I'm going to start out this post quickly discussing two cakes I made for the holiday party that did not turn out the way I had hoped (and for which I have no photos).
First, Dorie Greenspan's Lisbon Chocolate Cake. I definitely screwed up the ganache layer and after I folded in the whipped cream, the mixture became strangely grainy. I still served the cake and it tasted fine, but I intend to give the cake another try sometime to see if I can get it right.
Second, I also made Abby Dodge's Champ du Noël from current issue of Fine Cooking. This recipe is long and complicated. In the magazine, the recipe is laid out over five (!) pages. Everything seemed to go wrong for me. The sponge cake cracked when I rolled it, the white chocolate buttercream filling was soft and gloppy, and the chocolate buttercream hardened in the fridge. Even though I took the cake out of the fridge a few hours before the party, slicing through the stiff buttercream caused the cake to become a mess. As people cut off slices, the cake devolved into a disorderly pile of crumbs, ganache, and buttercream. Yet multiple party guests told me that it was their absolute favorite dessert of the night. Still, this cake was such a pain that I don't think I can bring myself to ever make it again.
But onto some more successful bakes. Alison Roman's Pumpkin-Caramel Tart with Toasted Hazelnut Crust tastes better than any pumpkin pie I've ever eaten. You make the crust in the food processor by mixing toasted hazelnuts with flour, sugar, salt, and butter. You press the crust onto the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan (I used a cheesecake pan with a loose bottom), chill it, and bake it until golden. The tart filling is pumpkin puree, brown sugar, flour, grated ginger, cinnamon, salt, caramel (sugar cooked with cream of tartar and water until deep golden brown, finished with heavy cream), and eggs. You bake the filled tart, cool and chill it, and garnish it with sugared hazelnuts. This tart was freakin' delicious. the pumpkin filling was smooth and rich and the hazelnut flavor from the crust and garnish was delightful. This would be an awesome dessert for Thanksgiving.
I know a Hawaiian Guava Cake doesn't seem like a holiday dessert, but I had guavas on my mind after returning from our trip to Taiwan (guavas are very popular there). I couldn't get a hold of any guava concentrate, so I bought guava juice and reduced it for the cake and frosting. The cake includes butter, sugar, egg whites, oil, milk, reduced guava juice, vanilla, cake flour, baking soda, and salt. I also added a couple of drops of liquid red food coloring, as the recipe suggested, to boost the pink color. The frosting is made from whipped cream, cream cheese, sugar, salt, reduced guava juice, and a bit more food coloring. I liked the baby pink shade of my cake and frosting, although the color of cake pictured with the recipe is far more dramatic. The cake was dense (but moist) and while I thought that the guava flavor was quite prominent, I suspect that others less familiar with guava might perceive it as some generic berry flavor. I liked the cake, but not enough to make it again -- unless someone is really in the mood for a guava dessert.
Since I'm a teetotaler, I'm not a fan of eggnog (at least, not the alcoholic kind), but I decided to try a recipe for an Eggnog Pie from Leite's Culinaria. This "pie" has a graham cracker crust and the recipe is written to be baked in a fluted tart pan. I was worried about being able to get the baked pie out of a fluted pan, so I used a springform pan instead. The filling is a mixture of cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, bourbon, cinnamon, apple pie spice, freshly grated nutmeg, sugar, brown sugar, and salt. I poured it into the unbaked crust, grated a little more nutmeg on top, and baked the pie until the center was set. I was a little concerned that the top of the filling was very dark brown in the center and looked slightly singed. Also, I had built up the sides of the crust quite high (because the recipe says to use a tart pan that is three inches high and doesn't provide any specific instructions on how tall the crust should be), but the filling was actually quite shallow. The top portion of the crust ended up curling inward where it wasn't constrained by the filling.
I was surprised how much I liked this pie. I'll start out by saying that it's really more of a cheesecake, with the graham cracker crust and cream cheese filling. The filling was creamy but not as dense as most cheesecakes, and I absolutely loved the spice mixture. The flavor really is a dead ringer for eggnog, including the booze. Which is the only part I didn't like. But I would absolutely make this again without the booze, and for people who don't have a problem with bourbon, this is a fantastic holiday party dessert.
I also offered several desserts that were available "on demand," meaning that guests had to ask me or one of my party helpers to get one (my party helpers circulated with menus letting everyone know what was available). The choices included Dorie Greenspan's Cranberry-Lemon Eton Mess, comprised of crumbled meringue made with speculoos crumbs (fortunately I also baked BraveTart's homemade speculoos for the party, so I had homemade Biscoffs handy), lemon curd, cranberry sauce, whipped cream, and fresh raspberries. I loved this dessert so much. The addition of the speculoos crumbs to the meringue added a surprising amount of flavor, and the contrast of the crisp meringue with all of the creamy elements was great. Plus, the lemon curd and cranberry sauce were both bright and tart and were so well balanced with the whipped cream. Since you can make this dessert with frozen cranberries, there's no reason not to enjoy it year round!
There were also several frozen desserts available on demand, including three flavors of ice cream and a Frozen Lime and Dulce de Leche Terrine with Blackberry Sauce. I'm a big fan of terrines for parties, because you can make them in advance and just stash them in the freezer until you're ready to serve them. I was intrigued that you make this terrine in the blender, by mixing condensed milk, evaporated milk, cream cheese, lime zest, and lime juice. It thickened up in the blink of the eye in the blender. You're supposed to put a third of the lime mixture in a loaf pan, pipe on a strip of dulce de leche, another another third of the lime cream, pipe on another strip of dulce de leche, and then add the remaining lime cream and a layer of graham cracker crumbs.
I didn't want to make my own dulce de leche, so I used a can of La Lechera. Since I had the can open, I decided to just use the whole thing, so I piped a bunch of stripes of dulce de leche through the terrine. You can see in the picture below that after I cut the terrine (perpendicular to the direction of the dulce de leche stripes), each piece had lots of dots of dulce de leche visible. I served the terrine with a blackberry sauce made from fresh blackberries, Chambord, and sugar. I love, love, love this terrine. The flavor was exactly like key lime pie, punctuated with dulce de leche -- which in all honestly was completely unnecessary, but still a tasty addition. And the tart-sweet blackberry sauce was the perfect pairing.
The entire party menu -- or, at least, the portion I was responsible for -- is listed below. My personal favorites were the pumpkin-caramel tart, the homemade Butterfingers, the pineapple upside-down cake truffles, the Eton mess, the frozen terrine, and the saltine toffee. Oh, and of course my husband's meatballs, which are always fantastic. He also did a particularly nice job with the cheese and charcuterie this year. Thank goodness we won't have to think about our next holiday party for a long time!
Baked Goods:
First, Dorie Greenspan's Lisbon Chocolate Cake. I definitely screwed up the ganache layer and after I folded in the whipped cream, the mixture became strangely grainy. I still served the cake and it tasted fine, but I intend to give the cake another try sometime to see if I can get it right.
Second, I also made Abby Dodge's Champ du Noël from current issue of Fine Cooking. This recipe is long and complicated. In the magazine, the recipe is laid out over five (!) pages. Everything seemed to go wrong for me. The sponge cake cracked when I rolled it, the white chocolate buttercream filling was soft and gloppy, and the chocolate buttercream hardened in the fridge. Even though I took the cake out of the fridge a few hours before the party, slicing through the stiff buttercream caused the cake to become a mess. As people cut off slices, the cake devolved into a disorderly pile of crumbs, ganache, and buttercream. Yet multiple party guests told me that it was their absolute favorite dessert of the night. Still, this cake was such a pain that I don't think I can bring myself to ever make it again.
But onto some more successful bakes. Alison Roman's Pumpkin-Caramel Tart with Toasted Hazelnut Crust tastes better than any pumpkin pie I've ever eaten. You make the crust in the food processor by mixing toasted hazelnuts with flour, sugar, salt, and butter. You press the crust onto the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan (I used a cheesecake pan with a loose bottom), chill it, and bake it until golden. The tart filling is pumpkin puree, brown sugar, flour, grated ginger, cinnamon, salt, caramel (sugar cooked with cream of tartar and water until deep golden brown, finished with heavy cream), and eggs. You bake the filled tart, cool and chill it, and garnish it with sugared hazelnuts. This tart was freakin' delicious. the pumpkin filling was smooth and rich and the hazelnut flavor from the crust and garnish was delightful. This would be an awesome dessert for Thanksgiving.
I was surprised how much I liked this pie. I'll start out by saying that it's really more of a cheesecake, with the graham cracker crust and cream cheese filling. The filling was creamy but not as dense as most cheesecakes, and I absolutely loved the spice mixture. The flavor really is a dead ringer for eggnog, including the booze. Which is the only part I didn't like. But I would absolutely make this again without the booze, and for people who don't have a problem with bourbon, this is a fantastic holiday party dessert.
I didn't want to make my own dulce de leche, so I used a can of La Lechera. Since I had the can open, I decided to just use the whole thing, so I piped a bunch of stripes of dulce de leche through the terrine. You can see in the picture below that after I cut the terrine (perpendicular to the direction of the dulce de leche stripes), each piece had lots of dots of dulce de leche visible. I served the terrine with a blackberry sauce made from fresh blackberries, Chambord, and sugar. I love, love, love this terrine. The flavor was exactly like key lime pie, punctuated with dulce de leche -- which in all honestly was completely unnecessary, but still a tasty addition. And the tart-sweet blackberry sauce was the perfect pairing.
Baked Goods:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies by Jacques Torres (see this post from July 11, 2008).
- Sweet and Salty Brownies from Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (see this post from December 5, 2010).
- Homemade Biscoff (Belgian Speculoos Cookies) by Stella Parks (see this post from December 25, 2017).
- Homemade Oreos from Bravetart by Stella Parks, recipe available here at Serious Eats (see this post from March 27, 2018).
- Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes, my mother's recipe.
- Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Nutella from The Perfect Finish: Special Desserts for Every Occasion, by Bill Yosses and Melisssa Clark (see this post from September 13, 2010).
- Big Chewy Apricot and Ginger Cookies from The New Sugar & Spice by Samantha Seneviratne (see this post from August 14, 2019).
- B'Day Truffles, Chocolate Malt Cake Truffles and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Truffles from All About Cake by Christina Tosi (see this post from January 7, 2020).
- Berry Meringue Kisses by Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen (see this post from January 7, 2020).
- Stamped Citrus Shortbread by Susan Spungen, available at The New York Times (see this post from January 7, 2020).
- Tahini Chocolate Shortbread Bars by Melissa Clark, available at Food52 (see this post from January 7, 2020).
- Lisbon Chocolate Cake by Dorie Greenspan, available at The New York Times.
- Champ de Noël by Abby Dodge, available at Fine Cooking.
- Eggnog Pie from Leite's Culinaria.
- Pumpkin-Caramel Tart with Toasted Hazelnut Crust by Alison Roman, available at epicurious.com.
- Cranberry-Lemon Eton Mess by Dorie Greenspan, available at The New York Times.
- Hawaiian Guava Cake, available at The New York Times.
- Old-Fashioned Caramel Corn from Sally's Baking Addiction by Sally McKinney, recipe available here.
- Peanut Butter Buddies from Theo Chocolate by Debra Music and Joe Whinney.
- Dried Lime Truffles with Honey, and Salt and Hazelnut and Seed Brittle, by Helen Goh, available here from The Guardian.
- Salted Cashew Caramels from The New Sugar & Spice by Samantha Seneviratne.
- Spiced Dark Chocolate-Cherry Saltine Toffee from Garden & Gun.
- Salted Caramel Ice Cream by Melissa Clark, from The New York Times.
- Roasted Banana Ice Cream from The New Sugar & Spice by Samantha Seneviratne (see this post from June 30, 2019).
- Fior di Latte Gelato by Stella Parks, recipe available here at Serious Eats (see this post from September 9, 2018).
- Luxe Butterscotch Pudding from Smitten Kitchen.
- Frozen Lime and Dulce de Leche Terrine with Blackberry Sauce from Fine Cooking.
- Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Squash on Toast from The New York Times.
- Classic Tomato Soup from Fine Cooking (served with small grilled cheese sandwiches).
- Tiny Twice-Baked Potatoes from Fine Cooking.
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