Tag Archives: Dessert

Coeur A la Creme

This is a fluffy sweet cheese/cream dessert that has a great presentation for Valentine’s Day but a nice treat any time.
I use a Coeur a la Creme mold that I bought at a specialty kitchen store but you can use any 7 inch sieve.

Coeur a la Creme with Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients:
8 oz. ricotta cheese
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
1/4 teaspoon lemon zest

Sauce:
1 pound frozen or fresh strawberries
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
6 Tablespoons sugar

With the paddle attachment beat the ricotta cheese and confectioners sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Change to a whisk attachment. With the mixer on low speed, add the heavy whipping cream, vanilla, lemon zest, and vanilla bean seeds and beat on high speed until the mixture is very thick, like whipped cream.
Line your mold or sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels so the ends drape over the sides and suspend over a bowl, making sure there is space between the bottom of your mold/sieve and the bottom of the bowl so liquid can drain. Pour the cream mixture into the cheesecloth, fold the ends over the top, and refrigerate overnight.
For the sauce place the strawberries, sugar, lemon juice and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 4 minutes. Pour the cooked strawberries into the bowl of a blender and blend until smooth. Chill.
You could substitute raspberries for the strawberries to make the sauce.

To serve, discard the liquid, unmold the cream onto a plate, and drizzle strawberry sauce around the base. Serve with strawberries and extra sauce.

Winter is Here…

I’m looking forward to longer days now that Winter Solstice has arrived. Sad but true, I found out the hard way that my body now rejects egg nog. Sigh***. I’ll need to replace this great treat with something that doesn’t distress.

Still experimenting with the tea strainer star effect with my camera. Thanks Vee for your added tips.

Today I’m shopping for the ingredients for our meals on the weekend. I decided on dessert for Christmas. I’m trying a Chocolate Hazelnut Tart. I don’t have a tart pan with a removable bottom so I’m headed to Sur la Table to remedy that. If it turns out well you’ll see the recipe on MGCC in the near future!

Hope you are all feeling the joy in your neck of the woods!

Tablescape Thursday ~ Valentine’s Day

Soon you’ll be able to click on over to Susan’s at Between Naps on the Porch and be treated to tablescapes of all shapes and sizes.

On Friday you need to click on over to Laurie’s Valentine’s Day party!

 

I’m sharing this years Valentine’s Day table at my house and a wonderful dessert. Enjoy…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So glad you took the time to stop by. I hope to visit you soon.

Hope you all have a Valentine’s Day filled with love.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Laurie’s Valentine Party & Tablescape Thursday!

On Friday besides visiting Laurie’s Party head over to the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog where I’ve posted the recipe for this dessert that would be great for Valentine’s Day! Remember the recipe won’t be posted till Friday!

Now for some possibilities for a Valentine Day scape!

 

 

 

This was last years bar scape that Dear and I had our Valentine’s Day dinner at…

 

 

 

 

 

Another possibility without red…

 

 

 

Here are the two cutest Valentine’s in love that I know!! My parents who have been married for 66 years!

 

Hoping you have a Valentine’s Weekend filled with lots of love for all the people in your life.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Foodie Friday

One of my favorite signs of Spring is when the Local Strawberry stands open selling Strawberries straight from the fields.

This was a fun dessert I put together for my kids one evening. I bought the Belgium Chocolate cups from the local grocery store. Then I whipped up some instant vanilla pudding. I filled the cups with the pudding and flared a strawberry for the top of each cup. Fun, fast, easy dessert. Enjoy…

Oops! Just found out this is suppose to be an Irish Foodie Friday so I’m adding this last minute Irish.

To see lots of Foodie posts visit Gollum at Designs by Gollum by clicking the Foodie badge.

Pumpkin Praline Trifle

I found this great recipe in the Thanksgiving Special bon appetit November 2008. Bon appetit describes this dessert as a cross between a trifle and tiramisu. You should make the trifle at least one day ahead, 2 days preferably to let the flavors meld or as I say “moosh”.

The most time consuming part of the recipe is making the praline. The praline recipe yields enough to make 2 trifles. The creamy layers and pumpkin layers are very simple to make and the whole trifle once the praline is successfully completed is very easy to do.

Praline

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 cup packed golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup half and half
1-1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2/3 cups pecan halves (about 6 oz.) (I used pecan pieces because that’s what I had)

Mascarpone Cream

2 cups chilled heavy whipping cream
1 8 oz. container chilled mascarpone cheese (I found this at Trader Joe’s)
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling

1 – 15 oz. can pure pumpkin
1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg (I used already ground)
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. salt
1-1/2 – 3 oz. packages of soft ladyfingers. (I bought a 4.75 oz. box of soft lady fingers at Trader Joe’s and it was enough for 1 trifle)
4-1/2 tablespoons of dark rum, divided

Praline/ Spray baking sheet with nonstick spray. Bring both sugars and half and half to boil in heavy medium saucepan over medium high heat, whisking to dissolve sugar. Reduce heat ot medium-low and simmer 5 minutes, whisking constantly. Add butter, vanilla, and salt. Attach candy thermometer to pan. Simmer without stirring until temperature registers 260 degrees F, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat; immediately mix in pecans. Transfer to prepared sheet, spreading in a single layer. Cool completely. Chop into 1/4 inch pieces.

Mascarpone Cream/ Using electric mixer, beat all ingredients in large bowl until firm peaks form. Set aside 1/2 cup mascarpone cream for pumpkin filling.

Filling/ Whisk pumpkin, brown sugar, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and salt in large bowl to blend. Whisk in reserved 1/2 cup mascarpone cream.

Spread 1/3 cup mascarpone cream over bottom of 8×5 inch trifle dish (12-14 cup capacity). Place layer of lady fingers over cream. Sprinkle 1-1/2 Tablespoons of rum over. Spread 1/2 cup pumpkin filling over ladyfingers, spreading to edges. Sprinkle 1/3 cup praline over. Spread 1 cup mascarpone cream over. Cover with another layer of lady fingers. Sprinkle with 1-1/2 tablespoons rum, then spread 1 cup pumpkin filling over. Sprinkle 1/2 cup praline over. Repeat 1 more time with 1 cup mascarpone cream, lady fingers, rum, 1 cup pumpkin filling and 1/2 cup praline. Spread remaining mascarpone cream on top. Cover and chill overnight. DO AHEAD. Can be made 2 days ahead.

Uncover trifle. Sprinkle 1 cup praline decoratively over top (reserving any remaining praline for another use)

My guests really enjoyed this trifle and I will make it again!

Fruit Pizza

I found this simple recipe for Fruit Pizza on Bernideen’s Tea Blog and decided to make it for a get-together we were invited to. I’ll give you the original recipe and also give you some options that I decided to try.

The mix, the sticky dough in the pan, the baked dough and the cool whip with pudding mixed in…

Ingredients:

1 pkg. Yellow Cake Mix
1/4 Cup Water
2 eggs
1/4 Cup butter
1/4 Cup brown sugar
1/2 Cup chopped nuts
I large carton of Cool Whip
Assorted Fruit pieces

Mix together cake mix, water, eggs, butter, sugar and nuts until stiff. I think because my cake mix was a variety with pudding in it the dough was sticky and not real stiff but it was still spreadable. Spread into a buttered and floured pan. You can use 2 round pans or I used a large rectangular pan. I also sprayed the pan with the baking spray with flour in it. (lazy)

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes but watch carefully because it might bake faster and you want it to be golden brown not dark brown :0)

Cool completely and then spread with coolwhip and cover with fruit of your choice. I used blueberries, blackberries, and peaches that were frozen and peaches that were fresh.

Instead of using straight cool whip I mixed the cool whip with a box of instant vanilla pudding to make it stiffer. Next time I think I’ll first make the pudding according to the package instructions and fold it into the cool whip or whip cream and see how that works…

You can make this look a lot prettier and arrange the fruit more creatively. Enjoy the possibilities…

Thanks Bernideen for this fun, easy recipe!

I auto posted this for Saturday morning because Dear and I got up bright and early to hit the road from Seattle to Camarillo today. I’ll be brain dead for at least a couple days after we arrive late Saturday night. Hope you all have wonderful summer weekend!

 

 

Hummingbird Cake ~ Recipe

 

I first saw this cake on Abigail’s blog, In the Garden. I decided to make it last Thursday night and Dear says it’s a keeper. You really do not need the cream cheese frosting but I’ll include the recipe for that, too. A little on top is nice. *We don’t know why it’s called Hummingbird Cake and no hummingbirds were harmed in any way in making this cake 🙂

Hummingbird Cake

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (8 oz.) can crushed pineapple with juice
2 cups diced bananas
1 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.
2. Measure flour, sugar, soda, salt, cinnamon, oil, eggs, vanilla into mixing bowl. Beat until smooth*. Stir in pineapple with juice, bananas, and pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in oven for about 70 minutes. (I checked it after 60 minutes) Turn cake out onto rack or plate after cooling for 20 minutes. Cool, and ice with cream cheese icing.

*My mixture never got smooth until I added the pineapple and banana and nuts. Then it got smooth quickly and I put it into the greased and floured pan.

Cream Cheese Icing

1-8 oz. cream cheese softened
1/4 cup butter softened
2 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. package powdered sugar

Beat cheese and butter till smooth. Blend in Vanilla. Gradually beat in powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

ht: Allrecipes.com