#42: Happy Thanksgiving Pumpkin Tartlets

At work we celebrate Thanksgiving with a big potluck filled with turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, and of course dessert! One of my favorite savory dishes this year was a crispy bacon wrapped water chestnut...very unique and tasty. But I must say...anything covered with bacon is generally pretty good. Anyways, last Thanksgiving I made sweet potato cupcakes. Here's a picture as a reminder:


This year, I decided to use the frozen pie dough I had left over from summer's strawberry pie. Of course, for Thanksgiving it seemed most appropriate to make pumpkin pie. I prefer small desserts, so I decided to make pumpkin pie tartlets. I had never made a pumpkin pie before...but it is seriously the easiest pie to make (that is, if you already have pie crust dough prepared). I used canned pumpkin because I've heard making pumpkin puree from scratch is definitely not worth it. I used this recipe here for the pie filling. As for the cook time for the tartlets, I decided to just watch them through the oven window and estimate cook time. I also added a leaf garnish to the top (just leaf-shaped pie dough). I let the tartlets cook for about 10 minutes until the filling was stable enough for me to place the leaf on top. I then let the tartlets finish cooking for about 15 more minutes.

Lastly, I made a batch of vanilla bean whipped cream to serve with the tartlets. It was basically just whipped cream infused with vanilla beans and sugar. I think this was a perfect creamy supplement to the tartlets.

Happy Thanksgiving! Eat up :)

#41: Chewy Chocolate Toffee Cookies

i was looking around for a tasty sweet dessert to gift for my friend's birthday. after browsing around smitten kitchen's website, i stumbled upon this recipe: Chocolate Toffee Cookies. I love the combination of toffee and chocolate. It's actually reminiscent of those See's candy milk chocolate toffee bars that people used to sell for fundraisers in school. Anyways, I decided to try this recipe out. I was pretty amazed with how much chocolate the recipe calls for (1 lb). I realized quickly it's mostly chocolate with a bit of flour to keep the cookie intact. The recipe yielded a pretty large batch of cookies so I was able to share with many people. Lots of people said it was like a brownie cookies, which I would agree with. The cookie also has toffee bits and walnuts which add a nice bite. So for all you chocaholics out there...this one's for you.

#40: An Excuse to Eat Cupcakes for Breakfast

As I was brainstorming ideas of a sweet treat to make for my friend's birthday, I remembered that she loves bacon. I know it's trendy these days to use bacon in desserts so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try something out. I decided to make Maple French Toast & Bacon cupcakes. I used the cupcake recipe from here and the frosting recipe from here. The french toast flavors really come through from the nutmeg and cinnamon paired alongside a sweet maple buttercream frosting. I used bacon as a garnish on top of the cupcake. The bacon added a nice smoky, savory contrast to the sweet cupcake. The beauty is that you can eat these cupcakes for dessert OR breakfast...and not even feel guilty about it! ;)

#39: Snow Cones for Adults

After a hot weather week, I was trying to choose a dessert to make for a dinner party. I've seen tv chefs make granitas on food network and I've always been curious about them. i found this recipe online from smitten kitchen and it looked easy enough to replicate. i bought some organic lemons and mint leaves from the grocery store and gathered some sugar from home. i juiced the lemons and scraped out the insides to make a little lemon cup to be frozen later. i then used our super high tech JJ blenders to blend the lemon juice and mint leaves. after letting the lemon mixture set and infuse with the mint, i added some sugar and water and poured everything into a glass pan. i put the pan into the freezer and after an hour, i used a fork and scraped the mixture across the pan to form little ice crystals. i then repeated the process 2 more times until the ice crystals were snow cone-like. to make the presentation a little more fun, i scooped the granita into the frozen lemon cups to serve. this is a great dessert for a nice hot day...though as luck would have it, the night was cold. if i were to revisit this recipe, i would probably cut down on the mint so the flavor is more subtle on the mint, and stronger on the lemon. perhaps raspberry lemon granitas next time?