Sugar!

[resonant]

Anybody want to give me your most wonderful recipe for a Valentine's day dessert?

Ideally one that doesn't make huge quantities, so that the three of us can eat it all on the day itself and not have leftovers sitting around tempting us later?

Comments

[sociofemme.livejournal.com]

My favourite Valentine's dessert are Linzer cookies (http://joyofbaking.com/LinzeCookies.html), with heart-shaped cutouts in the middle. :)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yum! I know how to make those.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Hmm-- I'm not sure it's Valentine-y, but I made the Best Cake Evar for sanj's birthday last weekend, a variation on Lady Baltimore cake that I'm calling Lucky Bastard cake.

It's New Joy of Cooking's Sour Cream Coffeecake recipe, with plain lowfat yogurt in place of sour cream, baked in two round pans and flavored with 2 Tbsp each brandy and spiced rum, 1/2 tsp cardamon seeds (crushed), 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg, and 1/4 tsp allspice. Make a brandy buttercream-- basic quick powdered-sugar made icing with as much butter as you can beat into it, and brandy for the liquid (plus 1 tsp vanilla). Take about 1/4 cup-- or less; make sure you have enough remaining for the top and sides of the cake-- and fold it into 1 pint very good homemade mincemeat. Spread mincemeat filling between the cake layers, all the way out to the edges; frost top and sides of cake with remaining buttercream.

Unfortunately, the cake requires that you have a pint of very good homemade mincemeat on hand, so it's not really a short-notice dessert. It was, however, spectacular.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

Mmm, cardamom. I'm curious as to why crushing them rather than soaking them in the liquid and then removing them; is it merely a function of the time needed to soak, or is there a difference in flavor?

Me, I don't do fruity mincemeat, but I have been known to use blackberry jam in between two layers of a cake. Especially when the cake is chocolate. For an allspice/nutmeg-flavored cake, maybe apple butter or marmalade or even Nutella would be a good choice.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, that was unclear-- the cardamom was crushed and then thrown right into the batter, along with the rum and brandy. (And it was seeds specifically, not pods, which one usually does soak.)

The spice flavor is not terribly intense with those quantities; I wanted the cake to be fairly mild, so as not to overwhelm the filling. If I were making it without mincemeat, which was heavily spiced, I'd probably double all the spices. I bet it would be good with apple butter, though.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It sounds lovely, but not so much with the homemade mincemeat here. Nor, for that matter, with the brandy and the spiced rum.

[tevere.livejournal.com]

I was reading this recipe and had a horrible moment of cognitive dissonance when I saw the word 'mincemeat'. In this context it's not so much a MEAT-FILLED CAKE (as in my first thought) as it is a chopped fruit filled cake, right? Right???

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

*g* Yes. While Elizabethan mincemeat was, in fact, chopped beef mixed with fruit and spices (and while modern mincemeat does sometimes include suet for richness), mine was just finely chopped dried fruit and orange rind, soaked in apple cider and brandy with spices.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Somewhere, quite recently, I was in a discussion of the early usage of the word 'meat' and the way it changed from meaning 'things that can be eaten' to meaning 'specifically food made of animal flesh,' with a detour through Genesis (He giveth them their meat in due season) and Robert Burns (Some hae meat and canna eat, etc.) -- but now I can't remember whether this conversation happened online or in real life.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

Molten Chocolate cakes - gorgeous, decadent, and actually pretty damned easy. :) http://community.livejournal.com/slashyhomemaker/19810.html

[giglet.livejournal.com]

What she said!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

There's a slashyhomemaker community! This makes me so happy! I love us.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

I figured it was time to combine my interests. ;)

[slythwolf.livejournal.com]

All I got is a chocolate cheesecake recipe. I suppose it could be adapted to a smaller amount and made into individual mini-cheesecakes, but I would have no clue how to do that.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

You'd need mini springform pans, probably, which exist but not in my kitchen.

But, hm, cheesecake. Because we could eat it for Valentine's and then I could hide the rest of it and eat it myself!

[andeincascade.livejournal.com]

This recipe for Caramel Croissant Pudding is just the best thing ever, serving it warm with a little ice cream. Nigella rocks! The recipe says it serves two but I found it made 4 hearty servings, so not too much leftover.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_73790,00.html

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

Woah - that looks amazing

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Wow. that looks so good!

[tingler.livejournal.com]

::blinks::

Leftover *dessert*?

Surely you jest.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Well, the spouse has high cholesterol, so whether he eats half a cheesecake in one day or half a cheesecake over the course of two weeks, I'll still get the reproachful looks.

special desserts

[indywind]

My Best Beloved's birthday is the 12th, and she wanted my homemade eclairs instead of birthday cake. This recipe makes 14-16 smallish eclairs; half the recipe works fine.

Preheat oven to 375. Boil 1 cup water with 1/4 lb (1 stick) real butter. Remove from heat, dump in 1 cup all-purpose flour and beat like mad with a wooden spoon. When it becomes a glob and leaves the sides of the pan, beat in one-at-a-time 3 eggs and the white of another (reserve the yolk). Place heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough on a nonstick cookie sheet (or pipe with a pastry bag), leaving a little space between. Bake until puffed up, crispy and golden.

While the puffs bake, heat ~2 cups milk almost to boiling in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. In a bowl, stir together 3 tbs flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/8 tsp salt. Pour the hot milk into the flour mixture; stir to mix, pour back in pan. cook over med heat until thick, then stir in 2 tbs butter, the egg yolk (beat it with a little water first), and 2 tsp vanilla. Remove from heat.

When the pastries are cool enough to handle easily, slice off the tops with a serrated knife, scoop oout any of the interior that is still sticky. Fill the cavity with the filling and put the top back on.

in a very small saucepan, melt 2 tbs butter and a small handful of chocolate morsels (ghirardelli 60% cocoa are good) in 1/2 cup milk. beat til smooth, and drizzle from a spoon over the filled pastries. Eat while warm or briefly chill.

yum.

Re: special desserts

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Are they difficult? I'd always figured eclairs were probably really hard to make.

Re: special desserts

[indywind]

No, really easy actually, especially if you don't mind them being a little irregularly shaped. Much easier than regular pastry. Good for letting kidlets help--my mom taught me to do them when I was a wee thing, and I wore out my arm beating in the eggs. If my recipe seems confusing, follow Betty Crocker or similar source instead.

Also the shells can be filled with anything else, if you don't want to muck about with the puddingy filling. Fruit, whipped cream, pudding-from-a-box, even savory stuff for nondessert purposes.

[eponis.livejournal.com]

Definitely individual meringues/pavlovas. Amazingly delicious, fat-free aside from the filling, and fairly quick and easy.

Follow this recipe (http://eponis.livejournal.com/329246.html) any time in the next couple of days. Spread the meringue to make individual little bowls -- put a large blob on the sheet, then flatten it into a slightly concave disc, about an inch thick. (For extra-special-romance-points, make them heart-shaped. :-) ) If you want to make traditional pavlovas, don't cook the meringue all the way through, so it's still soft inside -- but I personally like them cooked crisp.

Then, get some real whipped cream (or make it!) and fill each pavlova with a large dollop of whipped cream. Top with sliced strawberries, or some similarly romantic fruit. So incredibly good. (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/dessert/berrypavlovas.html)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yum!

[teachyrchildren.livejournal.com]

Ultimate Chocolate Mouse:
Easy, Sinful, and serves 4-5.

1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 egg yolks
2 tbs. rum or orange liquerur
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds

In small saucepan, combine sugar and water. Boil several minutes until
syrupy. Keep hot.
Chill workbowl and steel blade 15 minutes. Add chilled cream to workbowl
and process until thickened, 1-2 minutes. After cream stops splattering,
remove pusher to allow air to enter workbowl. (Cream is whipped when no
liquid falls back toward the blade when motor is turned off). Scrape cream
into mixing bowl.
Reinsert Steel Blade. Place chocolate chips into workbowl. Process for
about 10 seconds, then add hot syrup and process until smooth.
Scrape down sides of bowl and continue to process. With machine running,
add egg yolks and rum or liqueur. Add nuts and pulse 5-6 times. Pour
chocolate mixture over whipped cream and gently fold until white patches
have disappeared. Chill several hours. Serves 4-5.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Huh! The hot syrup cooks the egg yolks! I had stopped making chocolate mousse because I was worried about raw eggs (my recipe calls for both yolks and whites), but that's a way to solve the problem.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

I often make creme brulee in heart-shaped molds for Valentine's Day.

Here's my recipe for Chocolate Crème Brulee (http://blacksquirrel.livejournal.com/110797.html#cutid4) - it can easily be cut in half or even fourths to suit less people (depending on the size of ramekin/mold, cutting it in fourths would probably yield one each for dessert plus one or two extras each for the next day), and the chocolate can be left out entirely for vanilla creme brulee, or substituted for caramel, white chocolate, or other infusions (like green tea or fresh ginger).

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I was with you till I got to the torch part! I've actually never had creme brulee, though I've always been curious. I've had flan, which I think is similar, but without the torched part and the intriguing hot/cold contrast.

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

If you don't have a torch, you can easily leave off the sugar/torching step and it becomes a pot de creme - I'm not a huge fan of the sugar crust, so I actually prefer it that way. (Although I will admit there is something to the drama of whipping out a culinary torch and eating something so recently in contact with a blue flame)

Creme Brulee/Pot de Creme is much denser than flan - while flan is somewhat reminiscent of jello, this is much more like eating thick cream. Mmmmm - I think I've talked myself into making this on Thursday

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I did not know that about the differences! You're right, though, that flan is pretty much exactly like milk-caramel jello. So creme brulee is more like a pudding?

[blacksquirrel.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, super rich, extra fantastic pudding :)

Even if not for Valentine's, do try it some time!