salad for your last meal when dessert is so much better? 

Okay, I’m listening. And drooling.  

As for due diligence let me say that every once in a while a day spent indulging in desserts sounds pretty good - please exercise moderation though and not make a habit out of it. (Note: this is a case of do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, and I'll explain why next.)

I recently noticed my intake of cake and ice cream increased. This came closely on the heels of our second child's birth. Now I try not to go overboard, but every once in a while a girl's gotta go crazy. In any case, I went to out for a milkshake run last week - we ate all the cookies - and I noticed that my sweet tooth seemed insatiable. In an effort to pull myself out of feeling bad about how I was Jonesing for shakes despite the number of ice cream trips we’d taken that week, I parked three blocks away. Yes, a whole three blocks. My spirits buoyed, I ordered the Choco Fudge bevies and headed home. So, I say try hard to moderate, but if you have extenuating circumstances like job stress or kids at home, feel free to disregard this advice. Now you know why this blog post caught my attention. 

Take a look and see what you think. Although, there’s some babble about a veggie breakfast plate or something, but you can skip past that. I recommend the Chocolate Dipped Pecan Cake, Smores Ice Cream Sandwiches and Apple Dumpling Cinnamon Rolls. Yum!

That’s a great place to start. I’d add my Grandma’s Georgie Porgie, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Cheesecake, Tiramisu and a dozen other desserts. What would you eat?