Dessert – Page 8 – Rosemary and the Goat

Frozen Fruit with Hot White Chocolate

What’s not to like about Hot White Chocolate!

I’m sure most of you (wherever you live) are absolutely, unequivocally sick of all this snow, ice, rain, dampness, cloudy and gloomy days we are all experiencing this winter.

Well, I have a recipe for you. The frozen fruit will remind you of what you want to leave behind and that you are ready to move on to Spring. And the warm white chocolate smoothly flowing over and coating the frozen fruit, thawing it has it runs down the dish, should bring promise of all that melting snow you may be experiencing now. So, a little bit of winter, hopefully in our rear view mirrors, and Spring ahead of us.

What would I do without Ina Garten. I love watching her show and watching her gather her ingredients at her local markets. I had this dessert at my friend, Peggy’s, and knew I would be making it again; and I did, again, and again, and again. You can change up your fruits. My favorites are raspberries, blueberries, cherries, and blackberries. Any fruits can be used, just make sure you freeze them. (Strawberries freeze a little too hard for me, almost like ice cubes.)

The day I served this to my craft circle group (only seven of us in my section) I used frozen cherries, peaches, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Anyone that can’t eat the seeds simply use fruits without seeds like the cherries and peaches.

March 7, 2015 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Chocolate Grand Marnier Pots dè Creme

Not like any Jello pudding you grew up eating!

Christmas is over and now you are thinking of starting some kind of diet BUT we still have the New Years parties to get through so why not try this quick delicious little dessert to bring in the New Year. You could change it up and put peppermint extract instead of the Grand Marnier and top with crushed peppermint if you wanted to make it a little more festive looking.

Pots de Creme is so similar to a homemade chocolate pudding you’ll wonder why you never made this dessert. Just the name itself always makes me want to order it when I see it on a menu. For years I called this “pots” de cream not knowing it is really pronounced “po” de creme. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s easy and delicious.

Don’t you love the taste of coffee and chocolate together; and the taste of chocolate with orange is even better. So, I decided to turn just a run of the mill pots de creme into a chocolate, orange, espresso pots de creme and I baked them in these cute little espresso cups.

I served this one night for my Girls Night Out group along with my Pumpkin Tomato Salad and my Wedge Salad (on a different angle) and also tried the Brazilian Cheese Puffs for the first time. The small espresso cups were the perfect size for just a few bites of dessert to finish off the evening.

December 31, 2014 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Fruit Dishes

Wine Poached Pears with Almond Cream

And it has wine jelly leaves.

I had to give you this recipe in time for Christmas. Maybe you want to do a light dessert during the holidays. Wouldn’t this be a beautiful Christmas dessert; I’d cut the wine jelly into little stars instead of leaves.

Isn’t it amazing how many food blogs are out there and I’m amazed at how many I follow. Recently I was looking for a dessert recipe for our Fall dinner and came across this poached pear recipe at allthatcooking.com. It had such a beautiful presentation that I knew I had to look no further. All That Cooking is a co-authored blog and this recipe belongs to Óli who is from Iceland but lives in Sweden and has been a professional chef for the last 30 years.

I never liked can pears as a kid and when my mother, for some reason, would use a can of fruit cocktail as a starter for her homemade fruit salad, I always picked out the pears and left them behind on the plate. Over the years, I learned to appreciate the juiciness of a fresh pear and started trying all the different varieties. I love the Asian pear but for this dish it doesn’t have the shape I wanted.

This recipe was followed as written except for the cutting of the jelly cubes. I have some tiny aspic cutters and a few fall leaf cutters we are trying. and the way his dessert is described –Firm pears, poached to a jewel toned crimson, surrounded by a just rich enough almond cream with flecks of butter toasted almonds is a dessert to please anyone’s palate — now doesn’t that make you want to try it.

December 6, 2014 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Amalgamation Cake

Just in time for the holidays.

The Purplish color comes from the blackberry jam.

Growing up I remember a special holiday cake my mother use to make and that was the Amalgamation Cake. I don’t know the history behind the recipe but according to Wikpedia, amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.

Ok, that kind of describes this cake which is full of eggs, sugar, blackberry jam, raisins, nuts and coconut. What that description does not describe about this recipe is the love that my mother put into making it. Whether she was making this for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, she knew just the right time to start making it. Of course she always shelled her own pecans and after carefully measuring everything, mixing, baking, cooling then frosting with a delicious coconutty frosting she would wrap the cake in multiple layers of plastic wrap and then foil and then put into a closet to rest (or I suppose to ferment) until the big day which she would put it out just in time for dessert to be served. (Of course, this was Missouri so I’m sure the closets were a little cooler than here in Texas.)

This cake has a purplish color to it and is so rich and scrumptious that you only need a very thin piece to satisfy your sweet craving. I’m making this cake for our craft circle boutique and some lucky person will go home with a cake that they can put in the freezer until the holidays when they can pull it out and slice up for Christmas dinner.

November 16, 2014 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Raspberry Ciabatta Bread Pudding

Any bread pudding lovers out there?

What better way to start Fall than with something to warm your tummy while you are sitting and watching what’s going on outside? Are you still having warm days as we are here in Texas or are you having some chill in the air and wanting a comforting dessert for the weekend. If you are having one of those days that you can’t get out of the house and you just happen to have some raspberries in the freezer (I have a freezer full) and some bread you threw in there for a rainy day, then you can whip up this dessert for supper.

Do you say supper? or dinner?. This dessert screams supper because I picture a dinner being something I have slaved over all day and supper is something I just throw together for the two of us. Unless of course it is our Sunday Night Suppers we do occasionally then I do like to go out of my comfort zone sometimes doing the menu of a couple of new things. This recipes falls into the supper (easy) category.

I have to honestly say I have never been a bread pudding lover until I made my Pumpkin Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce a few years ago and when I did it for a party, everyone loved it. So I’m venturing out again to try this Ciabatta Bread Pudding that I have added raspberries to; I think the raspberries will add some tartness to the dessert to balance the sweetness.

November 6, 2014 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert/ Morning Foods

Blueberry Almond Coffee Cake

Have a cup of tea to go with this Blueberry Coffee Cake

I was looking on Pinterest one day for something to do with all these blueberries I still have in my freezer and came across this recipe from Cozy Country Living. I did add some lemon and lemon zest to the recipe just because I feel like lemon goes really well with blueberry recipes.

The picture of the coffee cake also looked delicious since it was baked in round pans instead of an oblong pan like most coffee cakes are baked in.

A hoarder of frozen berries I am. I have to admit I either pick a ton of the things or when they are on sale for $1/carton I buy like $40 worth and then vacuum seal them thinking I will use them for smoothies etc during the year and then all of a sudden it’s time for new berries to be picked and I still have some left from last season.

The only think I don’t like about using frozen blueberries in baked goods is that I end up with purple dough. Even though purple IS my favorite color I would rather my cakes/breads etc. be speckled with the fruit rather than take on the color and tint my dough. Whatever happens when it gets mixed and baked, it’s still delicious in the end.

King Arthur Flour offers a secret to baking with frozen berries. They say to rinse your frozen berries with cool water until the water runs clear and then pat dry with paper towels. They showed several examples on their website with the berries being used both ways and you can really tell the difference — I should never have purplish/green blueberry baked goods again.

I took these cakes to my craft circle on Tuesday to be shared with whoever can get to them first. Like I’ve said before, I love people trying the things I bake and if they like them, then I can persuade them to look at the blog.

October 22, 2014 By Sherry

Dessert/ Morning Foods/ Pies/Tarts

Cherry and Peach Strudel

Sweet, sweet cherries.

Last August my sister and I were picking some cherries for photo op up in Door County, Wisconsin. That’s when we were out of our minds and decided to do a Segway tour in Peninsula State Park and we both fell twice off them and I’m still having shoulder trouble a year later.

I love cherries, and in August they were really cheap in the markets. I think I paid $1.99 lb. for these cherries and the peaches are some leftover from my Trader Joe’s box I bought. Before the peaches went bad and the cherries were all eaten (by me) I wanted to make something with them.

While at Pike’s Market in Seattle I had a chance to taste some Rainier cherries. They are the golden looking ones that I always pass up in the grocery store for the red ones which I always thought were better. I was wrong, they are both delicious.

My oldest son, Scott, loves Cherries and when we were visiting Chicago a while back I asked our 4 year old grandson if he liked cherries (knowing that his dad liked them). Oliver was so funny, he said “yes I like them but mom can’t buy them because dad eats them all up”; and he proceeded to say the same thing about potato chips.

September 27, 2014 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Chocolate Cream (Dream) Cake

Dreamy beyond your imagination.

What is it about dreams that’s so fascinating. I have never figured out why I dream the things I do while I’m stacking the ZZZZZZZZ’s. I’m sure everyone has had the dream where you fear someone is chasing you and you can’t get away or you go to school with your pj’s on and how embarrassed you were.

The dreams that use to disrupted my sleep the most were my catering dreams where I forgot to buy the food and got to the party with no food cook and only an hour before the guests arrived and while I’m quickly trying to throw something together I’m telling myself “WAKE UPPPPPPP” this is only a dream. No matter what my dream is it’s gone in a wink as soon as my eyes are open. My husband, on the other hand, dreams in technicolor and the most elaborate involved dreams you have ever heard; dreams he can’t even interpret and he can go on for 15 minutes telling me every detail of the dream.

This chocolate cake just happens to be the dreamiest chocolate cake and you could not even dream up something this delicious. I saw Laura Calder of French Food at Home (Cooking Channel) make this and knew I had to give it a try. She calls it Chocolate Cream Cake; I think this is the cake you may dream about or in my case it may be the cake that keeps me from going to sleep.

August 28, 2014 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Pastries/ Pies/Tarts

Peach Tart with Raspberry Sauce

So what are you doing with those fresh peaches from the farmer’s market this summer?

(I’m off in Seattle/Vancouver/Victoria right now and hope to have lots of new ideas to cook up when I get back.)

I missed getting my Fredricksburg peaches last year and this year so I was in search for the best peach I could find. On my way back from Austin one weekend I stopped at Buckee’s Truck Stop (or gas station, or mega everything store). At the checkout, there was a bushel of home grown peaches and they were the most beautiful peaches I have seen in years. The touch was great, the smell was like just picked freshness off some farmer’s tree so I bought a few for this recipe.

You never know what you are going to get in a peach. I have picked up beautiful peaches at the grocery, liked the feel of it in my hand when I gently pressed on it, loved the smell of the peach when I took a big sniff but then when I got home with it, chilled it, got out a big bowl to cut my peach in, only to find when I cut it open it is a mealy, tastless peach. Short of asking for a sample before buying a peach, and I’m likely to do that at a farm stand, I know no other way of finding a perfect peach.

So the sad end to those fresh Buckee’s Truck stop peaches is that I kept putting off making this dessert because I did need someone to eat it. I looked at the peaches each day and the first few days they were smiling back and me saying “we’re ready”. Then I waited, and waited, and waited and when I decided it was time to make it the peaches were in no mood to be made into this nice dessert. They had puckered skin and way beyond looking pretty in their pink skins. So I ate them.

July 29, 2014 By Sherry

Cake/ Dessert

Lemon Raspberry Pound Cake

Lemony, raspberry pound cake; what more could you want?

As I have said before, a rainy day is one of my favorite days. The day I made this cake it had been raining for two days and I still wasn’t tired of seeing the stuff come down. I love the long thundering sounds that accompany the rain. So what should one do on a rainy day but bake!

This cake recipe is a recipe of my nephew’s wife. Now is she my nephew’s wife or is she my niece-in-law; I just call her Julie and be done with it. In my searching the internet on the proper title I did find out that my nephew’s daughter, Statyn, is my niece once removed. I have always wanted to know what once removed meant; now I know.

My sister has been talking about this pound cake for a few years now and I had it in my head it was a lemon pound cake — wrong. By the time I realized it wasn’t I already knew I was making a lemon raspberry pound cake. So if you want to make her original pound cake, just leave out the lemon zest, juice and raspberries and you have Julie’s Pound Cake recipe.

For the last year when I’ve made something new that I knew would be dangerous to leave around the house I have been taking it to craft circle on Tuesday mornings. This particular morning the cake was gone before the lunch break. Guess someone enjoyed it. Of course I had to sneak a piece before I took it so I could get a couple of pictures.

Continue Reading…

June 5, 2014 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts

Nutella Strawberry Banana Crepe with Chocolate Cream Sauce

Chocolicious!

Two days ago I became a Gran again to my fifth grandson, Thomas Huntington Russell. That’s five little fellows under 5 1/2. I’m so proud of my daughter and her husband; they did such a great job bringing the little guy into this world.

A few years ago my daughter took me to my first food trailer. A silver stream trailer which sold nothing but crepes and that was my first Nutella and banana crepe.

What is a crepe but a pancake on a diet. I’ve been making crepes for years and still know that I’m going to have to offer up the first few as a sacrifice to the crepe pan. That’s just the way it goes.

I went years, maybe decades after beeing married before attempting to make crepes. I don’t know what I was afraid of. Over the years I have had about 4 different types of crepe pans. My favorite now is a blue steel pan. One of my least favorites was a pan that you dipped the bottom into the crepe mixture and then turned the pan upside down over a ring that is set over the burner. Never quite got the hang of that one.

For a savory crepe you could simply fill a crepe with…..say… spinach, bacon and mushrooms, or a SW take of sausage, onion, peppers, mushrooms, cilantro with some salsa, or a crab mornay. Or how about a proscuitto and fontino with a béchamel sauce. You get the idea… a crepe is the wrapping to hold all your ingredients. If you look on Pinterest alone you will see a gazillion crepe recipes.

For dessert crepes the possibilities are endless. I’ve done a simple one filled with apricot or peach preserves folded twice into a wedge and dusted with powdered sugar and I’ve even seen a cake made with about 50 crepes stacked on on top of the other.

May 5, 2014 By Sherry

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