What is your favorite dessert to make?

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Do I have to pick just one (whine)? Well, if I had to I'd choose Marcela's Farm Wife's Fresh Pear Cake, which I've recommended here before  (Essentials, p.589). So simple, so tender, so impossible to screw up, so utterly satisfying. No frosting necessary, but I make it with a streusel topping to fancy it up for a dinner party. It also benefits from a splash of almond extract, but I think next time I'll add a pinch of cardamom--thanks for the hint, heidih. 

[lemniscate]

At the moment, it's a fruit plate using vacuum compressed watermelon cubes and strawberries along with SV pears and SV pineapple.  I serve it with whipped cream or ice cream (neither of which I choose personally).  Next time I am going to offer SV dulce de leche as a topping choice.   Maybe I will make lemon curd too.   Also considering adding a SV Doce De Banana.  Next time will probably be Mother's Day.

 

So yeah, vacuum chamber and SV are my prep choices at the moment.   To the future and beyond as Buzz says.

Edited April 28, 2022 by lemniscate (log)

[ChocoMom]

This is just not fair. How can one pick a single dessert?!!!!   I mean...for me, there is the seasonal aspect...Strawberry pie,. Raspberry pie. Blueberry pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie....then there are banana splits---which are done on a spontaneous whim.

 

And then the newest addition ..... dark chocolate cake (made with a cup of strong coffee), layered with marshmellow buttercream, and covered in semisweet chocolate

ganache. 

[lindag]

9 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

This is just not fair. How can one pick a single dessert?!!!!   I mean...for me, there is the seasonal aspect...Strawberry pie,. Raspberry pie. Blueberry pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie....then there are banana splits---which are done on a spontaneous whim.

 

And then the newest addition ..... dark chocolate cake (made with a cup of strong coffee), layered with marshmellow buttercream, and covered in semisweet chocolate

ganache. 

Hey!  Good to see you around.  It's been a while.

[ChocoMom]

Life has been crazy. A dear cousin passed away.  My youngest son needed help moving downstate.  MIL had a bad stroke. ( Incidentally, that happened the same day I had taken dinner over to them, with 2 pieces of that dark chocolate cake with the marshmellow buttercream. )

I've taken a month off of work -  because I just needed a break, but every moment is filled with stuff to do.  I've not been in the chocolate shop much this year, but will get back to it- even if its just to clean and organize.

Nice to be back.

[TdeV]

On 4/17/2022 at 3:33 PM, Darienne said:

My long time go to dessert is a lemon or lime cheese pie with a chocolate ganache topping.  It's this amazing cheese pie which calls for only one egg and it actually predates my interest in cooking.  From an old Culinary Arts Institute cheese cookbook, 1982.

 

Made it for Easter dinner today after a hiatus of 11 months with no dairy, no gluten, no alcohol, no caffeine , (no fun).  Hope my system weathers it well....

 

I'm sorry to be so late, Darienne, but could you say more about this pie? Perhaps a recipe?

[curls]

21 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

Life has been crazy. A dear cousin passed away.  My youngest son needed help moving downstate.  MIL had a bad stroke. ( Incidentally, that happened the same day I had taken dinner over to them, with 2 pieces of that dark chocolate cake with the marshmellow buttercream. )

I've taken a month off of work -  because I just needed a break, but every moment is filled with stuff to do.  I've not been in the chocolate shop much this year, but will get back to it- even if its just to clean and organize.

Nice to be back.

Good to see you here again. Hoping that things are getting better and more manageable. Looking forward to seeing you on the confection topics.

[heidih]

There are lots of sweets I make but I think of dessert as a last course in an organized menu. The sweets I think of as treats to have with coffee or tea.  So I'd say it was Julia Child's chocolate mousse that I made regularly in my early cooking days. Sometimes Grand Marnier and sometime Sabra (chocolate/orange) depending on what I had. It has been too long.

[liuzhou]

I very rarely eat desserts. Even more rarely make them. About once every five years I may make an apple crumble. If I could find rhubarb here, I'd crumbelate that too!

[Katie Meadow]

Too bad it is really seasonal, but some version of pears in wine is my favorite dessert to make. Not difficult, but you do have to get pears that are the right degree of ripeness. Versions seem endless. Very easy to bake go-with: Dorie's 3-ingredient almond crackle cookies. Both are especially good if you have GF guests, which I rarely do.

 

I admit that I do have another personal best, but I don't make it often because my husband makes fun of it: it is blood orange jello with brandied whipped cream, or any fancy whipped cream that suits you. Too bad blood oranges have an even shorter season than good pears, but it's actually pretty exotic. And the blood oranges have such deep flavor that you can cheat and sub in a percentage of less expensive oranges, like cara caras to keep the color intense.