Category: Sweets – Other

Cinnamon Fondue – Fountain of Blood

Really red!  We used apples, brownie bits, bananas, marshmallows, and angel food cake to dip. Great for Halloween, might work for Christmas or Valentines Day.
Ingredients:

  • 6 cups light corn syrup
  • 4 cups sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup cinnamon candies (Red Hots)

Directions:

  1. Bring corn syrup, sugar, and water to a boil.
  2. Add the candies.
  3. Boil until the mixture reaches 220°F on a candy thermometer.
  4. Allow to cool slightly before running through the fountain.
  5. Run on high heat.
  6. Thin with water if necessary.

Yield: Enough to run through the largest home fountains. Use 1/3 to 1/2 for smaller home fountains.  Multiply quantities by 4 for large commercial fountains.

Source:  Sephra Catering Creations, By Jacob Muir

Special” Lady Fingers

This dessert will only work for Halloween!

Ingredients:

  • 2 pkg Italian lady fingers (the hard ones)
  • 1 jar raspberry jam
  • 1 bottle raspberry syrup
  • red sugar
  •  Mock Devonshire Cream – see below

Directions: 

  1. Place a spoon-full of Devonshire Cream in the bottom of a 8 oz plastic glass.  (We are camping here!  At home use a martini glass or small glass bowl.)
  2. Put a small bit of raspberry jam on top.
  3. Sprinkle with sugar.
  4. Dip half the lady finger in raspberry syrup.
  5. Stab the “bloody” end into the cup.  (You may give a cackling laugh with each lady finger.)

Serves:  50

Source:  A  fiendishly disturbed mind.

Traditionally served with scones at high tea, this makes a great topping for many pudding type deserts or fresh fruit (even jello).

Ingredients:

  • 3 oz cream cheese
  • 1/2 c chilled whipping cream.

Directions:  

  1. Mash cream cheese until soft.
  2. Add cream and blend thoroughly.

Serves:  Makes about 1/4 c – enough for 2 desserts.

Source:   Bobby Westling at Girl Scout Camp Scherman

An Even More Wicked Mock Devonshire or Clotted Cream

Ingredients:

  • 4 ounces, weight Cream Cheese, At Room Temperature
  • 1/4 cup Butter, At Room Temperature
  • 1/4 cup Sour Cream

Instrictions:

  1. Place the cream cheese in a medium bowl and beat with a hand mixer until fluffy and smooth.
  2. Add butter and beat.
  3. Add sour cream and beat once more until smooth.
  4. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for about a week. Let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes or so before serving.

Servings:  4

Source:  Pioneer Woman, May 22, 2016

Taro Parini (Old-Fashioned Bread Pudding)

Leftover bread in many forms happens an every country.  Most have some variation of bread pudding.  This recipe definitely falls in the category  of “a suggestion” .  Your grandmother never measured anything!

Ingredients:

  • 2 c milk
  • 1/4 c butter or margarine
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 1/2 c sugar
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon or nutmeg (or more, you know what you like.)
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 6 c soft (or not) bread cubes (about 6 slices bread)
  • 1/2 c chocolate chips, or raisins, or crasins, or etc.

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 350º.
  2. In 2-quart saucepan, heat milk and butter over medium heat until butter is melted and milk is hot.
  3. In large bowl, mix eggs, sugar, cinnamon and salt.
  4. Stir in bread cubes and raisins.
  5. Stir in milk mixture.
  6. Pour into ungreased deep round pan.
  7. Bake uncovered 40 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean.
  8. Serve warm with whipped cream, or caramel sauce, or brandy sauce, or etc.
 Serves:    8
Source:   Betty Crocker

 

Trifle

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Anything goes!  This was originally the leftovers from tea in England.  Some even put jello in it.  It is hard to make a bad trifle.

Ingredients:

  • 3 dz ladyfingers (or pound cake, or chocolate cake, or brownies, etc)
  • 1 c jam (flavor suitable for cake, pudding and fruit)
  • 1/2 c sweet wine, brandy, liqueur
  • 4 pkg (3.9 oz) instant pudding (flavor suitable for fruit)
  • 6 c cold milk or even better 1/2 and 1/2
  • 1 qt (4 c) whipping cream – whipped
  • 1/2 c powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp almond/vanilla extract
  • 6 – 8 cups fruit – berries, cherries (frozen), peaches etc.
  • 1 c toasted almond slivers and/or chocolate shavings

Directions:

  1. Prepare the fruit – wash, dry, slice, whatever.
  2. Whip the cream.
  3. Add the powdered sugar and almond extract.
  4. Split the ladyfingers.
  5. Spread with jam.
  6. Put them back together (if using cake, make little cake sandwiches)
  7. Line the bottom of a straight sided glass bowl with half the ladyfingers.  Make sure they go all the way to the sides of the bowl so they will show when done.
  8. Sprinkle with half the wine
  9. Mix the instant pudding with the milk/1/2&12.
  10. Layer half the pudding on the ladyfingers.  Again, go all the way to the side of the bowl.
  11. Spoon on half the fruit.  If using berries make sure they are up on the side of the bowl.
  12. Spoon on half the whipped cream.
  13. Place the remainder of the ladyfingers, pudding, fruit and whipped cream in layers in bowl.
  14. Sprinkle the almond and  chocolate on top.

Serves:  30  You want a LARGE (like 12 inch) tall glass bowl for this.

Source:    A riff on Sunset Cook Book’s recipe

 

 

 

 

Grilled Rum Pineapple

Appetizer or dessert – take your choice.  Save the rum for your next MaiTai.

Ingredients:

  • 3 ripe pineapple peeled, cored and quartered lengthwise
  • 3 c rum
  • toothpicks

Directions:

  1. Slice each quarter into 10 pieces.
  2. Place in a large bowl or self-sealing bag.
  3. Add rum.
  4. Let marinate for 6 hours, or overnight.
  5. Place on a rack over a rimmed pan (lined with foil for easy cleanup).
  6. Place under broiler for about 5-8 minutes, until lightly browned.
  7. Serve on tray with toothpicks.

Serves: 120 pieces

Source: I made it up.

If camping, slice the pineapple into rings.  Grill.  Cut into quarters to serve.  For a not-quite-as-good non-alcoholic dessert, just slap the pineapple slices on the grill, turn and top with a little brown sugar.

Bananas Foster

The secret to success is to have all your ingredients and equipment on hand and measured before you start.  It all goes together rather quickly.  You could also use peaches, apples or pineapple.  But then you could not call it Bananas Foster could you?

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 stick butter – salted
  • 1 c  dark brown sugar – packed
  • 3/4 c spiced rum
  • 5 whole bananas, sliced into thick slices
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

  1. Heat 1/4 c rum in a small sauce pan for flaming.
  2. In a heavy skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat.
  3. Add brown sugar and stir together.
  4. Add remaining 1/2 c of rum – room temperature and then stir in the bananas and spices
  5. Mixture should be bubbly. (The steps so far should take less than 2 minutes; this is quick!)
  6. Remove rum from stove and light it with a barbecue lighter
  7. Pour rum rum over bananas and let the flames die down *Be careful with the open flame*
  8. Stir to combine
  9. Serve sauce immediately over vanilla ice cream or French toast. (Sauce does keep in the fridge, though. If there is any left!)
Serves: 6
Source:  Based on a recipe from The Pioneer Woman

Desert Fondue

One recipe suggested using a slow cooker (it will take hours!) especially for a large party. Don’t limit yourself to the suggested dippers – anything goes!

Ingredients:

  • 1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 2 Tab butter
  • 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)
  • 2 Tab water (or try coffee for a little kick)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

  1. In heavy saucepan, over medium heat, melt chocolate chips and butter with condensed milk, cinnamon and water.
  2. Cook and stir constantly until thickened, about 5 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat.
  4. Add vanilla.
  5. Serve warm with a variety of dippers:  angel food cake, dried apricots, strawberries, ‘nilla wafers, apples, bananas, maraschino cherries, etc.

Serves:   6

Source:  Eagle brand

Cheesecake in a Rectangular Pan

This process involves some math – volume and area, but is useful if cooking for a crowd.

The largest challenge you will face is that cheesecakes are notoriously difficult to release from the pan, and they are not very strong. The traditional crumb crust is also not very strong, so it doesn’t provide much support or structural integrity to the slice.

This is why spring form pans are normally used for cheesecakes: they let you leave the cheesecake on its base plate, and just remove the ring. The crust sits on the base plate until service.

If you want to try it in another pan, to facilitate getting it out, I suggest that you:

  • Consider using aluminum foil instead of parchment, as it is easier to shape. Make a sling for the cheesecake, so that the foil comes up the edge of the pan. You will want to do this in both directions.The sling will be used after baking to lift the cheesecake out of the pan. You should then be able to carefully peel the foil back from the edges, and slice it. (Many brownie recipes recommend this technique.)
  • Consider a sturdier crust than a crumb crust, perhaps a full shortbread, that will survive the lifting from the pan, and be strong enough to support the pieces when you cut them.
  • Changing the shape of the pan may change the surface area of the cheesecake, and thus its depth, which will affect the cooking time. You want to choose a new pan that is as close in area to the pan anticipated in your recipe as possible, so that the baking time and temperature do not have to be adjusted too much. Getting the perfect balance of time, temperature, and thickness of the custard is a tricky matter.If your original recipe calls for a 9″ spring form pan (which is fairly typical of cheesecakes), that is approximately 64″ square inches. So you would choose an 8×8″ square pan to have approximately the same area.A complication is that spring form pans tend to be taller than square cake pans, and cheesecake recipes often take advantage of this fact. If all of your filling will not fit (with some reasonable room for a tiny amount of expansion (cheesecake should not really expand when cooked), you are going to have to adjust the baking time and possibly the temperature.Your cheesecake should be done when it jiggles slightly at the center, and has an internal temperature measured in the center of approximately 180-185 F. You will need an instant read thermometer to measure this.If you are changing the depth or the area, you will definitely want to monitor your cake closely for when it is done.

Another approach would be to make individual cheesecakes or tartletts in a tartlet mold or lined muffin tin.

Source:  Seasoned Advice

 

Eric’s Almond Tort

Eric, Margie’s brother, made this one year for Christmas Eve.  It was wicked good!  You an  alternately use blackberries and blackberry jam etc.

Crust Ingredients:

  • 2 c flour
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 8 Tab butter, melted and cooled
  • 2 Tab milk
  • 1 tsp lemon peel grated
  • 2 egg yolks, beaten

Filling Ingredients:

  • 7 oz almond paste, refrigerated
  • 3/4 c powdered sugar
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 6 Tab unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 1/4 c flour

Topping  Ingredients:

  • 1 jar seedless raspberry jam
  • 2 T Kirsh or other liquor
  • 25-30 oz raspberries

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. Mix flour, sugar and salt.
  3. Add butter, milk, lemon peel and egg yolks to the dry ingredients and mix into a smooth dough.
  4. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
  5. Grate almond paste in food processor with fine grater.
  6. Change to sharp blade and add powdered sugar.
  7. Process until fine crumbs similar to grated Parmesan are formed.
  8. Cream butter and beat in egg yolk and almond extract.
  9. Stir in almond mixture.
  10. In separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff.
  11. Fold into almond paste mixture.
  12. Stir in flour one-half cup at a time until smooth.
  13. Roll out the refrigerated dough to 1/4-inch thickness between sheets of wax paper.
  14. Press into buttered and floured 10-12 inch tart pan with removable rim.
  15. Carefully spread almond mixture into crust.
  16. Bake for 25 -30 minutes until crust is lightly brown and filling is just beginning to brown at edges.
    Cool completely.
  17. Gently melt jam add liquor, thin if needed with lemon juice and cool slightly.
  18. Spread in thin layer on top of tart.
  19. Arrange berries densely on top.

Serves: 10-12 inch torte pan

Source:   Ask Eric