Decadent Raspberry Cheesecake

 

Oh, the decadence of this gorgeous cheesecake was just overwhelming ! It was birthday week here at the Grey Cottage. Our lovely daughter-in-law had a birthday on Monday and Silent Bob had his birthday on Saturday. Bookend celebrations ! We opted to choose Friday evening to celebrate over a dinner here, so I was tasked with creating a super duper cake. Since traditional birthday cake is not Brianne's fave, I opted for this special cheesecake. Super rich filling that has Grand Marnier added to it, a crust that is graham cracker and ground pecans, and perfect fresh raspberries over top a thick raspberry jelly smear. It was picture perfect with a final dusting of confectioner's sugar ! 

Salted Caramel "Apple Charlotte"

One day, I'll make a true Warm Apple Charlotte, but until that time, this will have to suffice. And there's no real problem with this 'dumbed down' version of a very old recipe. The first Apple Charlotte recipe that's on the books comes from an English cookbook that appeared in 1796. This factoid comes courtesy of my CIA Baking at Home Cookbook. That being said, today's dessert comes from the Old Farmer's Almanac Readers' Best Recipes cookbook that I won a couple weeks ago when I entered an apple pie baking contest.

Apple Roses For My Sweetheart ...

It's St. Valentine's Day! I know this is a day for romanticism, but I am a pretty pragmatic gal. A man's got to eat, so he might as well eat stuff that he likes. Finding a sweet and romantic dessert that plays well with the day's lovey-dovey theme is pretty perfect. To boot, this recipe has been floating around the social media scene for the past few weeks and I've been curious to see just have 'easy and tasty' this website's recipes really are. So here we go ... I called up Tip Hero and followed their minimal directions to make these pretty little Apple Roses.

Prune Plum Danish with Almond Sugar Glaze

Walking into a lovely, sparkling clean patisserie is one of life's greatest pleasures, don't you think? It's as if all the sweetness of life is laid out under glass just waiting for you to take your pick of the choicest, most perfect dream. For me, a layered Danish is always so tempting. The pastry cream that sits as the base to whatever seasonal fruit is at its peak is such a soft and smooth taste treat. Add flaky puff pastry crust and that ubiquitous sugar glaze and it's a sealed deal for me!

Madeleines and Apricot/Mango Iced Cream

Desserts in the grey cottage have been few and far between of late. Madeleines, though, have such a cachet for me that I couldn't resist making them as a special treat for SB and I. To boot, I found a lovely iced cream recipe in Diana Henry's latest cookbook, A Change of Appetite that I had to try!

Lemon Bars with Rosemary Scented Shortbread Crust

Lemon bars are a thing of beauty, don't you think? 

Served with a hot cup of tea, they seem so very proper.

Maple Apple Cake - Gluten Free and Great

I very rarely return to a recipe within a few weeks, even if I love the recipe. Those food bloggers who make a recipe to the letter the first time, and then return right a way to adapt it and perfect it before posting it are a different breed of cooks. I am a food diarist. What you see is what you get and if I adapt a recipe, I usually adapt it right out of the gate because I've read the recipe through and thought about it's ingredients or the cooking instructions, or the constraints of my pantry or the likes and dislikes of our house full of hungry folk, or, or, or ...

That being said, I want you to meet this Maple Apple Cake. This cake (above) started out as Rum Apple Cake, a recipe straight from The FOOD 52 Cookbook.

Triple Apple Cake

Look at this sticky, sweet/tart cake ! I was originally thinking that it should be served warm with a  big gob of vanilla ice cream along side, but ...

Late Summer Breakfast

Broiled Peaches and Blackberries with Mascarpone Cheese

Summer Berry Crumble ... and A Story

Picking berries has always been one of the best of summertime pleasures. I remember long summer days when my ten year old friends and I would run the woods that bordered our neighborhood housing development. We'd ram back and forth along the pounded down paths playing hide and seek, having honeysuckle berry and acorn fights, and spending long hours building woodland forts, climbing trees, and looking for the next place to attempt the best ever Swiss Family Robinson tree fort. When banana bikes became the rage, we'd ride the paths and build 'jumps'. I was the builder and sometimes borrower of a friend's bike, as my family could never afford the latest craze. I never had my own bike until I was twelve, and then it was a traditional Schwinn. But who cared when I had a raft of friends with the latest, a thirty acre woodland to play in, and plentiful summertime berries ?!?

Humble Pie !!!

Humble ingredients make for a soft, sweet, fluffy dessert ... meet Humble Pie, folks!

Gram Lindquist's Banana Cake with Maple Frosting and Salted Hazelnuts

Banana Cake ... Maple Frosting ... Toasted and Salted Hazelnuts ... Yup, I squirreled a piece to bring home from the party. I know. I'm bad.

Warm Caramelized Pears with Clove Zabaglione - Virtual Supper Club Treasure!

Cooking Italian is one of my favorite approaches to special dinners, but I have to admit that my repertoire of Italian desserts has never been the focal point of my quest for excellent Italian fare. I have always concentrated on the main meat dishes or special sauces for pastas or interesting treatments for vegetables and fallen back on tried and true desserts like tiramisu or sorbets. That's why this month's Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club was such fun (albeit a tad late).

Val and Sarah challenged me to provide a dessert for this month's theme of Let's Go Italian and finding this recipe for caramelized pears with a soft warm zabaglione sauce was like hitting pirate treasure. It's an easy recipe that can be done ahead of time. I poached the pears last night, drizzled warm chocolate over them and then chilled them to set the chocolate. Today, I let them warm gently in a slightly warm oven while I whipped just a bit of cream and cooked the clove zabaglione sauce. The dessert came together in just ten minutes.

Random Recipe and We Should Cocoa - Chocolate Rugelach

Soft and lighter than air with a dark chocolate crumbly filling, and a shiny sugar glaze  ... mmmmm!

SB needed a special something to take to a potluck dinner that he is attending this evening for his tree-hugger group. Wendy, the director of the home office requested something with chocolate. How fortuitous! Dom has told us that this month's Random Recipes is having a sweet collision with Choclette of We Should Cocoa. Sometimes the stars align.

Meringues Four Ways - IHCC Potluck

It's been weeks since I contributed anything to the I Heart Cooking Club's weekly share and I apologize for that! Sometimes life just gets in the way, I guess. I'm back this week with a fun Donna Hay recipe that gives me the basic how-to of making meringues. These lighter than air sweet treats are going to be used in four different ways over the next week ... this basic recipe is my contribution to this week's IHCC Pot Luck. I'm trying to do a bit of catch-up. Originally, they were meant to be the offering for the Time for Tea recipe share, but I just got so busy travelling and puttering on some other projects that blogging went by the boards. Thank goodness for Potluck week!

Two Words ...

.... Bookstore Pearl ....

... Icy Swirl ...

... Buttery Roast ...

... Warm (as) Toast ...

... Butterscotch Treat ...

Birthday! Sweet!

SB 'celebrated' his birthday yesterday afternoon, while I made him a special batch of Butterscotch Ice Cream with Salted Pecans ... it's a tough life, folks! Recipe follows ...

Virtual Supper Club - Arroz con Dulce and a Cool Havana Loco Cocktail

This is the prettiest dish of rice that I have ever seen. It is a dessert dish meant for a Cuban feast that the members of  The Virtual Supper Club are sharing this month. When I first came across the recipe, I was a bit turned off, as I have never cared for the conventional rice pudding served by my grandmother and mother. But life's for experimenting, so I set aside my prejudice and made this jazzed up version ... and I'm very glad I did !!

IHCC - Hello There, Donna Hay!

This week, the I Heart Cooking Club welcomes a new chef to the rolls! Hello there, Donna Hay! 

But first ...

This is a chai-spiced cheesecake. It will be served with a warm sauce of cooked apple bits, apple cider and allspice.  I got the apples when we went to Norway Hill Orchards in Hancock, New Hampshire this morning ... the trees were loaded and the picking was so easy. We picked Cortlands ... and knoshed a couple Macouns that were 'drops' from a neighboring row of trees.

Pflaumenkuchen with Almond Streusel

The plums of September are not the plums of August ... no huge round orbs of sweet flesh with tangy after bite. The prune plums of September are small blueish ovals, sweet and fleshy and easy to go soft.

Every autumn, one sees the foragers in Germany gathering these blue prune plums along agricultural paths or off along the walkways of parks. Home they go with their cache to make pans of Pflaumenkuchen for their daily Kaffetrinken. This 'cake' is a soft cross between a coffeecake and a soft bread with a fruit topping (kinda like a pizza, SB, but NOT !)

Plum Galette and Asters ...

Stone fruit galette ... oh, what an easy and elegant way to share the plums that came home from the market this week! This dessert is such a quick bit of work, which is good at this time of year. There are tomatoes to cook down for pizza sauce and cucumbers to pickle, beets to blanch and freeze, potatoes to dig and dust off a bit before storing, squash to chop and freeze, zucchini to shred and bake with, basil to make into pesto and put up in freezer jars. It all seems so endless, and yet we know there is an ending coming. Then, there will be time to put up the feet and bemoan the lack of fresh produce. Right now, though, every spare moment seems to be used for canning, freezing, or stepping out for more pectin, jars, rings and lids, pickling salt, vinegar, or sundry spices.