Group 16: Pies & Cakes – Page 2 – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

16-26: Elegant Almond Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 18, 2019November 5, 2020all-purpose flour, almond paste, at work, butter, cakes, cherries, cherry liqueur, chilled, cornstarch, cut in, dessert, dough, egg yolks, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, filling, food processor, garnish, gift ideas, glazed, granulated sugar, kneaded, liqueur, maraschino cherries, party food, pie crust, powdered sugar, springform pan, tart, tart pan, untested, vegetarian

A few months ago, I made two Simply Delicious almond cakes for work: this one, 16-26: Elegant Almond Cake and 16-33: Crispy Almond Cake. I think this one came out prettier, but they were both delicious.

Simply Delicious doesn’t mention this in their blurb, but it’s also great for accompanying coffee or tea on a Wednesday morning at the office. They also refer to this dish as a cake, but it’s very clearly a tart. To confirm, here’s a recipe from King Arthur Flour that is essentially this exact same dish (referred to a tart) but with raspberries instead of Maraschino cherries.

16-17: Meringue-Topped Cherry Pie

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 8, 2019July 31, 20204th of July, all-purpose flour, black cherries, butter, cherries, chilled, cornstarch, cottage cheese, dessert, dough, egg whites, egg yolks, eggs, fail, fairly easy, fairly expensive, filling, flute, French, fruit, granulated sugar, melted, meringue, pies, springform pan, stiff peaks, tart pan, toppings, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian

I bet you thought I abandoned this project. You’d be wrong–I just started a few others and let this one get a bit dusty. After almost 5 years, I’m still plugging along, and will be until I finish this damn thing. I don’t even know when I cooked this, but here’s 16-17: Meringue-Topped Cherry Pie.

I know I cooked it sometime in 2018, and I know that I wanted to attempt a vegan version (which didn’t go well). I think I was making it to bring to work, but I have a feeling it never made it there. Looking over the pictures of it, I think I know why.

16-10: Strawberry Shortcake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods September 5, 2018July 30, 2020all-purpose flour, American, baking powder, biscuit cutters, butter, cold desserts, dessert, easy, fairly inexpensive, fruit, granulated sugar, honey, Kahlúa, liqueur, marinated, MD2018, Mother's Day, orange juice, oranges, salt, shortening, sifted, sliced, soaked, sour cream, strawberries, summer, untested, vegetarian, whipped, whipping cream, zested

Just to show you how far behind I’m running with entries these days: I’m finally cracking into what I made for Mothers’ Day this year (MD2018) with 16-10: Strawberry Shortcake. You know…back in May. We were growing a ton of strawberries in the yard this year, and a few of them even made it into this dish.

Last year I attempted a Simply Delicious-inspired Mothers’ Day brunch (MD 2017), complete with fancy pastries and attempts at complicated sauces. This year, I kept it somewhat more simple in the interest of time spent and calories consumed. ?

16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods June 7, 2018July 30, 2020all-purpose flour, almonds, at work, baked goods, butter, chilled, chocolate, custard, dark chocolate, egg whites, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, gluten-free, granulated sugar, grated, lemon peel, lemons, macadamia nuts, meringue, milk, nuts, party food, pi day, pie crust, pies, semisweet, sliced, toasted, toppings, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, zested

A few months ago, we celebrated Pi Day in my office. Most of the pies were store-bought, but I decided to flip through Simply Delicious and see if there was anything worth contributing. I decided on 16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie–everyone likes chocolate, and we had had a mishap with the lemon meringue pie on the way back from the store while preparing the day before.

If you’re not familiar with Pi Day, it takes place on March 14th, which when written as a numeric date is 3-14 (at least in the U.S. it is–some countries reverse the order). Pi (the mathematical constant represented by the Greek letter π) is usually rounded up to 3.14, so March 14th is celebrated with actual pies (and a bit of math) as a play-on-words. ?

No one really needs an excuse to eat pie, but “It’s a math joke” is certainly an acceptable one.

16-8: French Apple Pie

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods April 5, 2018July 30, 2020all-purpose flour, American, apples, apricots, baked goods, baking powder, butter, chilled, cored, cut in, dessert, dough, eggs, fairly hard, fairly inexpensive, French, fruit, granulated sugar, individual, jam/jelly/preserves, party food, pie crust, pies, Silpat, sliced, tart, tart pan, Thanksgiving, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian

It’s the first days of spring, but I’m still catching up on old posts. Consider it “spring cleaning.” Here’s one from Thanksgiving 2017, 16-8: French Apple Pie. In 2016, I went all out for Thanksgiving and made most of the entire meal from Simply Delicious recipes. We had alternate plans for 2017, so only an easy-to-prepare ahead of time dessert was needed.

I’ve already covered a similar recipe to this one: 16-15: Tarte Tatin. Consider these a smaller, more rustic version. In regards to authenticity, as long as it’s apples on top and crust on bottom, it counts as a French apple pie according to Wikipedia. ???

16-39: Apricot Tart

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods April 24, 2017November 5, 2020all-purpose flour, almond extract, almond meal, almonds, apricots, baked goods, baking powder, breakfast, butter, citrus, creamed, dessert, dough, eggs, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, filling, fruit, gift ideas, glazed, granulated sugar, half-and-half, jam/jelly/preserves, julienned, lemon juice, lemons, melted, milk, party food, pastry, peeled, pie crust, sifted, snacks, springform pan, tart, tart pan, toppings, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, zested

I had mentioned in 16-24: French Chocolate Cake that it was one of two desserts that I made for a recent baby shower I attended: 16-39: Apricot Tart was the second dessert. I’ve been meaning to make this thing since near the start of this project, and it only took me a few years to finally get around to it. There’s something about this recipe and procrastination, though–this entry’s been sitting in my writing queue half-finished for over a month.

For the length of time that it took me to make it (and to write about it), I never even got to try it–I ended up leaving this and 16-24: French Chocolate Cake still wrapped up on the table at the party. We’ll just assume that both of them were delicious and everyone ate every last crumb of them.

16-24: French Chocolate Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 18, 2017November 5, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking powder, butter, cake pan, cakes, candied, chilled, chocolate, cocoa powder, cornstarch, creamed, creamy, decorative, double boiler, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, filling, French, frosted, garnish, glazed, granulated sugar, grapes, icing, layers, marmalade, oranges, party food, powdered sugar, semisweet, sifted, springform pan, unsweetened, untested, vegetarian, wax paper

I recently attended a baby shower for a former co-worker and took it as an opportunity to knock out two more Simply Delicious desserts: 16-39: Apricot Tart and this one, 16-24: French Chocolate Cake. I wanted to bring something fruit/nut and something just plain chocolate, since some people there had nut allergies and others might just want something simple and chocolate.

This was a combination birthday party/baby shower (same person being honored for both), which will hopefully explain the odd decorations on my version of the cake. I’ve spared you pictures of the worst of my decoration choices, but let’s just say I made liberal use of all 4 colors of a grocery store icing kit. I kept meaning to hit a craft store for better cake decorations (or even Amazon), but time got away from me. ⏳

16-14: Orange-Almond Cake

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 14, 2017July 30, 2020all-purpose flour, almond paste, almonds, baked goods, bundt, butter, cake pan, cakes, chilled, chocolate, citrus, creamed, dark chocolate, dessert, double boiler, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, frozen, fruit, garnish, glazed, grated, individual, juiced, loaf pan, melted, nuts, orange juice, oranges, party food, sliced, snacks, toasted, vegetarian, whipping cream, zested

No, this isn’t a repeat of 16-47: Orange-Almond Pie–at least, not exactly. 16-14: Orange-Almond Cake uses almond paste while the pie version used almond meal (flour). This one also includes dark chocolate, which ALWAYS goes well with almond and orange flavors. ?

In the interest of not eating the whole cake at once (which is possible with something like this), I’m going to bake 12 individual cakes instead with a mini-Bundt pan that I have. That way, I can make them all, wrap and freeze them so that we can pull out a portioned piece for dessert without the temptation of eating the whole thing.

16-9: Raspberry Tart

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 21, 2017July 30, 2020all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking powder, bread crumbs, butter, cookie cutters, creamed, dough, eggs, fairly easy, filling, French, fruit, gift ideas, graham crackers, granulated sugar, inexpensive, jam/jelly/preserves, party food, pastry, pie crust, raspberries, sifted, snacks, springform pan, stand mixer, strawberries, tart, tart pan, untested, vegetarian

Here’s a simple dessert that’s easy for a dinner, gift, or even just a snack. 16-9: Raspberry Tart is exactly what it sounds like–pie crust in a tart pan filled with raspberry preserves and topped with bits of dough. Simply Delicious uses a simple drop method for the dough topping, but I think we can do better than that. ?

Why did anyone think that amorphous blobs of dough were an acceptable tart topping? ?‍♀️

16-54: Lemony Cottage Cheese Pie

Adam Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods January 5, 2017November 5, 2020all-purpose flour, almonds, baked goods, breakfast, butter, cheese, chopped, cottage cheese, cream cheese, creamy, dessert, dough, egg whites, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, filling, flute, granulated sugar, grated, hot desserts, inexpensive, kneaded, lemons, melted, nuts, pie crust, pies, springform pan, stiff peaks, tart pan, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, zested

Whenever I think of lemons, I can’t help but think of Lemongrab from Adventure Time, my favorite, lemon-insipred, animated character. From my research, there are two other major characters who are lemon-themed, Lemon Meringue from “doll commercial hidden in a cartoon” Strawberry Short Cake and Honey Lemon, one of the main characters from Big Hero 6, a 3D animated feature film released by Disney in 2014 . I haven’t had a chance to check this movie out yet, but if it ever pops up on Netflix, I’d watch it. Now that my rant about cartoon characters is complete, enjoy this entry about 16-54: Lemony Cottage Cheese Pie, a really weird lemony pie. ?

Serving this pie on top of a tapestry featuring a creepy little girl must somehow enhance the flavor of this otherwise weird lemony pie. The background tapestry is probably the most interesting and tasteful part of the entire photograph.