15-4: Fruit Salad with Chocolate Sauce

15-4: Fruit Salad with Chocolate Sauce

I had picked out 15-4: Fruit Salad with Chocolate Sauce specifically because I didn’t think I’d have a ton of time to cook last week, since we took Memorial Day week off to work on some home improvement projects.

I even took EVERY shortcut I could think of to shrink that time commitment down even further (plus, my kitchen was out of commission most of the week), so this will be…we’ll call it truncated. You’ll see what I mean after the jump.


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19-9: Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate II

19-9: Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate II

Finishing out what I have for Group 19 with 19-9: Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate II, the sequel to 19-8: Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate I. The first one is all about coffee, while this one features the tea and chocolate.

Here’s some reading about tea–I don’t have a lot of tea-related recipes for you, so jump behind the cut for what we’re all really here for: the chocolate.


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15-6: Royal Court Dessert

15-6: Royal Court Dessert

This one has intrigued me for years…when you’re a kid, it looks absolutely magical. Almost like Ice Cream Mountain, if you know that reference.

As an adult, 15-6: Royal Court Dessert just looks like a sugary headache. Turns out, it’s a little bit of both.

They’re right that this is a pretty quick and easy dessert to make. The hardest part (for me) was actually finding the meringues themselves. I guess I could have made them myself, but that is neither quick nor easy.

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15-7: Banana Split

15-7: Banana Split

Y’all, we have been locked inside for over a year at this point, so it was only a matter of time before the recipes that looked silly to me before now started looking like a good time. What better time to enjoy 15-7: Banana Split than when the only “safe” entertainment you can get these days is picking up ingredients for it while wearing two masks at the grocery store?

Nope, that’s not a cat hair on your screen–it was on my scanner when I scanned the card. Stop trying to get it off.

In case you are unfamiliar with the very American concept of a banana split, here’s Wikipedia’s rundown on it.


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17-15: Cream Puffs

17-15: Cream Puffs

Looking to impress? Or maybe you’ve been watching a lot of those baking shows while on lockdown and you think you’re ready for some of the “tougher” stuff. Well, here’s a good one for you to test your skills.

I made 17-15: Cream Puffs for Thanksgiving last year (TGV 2019), but haven’t written about it until now. Cream puffs feature pâte à choux, which is the puffy, airy dough that you also find in éclairs. We made profiteroles when I worked at a restaurant a few years ago, and it’s essentially the same thing.

Simply Delicious suggests you can fill your cream puffs with vanilla or whipped cream–the most traditional ones also feature pastry cream (crème pâtissière).

The ones we served at the restaurant I worked at were filled with house-made, hand-scooped ice cream that were (sometimes) baked and (often) assembled by yours truly and then drizzled with a chocolate glaze like these. It was one of those trendy gastro-brew pubs that made the beer onsite and had many beardy/tattooed gentlemen working there, so you can imagine the rest of the menu and atmosphere. At least we served most of it on a normal plate. #wewantplates


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