Hello! I fell a little behind on posting, but not on baking/cooking…in fact, I made a few other recipes over the same weekend as 17-29: Envelope Rolls, so there’s a few in the queue behind this one. When you find a “rare” ingredient, you capitalize on it.
Also, “envelope” seemed easy in theory, but seemed to elude me at the beginning in practice. Jump past the cut to see my demo (once I worked it out) so you won’t have to struggle like I did.
Question: Why did it take me so long to get to 16-2: Cheesecake (especially since cheesecake is one of my favorite foods)?
Answer: Technically, I’ve made it once before–when I lived in my first REAL apartment during college (20 years ago…YIKES). I’ve talked before about my cooking misadventures while in college (I went to a high-altitude school, which messes with baking more than you think), so we’ll take my note below in stride.
OK–why so long to make it again, then?
I held out on this one for so long because I wanted to make it with real dairy–the vegan/fake stuff was never going to do this cake justice. It’s not even a particularly GREAT cheesecake (Junior’s version is the one you want for that–I even won my work cheesecake “throwdown” with that one), but I wanted to at least try to do it right.
Dietary “needs” have recently evolved, so real dairy is back on the menu after many years of using substitutes. In honor of that, let’s give this one another try now that I’m closer to sea level and have 20 additional years of cooking experience behind me.
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.
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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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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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.
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.
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?
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).
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.