Desserts


Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust
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The Best Ever Pumpkin Cheesecake. Period.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust

Are you scrambling to figure out the perfect dessert recipe for your Thanksgiving? Your problem is about to be 100% solved.

Last year was my first Texan Thanksgiving and first holiday with my boyfriend Rob’s family. They make a gigantic feast (feeding 30+ people) full of Thanksgiving favorites and traditional southern treats. I wanted to contribute by using my culinary skills to make a statement. A delicious statement. A statement that can only be made by the best pumpkin dessert I have ever found: Pumpkin Cheesecake with Marshmallow-Sour Cream Topping and Gingersnap Crust.

I originally discovered this little slice of heaven through my food loving pal Chris, but it originated in Bon Appétit magazine a few years back. Usually I don’t like to share recipes I didn’t create myself, but there is no way I could top this cheesecake, so why bother? I promise it is the BEST. I’ve been making it for… oh, four years now, and every single person who tries it falls in love. People ask me about my pumpkin cheesecake year-round. Bring it to a holiday party and it will disappear before your eyes. Be warned, though, if you make this once, your friends and family will beg you to make it again and again every year.

And yes, that includes Rob’s mom, who asked me to bring the pumpkin cheesecake to Thanksgiving again this year. Stamp of approval from a Texan mother? Now that’s worth its weight in gold (or cream cheese).

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Marshmallow-Sour Cream Topping and Gingersnap Crust

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in Desserts / Holiday / Recipe 4 comments
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7 Ways to Sneak Whiskey Into Dessert

Hey all! Well, it’s Monday morning and according to the ES calendar, that means it’s time to talk whiskey. In particular, with the weather getting colder we’re thinking about cooking with whiskey. There’s just something about a dessert with a little wild turkey thrown in the batter that gets our hearts racing and warms you up all over. Not sure what we mean? Check out the Island of Kentucky recipe page for all kinds of good ideas of what to cook with said whiskey, or keep reading for seven of our simmering favorites.

1. Whiskey Caramel Marshmallow Bacon Bark

Whiskey Marshmallow and Caramel Bacon Bark_Endless Simmer

Say the first four words above in the same sentence and you can get me to do pretty much anything. I mean, COME ON.

Recipe: Whiskey Caramel Marshmallow Bacon Bark

2. Mudslide Cupcakes

Mudslide-Cupcake

 

Make your own Bailey’s at home, mix it with some coffee, add a dash of the good stuff…yeah, baking ain’t so girly anymore, huh?

Recipe: Mudslide cupcakes

3. Cherry Whiskey Upside Down Cake

Cherry and Whiskey Upside Cake _Endless Simmer

Don’t think of soggy pineapple upside down cake. This one is tender and springy, while the whiskey adds an extra subtle dimension that quiets the caramel topping and brings it in balance with the cake and fruity sweetness of the cherry.

Recipe: Cherry-Whiskey Upside Down Cake

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in Desserts / Lists / Recipe 1 comments
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Pretty as a Picture (At Long Last)

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I consider myself to be an above average home cook.  I get lots of practice, what with putting dinner on the table seven nights a week and all (six if my husband gives in to my love of Pete’s Apizza.)  Desserts, though….not so much. I don’t even care for desserts most of the time.  I prefer a cold beer and a handful of sour cream and onion potato chips for a late-night snack. Still, it is nice to bring a show-stopping sweet to a potluck now and then.   Plus, I just know that one of these days, someone is going to rope me into a bake sale.  So, when the chance arose to review a copy of The Big Book of Desserts and Pastries by Claes Karlsson, I volunteered.

As expected, when the book arrived, it was filled with beautiful, full-color photos.  I skipped right past the candy section. As I said, when it comes to desserts, I know my limits.  If it involves a thermometer, I’m out. I settled on the honey pine nut cake. I had all of the ingredients on hand, the directions were simple, and the picture in the book was drool-worthy. But my DIY result was…disappointing. Sure, my little pine nut cupcakes tasted good, kind of like sugar cookies with pine nuts on top, but they did not look particularly beautiful.  Mission not accomplished.

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Next, I went for the thin tuiles.  This go-around, I even bought heavy cream, something not normally on hand at our house.  I mixed, spoon, and baked as per the instructions. The resulting cookies were so fragile that the trip from the pan to the cooling rack was enough to shatter them. I blame the fact that the recipe calls for an oven heated to 390 degrees, and chances are that my very old, non-digital oven was off by more than a few notches.  Grr. The crumbled cookies did make an excellent topping for ice cream, so all was not lost, but I still had not achieved my goal of a photo-worthy dessert.

After failing twice, I was ready to move this book from the cookbook shelf to the coffee table.  Clearly, in my less than capable hands, it would be better for browsing. I was having tea with a friend the next day, however, so I decided to make one last attempt, with a recipe for coffee-flavored chocolate cake.  I didn’t have the correct pan shape, but I refused to let this stop me.  An hour or so later, I sighed with relief as I pulled out my camera.  The resulting cake cubes were not only delectably chocolatey with a hint of coffee-flavor,  they were gorgeous. Thank goodness.

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Coffee-Flavored Chocolate Cake

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How Much Peanut Butter is TOO Much Peanut Butter?

When we heard there was a new book about all about peanut butter, we got so excited that two of our bloggers had to test it out. Here’s Emily and snebbu’s dueling thoughts on Peanut Butter Comfort.

Emily: I’ll openly admit it: I’m a peanut butter lover. And I mean loooooooverrrr. Love it in savory recipes, love it in sweet recipes. Spicy Thai-style peanut sauce? Yep, love. I’ll happily take a peanut butter dessert over a chocolate dessert any day. So when does it cross the line? How much is too much?

Peanut Butter Comfort

Averie Sunshine’s new cookbook, Peanut Butter Comfort, helped me dive into this question. Or, to give you the full title, Peanut Butter Comfort: Recipes for Breakfasts, Brownies, Cakes, Cookies, Candies, and Frozen Treats Featuring America’s Favorite Spread. Whew—I’d say that covers a lot of ground. Pretty much anything you could put peanut butter in, Sunshine found a way to do it.

The good stuff: This book is very cute and definitely well-made. Novice cooks will appreciate the accessible and carefully explained recipes and background info. Plus there are plenty of appealing photos! The maybe-good, maybe-not-so-good stuff: all the recipes are pretty simple. Once again, fairly inexperienced people will like this, but I could have used some recipes that were a bit more complex in their flavor profiles or techniques. There is something to be said for familiar, back-to-basics comfort recipes, though.

Snebbu: I wouldn’t go so far as calling it “cute,” but it is very well organized. It is easy to navigate and is categorized in a meaningful way. For instance, you can create your own peanut butters, bake desserts, or even cook savory meals—all categorized in that way. I do agree with Emily in regards to the simplicity of the recipes. BUT, that’s not always a bad thing. I’ve found other cook books to cumbersome, lengthy, and expensive. These are recipes that won’t break the bank either.

Emily: So, the first recipe I made was the Marshmallow Butterscotch Fluffernutter Bars. I love all of those things (just look at all my Peeps posts, anything marshmallow is a-ok in my book) but I have to say this recipe fell a little short of my expectations. I don’t really see how I could have messed up the instructions, so I don’t think it was user error, but I wish the bars had come out a little drier and more balanced. They basically just tasted like tons of melted peanut butter and butterscotch chips that had been re-solidified. So maybe this recipe is truly… too much peanut butter. (Gasp!)

Snebbu: Damnit! I was going to try these out at a company party next week. They look so good. I may have to try these out anyway—I’ll let you know if I get the same results. I really can’t fathom such a thing as too much peanut butter, but the word “re-solidified” does not sound tasty.

Emily: Luckily, the second recipe I tested turned out to be much more exciting: Coconut Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Cookies. Oh man. Talk about more things I love: carrot cake, coconut, cream cheese?! I knew I had to make these, stat. I prefer moist, chunky cookies with a lot of stuff in them, and these did not disappoint. The finished product came out super tasty, but honestly I would rather just eat this dough by the spoonful. (And there’s not even any raw eggs in it, for those of you who actually worry about that. I’ve been eating raw eggs in cookie dough for 20something years now, and I’m still alive!)

Coconut Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Cookies

Coconut Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Cookies

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