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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16-36: Fresh Cherry Pie

16-36: Fresh Cherry Pie

Late spring/early summer means the start of cherry time around here, so it’s finally time to make 16-36: Fresh Cherry Pie.

We watched Twin Peaks (all three seasons and the movie) a few months ago, and ever since, I’ve been craving a slice of damn fine cherry pie. Talk about synergy.

However, this is not quite Norma’s cherry pie…this is Simply Delicious’ cherry pie, so it of course has to include almond paste in some way. If you’re looking for Norma’s cherry pie (which is much closer to typical “cherry pie”), go here. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and watch some Twin Peaks while you’re at it–it’s awesome.

Funnily enough, Twin Peaks and Simply Delicious both exist as excellent representations of the late 1980s-early 1990s. There’s that synergy thing again.

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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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17-7: Brioches

17-7: Brioches

I’ve fallen behind a little on posting once a week, but I haven’t (yet) fallen behind on making one of these recipes once a week. One step at a time. Next up, I offer you 17-7: Brioches, which is a NEW BOOK recipe.

Simply Delicious claims that the ball on top is common–I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen that. I feel like usually you see brioche buns in more of a standard hamburger bun style, maybe with a slice or two on top. I should have gone with that instead of trying to do the ball on top.


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16-6: Tosca Cake

16-6: Tosca Cake

Happy Sunday! Spring has sprung here, so I present to you a lovely, light cake option, 16-6: Tosca Cake. They even used tulips in the picture!

Tosca cake (or toscakaka) is a well-known thing, essentially a Swedish almond cake. There’s a million other recipes out there for it, but we’re here to talk about this one, so let’s do that.

Lots of brunch occasions in the springtime…this could be a great dish to bring with you or to serve at your own table if you have any upcoming plans. You can even play with flavor extracts if you want to give it that extra something.


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15-46: Mousse Casablanca

15-46: Mousse Casablanca

We’re closing in on the 11th anniversary of this project, and if I ever have hopes of finishing it (which I still do), I need to figure out a strategy. I’ve spent enough time in my real life learning how to “professionally” manage projects, so I’ll apply some of that here and aim to knock out at least one recipe a week until I finish everything non-meat-related. Then I might just dump the rest online and call it a day.

You don’t care about any of this–you’re here to read about 15-46: Mousse Casablanca, right? Everyone wants to “jump to the recipe” already.

Blah blah something about how this is fancy and 80s.

Here’s the thing with this recipe–it seems too “kiddy” to be an adult dessert recipe, but is also something you most likely wouldn’t serve to kids (unless you grew up as a quasi-adult like I did). I’m not sure who this is supposed to be for?


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16-22: Apricot Swirl Cheesecake

16-22: Apricot Swirl Cheesecake

In an attempt to finish off last year’s Christmas dishes (XMAS 23) before this year’s Christmas gets here, here’s 16-22: Apricot Swirl Cheesecake. Probably more of a summer recipe, but whatever, cheesecake is good any time of year. I made this together with 16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake, because you need both a chocolate dessert AND a fruit dessert.

Fun fact: this may look okay-ish in the picture, but trust me, this does not go well. Jump behind the cut for the details (and mistakes).


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16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake

16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake

I had high hopes of catching up on this thing in a timely fashion, but let’s face it–we’re all surprised I’m even still updating it all at this point. The 10-year anniversary came and went a few months ago without much (or any) fanfare, but I AM still here–just not as attentive as I used to be. Let’s face it–a LOT has changed over the last 10 years. No plans to completely let it die yet, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.

Anyway, here’s 16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake, which was one of two desserts I served for Christmas 2023 (XMAS 23).

Seemed Christmas-appropriate, plus it’s gluten-free! That doesn’t matter to anyone that’s in this house, but someone out there might care about something like that.


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14-37: Chocolate Soufflé

14-37: Chocolate Soufflé

I debated about doing two desserts back-to-back, but I think it makes more sense to just do all the TGV 2022 recipes together and be done with it already. Plus, this one came out really well and I want to tell you about it. So, with that in mind, here is 14-37: Chocolate Soufflé, the Thanksgiving 2022 companion dessert to 16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping.

The blurb here reminds me of one of my favorite tropes: the endangered soufflé, otherwise known as soufflé humor. Whatever happened to that?


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16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping

16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping

Still working on Thanksgiving 2022 (TGV 2022) entries. I made two desserts that year–one of which was this one, 16-21: Apple Pie with Crumb Topping. Gotta have some type of apple dessert for Thanksgiving. The other was 14-37: Chocolate Soufflé, which I posted right after this one.

FYI, by “crumb topping”, they essentially mean a streusel. Not sure why they didn’t name it that instead, but there you go.


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