16-26: Elegant Almond Cake

16-26: Elegant Almond Cake

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.


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15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait

15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait

A nice, cool parfait is the perfect dish for summertime. Raspberry and lemon are two of my favorite flavors and they blend together nicely to create this creamy dessert. My version of 15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait will look much different from what you see here, but it is equally as delicious even though it is lactose-free. 

The set designer and photographer did a particularly good job of staging the photo for this recipe card. The fresh raspberries and lemon rind really add a nice pop of color. The choice of tablecloth, wine, grapes, and flowers each provide a nice contrast to the yellow and white creamy colors of the dish and the parfait itself. 

Editor’s note: This entry was written last summer, but didn’t get posted until now.


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16-17: Meringue-Topped Cherry Pie

16-17: Meringue-Topped Cherry Pie

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.


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14-19: Old-Fashioned Apple Meringue

14-19: Old-Fashioned Apple Meringue

The editors of Simply Delicious love to write a common type of recipe that includes the act of putting meringue on top of a fruit filled pie. 14-19: Old-Fashioned Apple Meringue is a mistake with all but the classic lemon custard version of a meringue pie. Apple and cherry do not carry a meringue the same way in my opinion.

The meringue clouds in the example photo would probably have been the ideal presentation method, however, my meringue came out runny so it didn’t clump very well. I was lucky that it cooked to a hard crust. 


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14-31: Coffee Nut Crêpes

14-31: Coffee Nut Crêpes

Trying to sneak one in before the month of October completely passes me by. 14-31: Coffee Nut Crêpes is not the first crêpe recipe I’ve covered during this project, but it may be the last–believe it or not, I’m getting close to finishing a few of these sections. I made this dish back in May as part of my Mother’s Day brunch for 2018, since it seemed like a breakfasty-brunchy kind of treat.

You can find the other dishes I made for this year’s Mother’s Day tagged under MD2018–there’s also MD2017 if you’re interested in last year’s menu.

Yes, this is technically a dessert (according to Simply Delicious). But doesn’t brunch already cross a few boundaries just by definition? Plus, it was Mother’s Day–most restaurant brunches you’ll find on that day have a pretty extensive dessert section. I’m just contributing to authenticity.


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17-62: Scandinavian Coffee Cake

17-62: Scandinavian Coffee Cake

I had mentioned in a recent entry (16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie) that when I make baked goods for sharing with my work colleagues, I try to make them gluten-free if possible. Not only do I have a good friend at work that eats gluten-free, it offers one more option for the other people there who may want to make a gluten-free choice as well. 17-62: Scandinavian Coffee Cake was the first Simply Delicious recipe that I adapted for this particular purpose, and it turned out really well.

In the other recipe I cited above (16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie), I mentioned that I didn’t have the pictures for this recipe, even though I did cook it. Well, turns out I found the pictures…so here it is, over a year after I made it in reality. ⏳


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16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie

16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie

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.


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14-14: Sliced Pineapple with Nut Meringue

14-14: Sliced Pineapple with Nut Meringue

14-14: Sliced Pineapple with Nut Meringue is a unique desert. It was actually fairly tasty, just not something I would have thought to put together. This interesting dish has multiple textures, flavors, and temperatures which all interact nicely. I love raspberry, pineapple, and meringue, but I never thought to combine them, especially this way. ?

Meringue is probably one of my favorite applications of eggs in cooking. Egg whites only, but still a great use of eggs.


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11-19: Oven-Baked Red Snapper

11-19: Oven-Baked Red Snapper

Looking for an easy weeknight dinner? 11-19: Oven-Baked Red Snapper will remind you of the all-too-familiar crunchy oven-baked chicken, but with a lighter fishy twist. If you find yourself with some fish filets (red snapper not required), give this one a try.

Another way to look at this: a more elegant presentation of fish sticks. ?


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13-8: Vegetarian Calzone

13-8: Vegetarian Calzone

Much like Ben Wyatt, a late-addition character from NBC’s Parks and Recreation, I have enjoyed my fair share of calzones. Hawaiian calzones are one of my favorite types, pineapple and Canadian bacon can’t be beat! However, when wanting to eat in a health conscious manner, 13-8: Vegetarian Calzone is a great meat-free alternative.

Preparing this dish was super easy. A lot of time can be saved by using ready-bought puff pastry.

Editor’s note: This was a dish I made as part of a big family dinner I cooked with a family friend when I was 13–my step-grandmother is vegetarian and we made this so she’d have something to eat. My mom made her a baked potato for Thanksgiving once, complete with a toothpick-and-construction paper turkey head, wings, and tail that I painstakingly spent the day crafting. She did not appreciate the turkey-potato (too closely resembled an animal for her…go figure), but she did like this calzone. 


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