17-8: Tasty Dinner Rolls

17-8: Tasty Dinner Rolls

So, it’s probably weird to write about what you made for Thanksgiving when it’s March. It’s probably even weirder to write about what you made for Thanksgiving 2022 in March 2024. But, here we are, and here’s 17-8: Tasty Dinner Rolls. Which I made for Thanksgiving…in 2022 (TGV 2022).

It’s taking me a minute to catch up on some of these, what can I say.

There’s not much more to say about rolls than what they said above. Trust me, I wrote this a few times and then realized each version was essentially a rehash of what they already wrote. Since I’m not trying to hit a word count for a school report here, let’s move on.


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16-29: Heavenly Apple Cake

16-29: Heavenly Apple Cake

It’s a bit past apple season (usually fall/autumn), but 16-29: Heavenly Apple Cake uses applesauce instead of fresh fruit, so you can make it anytime you’ve got a hankering for apples. Or cake. Cake is always good.

They (Simply Delicious) are trying REALLY hard to make you believe there are actual apple pieces in this cake. I mean, the picture and the description would lead you to think that this thing is just chock full of fresh apples.

I hate to break it to you, but this is gonna be one heck of a bamboozle.


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16-13: Lemon Meringue Pie

16-13: Lemon Meringue Pie

It’s citrus time where I live, which means that everyone has buckets of oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruits that they can’t give away fast enough. I myself have an orange tree, but I’m often given lemons from friends and family as well–16-13: Lemon Meringue Pie is a good recipe to use up some of that winter citrus. You can also check out 15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait or 17-42: Luscious Lemon Bars if you have a LOT of lemons to use up.

This is a NEW book recipe, so I never even knew until recently that Simply Delicious even had a lemon meringue pie recipe. If I had known, I guarantee I would have attempted it much earlier than now.

I LOVE lemon meringue pie–it conjures recipes of slowly rotating cake and pie displays in coffee shops. Man, do I miss eating in a restaurant.


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16-49: Chocolate-Glazed Raspberry Tart

16-49: Chocolate-Glazed Raspberry Tart

I had a goal to finish all the ones I cooked in 2019 by the end of 2020…not sure if I’ll meet that goal (EDIT: I did!), but here’s one more from last year: 16-49: Chocolate-Glazed Raspberry Tart. Not only is this from last Thanksgiving (along with 6-42: Turkey Pot Roast and 17-15: Cream Puffs), but I also made a version of it as part of a fancy Christmas dinner 12 years ago (XMAS 08) as well. Since today is Christmas Eve, I think it’s a good day to tell you about it.

When I made this back in ’08, I made 6 individual tarts instead of one big one–I was afraid it would look weird once I cut it, so I thought individual servings would look better. I had been watching a LOT of Top Chef at that point (and still do, but that’s the ONLY cooking show I’ll watch).

Since I had a few of the same guests attending as that Christmas dinner back in ’08 (and the same number), I decided to make the same modification this time. Usually I will reverse modifications when I recook recipes I’ve already done to try to honor the “original” recipe, but this time I decided to stick with it.


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14-2: Apple Strudel

14-2: Apple Strudel

I’ll be honest–I’ve started this entry for 14-2: Apple Strudel a bunch of times, and I can’t think of anything exciting to say about it. There’s a lot of apple desserts in this book, and they all just start to blend together for me after a while. Even then, apple strudel is pretty a well-known dish to begin with, so odd are low that you’re going to learn anything new about it from reading Simply Delicious’ take on it.

It took me until NOW (and by now I mean as I’m pushing the keys to type this) to realize that there was actually powdered sugar coating the one pictured above, and they didn’t just peel the first layer of the outside off and say “yep, looks good to me”.


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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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14-22: Strawberry-Peach Cobbler

14-22: Strawberry-Peach Cobbler

Finally, we’ve reached the first recipe (for this project) made in my new (to you) kitchen: 14-22: Strawberry-Peach Cobbler. It was summer and 4th of July, so something with fruit that goes well with ice cream was bound to be a hit.

Speaking of 4th of July, I made 2-37: Chicken-Salami-Rice Salad for a party that I attended with a guy that I had just started dating. 10 years later, this is the first recipe I cooked in my very first house, that I bought with that same guy (who I ended up marrying not long after I made that first recipe).

Told you this book has some memories.


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16-45: Raspberry Tartlettes

16-45: Raspberry Tartlettes

I’ve used this project as an excuse to make dishes to share at work before. This time, I made 16-45: Raspberry Tartlettes for a quarterly staff meeting. I had a colleague that was interested in trying vegan recipes and another that required gluten-free dishes, so I tried to incorporate both in this attempt.

I had originally bought tartlette tins for 5-20: Golden Cheese Tartlettes, and I’m just glad I’ve finally found another use for them. There’s also 16-9: Raspberry Tart, if you’re looking for something a bit larger, but in the same ballpark.

Did you notice that there already was a #45 for Group 16? 16-45: Colonial Apple Cake is also 16-45. Good job, Simply Delicious. 🙄


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15-26: Strawberry Pastries

15-26: Strawberry Pastries

Still working my way through the backlog–we’re up to Easter with 15-26: Strawberry Pastries. Strawberries start to creep up everywhere in the springtime, and this dessert dish is a pretty classic use of them. 🍓

This recipe suggests using vanilla custard, but I’ve seen other similar recipes use fillings like Bavarian cream or crème fraîche. This is essentially a fancier version of strawberry shortcake (which often uses whipped cream), so I suppose it’s all dependent on how heavy or light you’d like to go with it. 🍰


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16-33: Crispy Almond Cake

16-33: Crispy Almond Cake

I made 16-33: Crispy Almond Cake last September to pair with 16-26: Elegant Almond Cake as a breakfast treat for my work colleagues. This one was the less fancy of the two, but still went extremely well with some coffee on a Wednesday morning.

This title card blurb mentions that versions of this almond cake can be found all over the United States–Google doesn’t seem to want to confirm that claim for me. Searching almond cake results in several iterations of a Spanish flourless almond cake influenced by the Jewish tradition of Passover. Interesting, but none of them look like this recipe.

A search for almond tart (see 16-26: Elegant Almond Cake for my argument that these two dishes are tarts, not cakes as Simply Delicious claims) comes much closer–here’s a very similar version (with video!) from Martha Stewart herself.


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