Dessert Sunday

Duh. Birthday cake!

Now, originally, dating back to last year, my plan was to make Ruby the same birthday cake every year of her life: my mom's fudge ribbon cake (the ribbon being a layer of cream cheese mixture). But last year's cake was a total bust (flat and flavourless) and it's a lot of work making a less than standard cake when you have a toddler at your feet. So, I turned to Aaron's mum, Leena, who makes one of the most delicious and simple cakes imaginable. Hence, Ruby will get this cake every year of her life from this point on.

I'm not going to give a recipe or spill any Booth secrets: lets just say that the cake is beyond simple (ahem, like, just add eggs and some oil and water simple) and the icing is a very standard recipe with some extra somthin' thrown in (ahem, an egg yolk and more butter than you want to ever think about in your life). I didn't get it totally perfected and as Aaron privately pointed out after the party I could have layered a lot more of the leftover icing between the two cakes, but all in all it was a rousing success. Operation delicious!

So, what did you have for dessert this week?

Dessert Sunday

I'm continuing on with my pledge to do weekly desserts, but man, we've got to start throwing more dinner parties. A full dessert is just too much for our little family -- I don't like feeding Ruby dessert more than once a week (especially since she usually gets a supplemental dessert if we go to the grandparents' house for dinner, which we often do) and Aaron and I really shouldn't be eating the rest of a cake/pie/torte/whatever between the two of us over the course of a week. Last week I made an apple cake (too boring to have pictured) and the guilt was far less because I pawned some off on my parents. This week we had chocolate pie and as absolutely delicious as it is, I'm going to have to toss almost half of it.

So yes, chocolate pie. The picture is a little oozy (and I had to make it in a cake pan because Aaron misplaced my pie plates), but if you like your chocolate this is the ticket. I got the recipe out of a Kraft brochure and since it appeared in an advert, I don't feel like it's a copyright infringement to share it with you. Nothing too fancy, but easy as, er... pie. (apologies).

Chocolate Triple Layer Pie

1 1/4 cups Oreo Baking Crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 squares bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/2 cup canned sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup chopped toasted peanuts (I used walnuts because it's what I had)
2 cups cold milk
2 pkg. chocolate instant pudding
2 cups thawed Cool Whip

Mix crumbs and butter in a 9 inch pie plate. Press firmly onto bottom and up side of plate to form crust. Mix chocolate and condensed mil until blended. Pour into crust and sprinkle with peanuts.

Pour milk into large bowl. Add pudding mix and beat with whisk 2 min. Spoon half of it into pie crust. Add half of the Cool Whip to remaining pudding and stir with whisk until well blended. Spread over pudding layer in crust. Top with remaining Cool Whip.

Refrigerate three hours.

So, what did you have for dessert this week. I want to know!

Dessert Sunday

In the last year I've acquired a new mixmaster and, for Christmas, a full-size Cuisinart, so I decided that I've got to step up my culinary repertoire, which sadly consists mainly of one-pot meals containing chicken, canned tomatoes, beans, cumin and a rotating variety of other seasonings. So as a personal challenge to my kitchen skills and my waistline, I'm instituting weekly desserts. With the exception of pre-lunch Sesame Street and my 90210 fix during Ruby's nap, I don't usually watch daytime TV, but for some reason I caught the tail end of this recipe on CityLine this week. For non-Canadians, CityLine is a daily "women's interest" show that deals with things like cooking, interior design, fashion, health and childcare. While they have a major failure to realize that most Canadian women aren't gloriously wealthy Torontonian socialites, the show can be helpful at times. And they do have a great bank of recipes on their website.

So, when we lived on St. Clair Avenue in Toronto, Aaron and I developed a taste for the foods of the islands, so I thought that this recipe for Gingerbread Sweet Potato Pudding would be a good one to try. It's basically a cake made out of vegetables. Veggie cake. And guess what? It's delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I didn't manage to get a picture of it until it was almost eaten. Yum!

So, what did you make for dessert this week?