Posts tagged ‘graduation dessert’
Recipe of the Week – Homemade Italian Ice
(From the Dessert Collection at emealsforyou.com)
Lemon Italian Ice
It has been a couple of crazy dessert weekends around here lately. Last weekend I made dessert for the local Memorial Day picnic; Croissant Bread Pudding and Hazelnut Cheesecake. This weekend the friend, who had the Memorial Day party, called and asked if I could help out with some desserts for her mom’s Red Hat Ladies meeting; dessert for 20 or so. No problem; I made a huge Mary’s Special Birthday Cake and a Brenda’s Favorite Lemon Tart, both travel well and both feed an army.
The thing I had forgotten was the dinner party we were having on Saturday night for our new neighbors to meet our old neighbors and our “before the old neighbors” neighbors. What to make for dessert. The new neighbor stopped by as I was icing the Red Hat Ladies chocolate cake and it became immediately obvious he was a big fan of chocolate icing. That solved part of the equation, make a Flourless Chocolate Cake, but what to make that was lighter and easier on the waistline. I baked some pears to serve with honey and blue cheese but the winner was the Lemon Italian Ice.
As I was a little busy in the kitchen I welcomed a dessert that basically requires mixing frozen lemonade with water and placing it in an ice cream freezer. This is the perfect dessert when you are looking for something different, not expensive, easy to make and always a crowd pleaser.
Give this a try on a hot summer’s night.
Lemon Italian Ice
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 6 |
| Category: | Dessert |
| Meal: | Easy Comfort (Quick Meals Planner) |
| 1 | 12 oz can | lemonade |
| 20 | oz | water |
Place frozen (but softened) lemonade in an ice cream maker, add water and turn on for about 20 minutes until fluffy and white. Serve immediately or re-freeze in a separate container until needed, Thaw sightly before serving, Scape lemon ice with a spoon and layer in a bowl or glass.
Is your temperature really what you think it is? – A Helpful Rant
As frequent readers will know we moved just before the New Year. Setting up the new kitchen, getting things where I want them, getting a “good flow” of movement has been a building process. Sometimes it’s the little things we miss.
This weekend I was responsible for the desserts at a neighborhood picnic. I settled on Croissant Bread Pudding and Hazelnut Toffee Cheesecake, as both are great and serve a ton of people. Baking the desserts seemed to take longer than it should have. I should have looked into the reason why but rushed through and they came out great, although taking longer and requiring me to constantly check on them.
I should have remembered installing a new oven for my mother-in-law a few years ago. Visiting months after the install she said her recipes were taking a longer time to bake. I cooked some David Lee Shrimp ((From the Appetizer Collection at emealsforyou.com) and they seemed to take forever to bake. Pulling an oven temperature gauge from her closet I found her oven to be off by about 25 degrees. The fix was an easy one, the manual instructed me to push these buttons in sequence then that button to raise the temp and it is fixed.
Back to my problem. When the light bulb in my brain went off I simply checked the real oven temp, hence the picture of the gauge above, and found my oven was off by 10 percent. That means that my desserts, requiring 350 degrees, were baking away at only 315 degrees. The bottom line is for a few bucks you can check your oven and perhaps save time when baking or at least have piece of mind that what you set your temp to is actually the temperature in the oven.
Here’s the Hazelnut Toffee Cheesecake recipe.
Hazelnut Toffee Cheesecake
| Complexity: | Easy |
| Serves: | 12 |
| Category: | Dessert |
| Meal: | N/A |
| 0.5 | cup | sugar, brown |
| 1.5 | cup | hazelnuts, ground |
| 2 | oz | bourbon, Jack Daniels |
| 8 | Tb | butter, salted |
| 8 | large | egg |
| 4 | large | egg, whites |
| 2 | cup | sugar, white |
| 2 | tsp | vanilla |
| 48 | oz | cream cheese |
| 2 | cup | heathbar bits |
Have everything at room temperature. Combine brown sugar, bourbon, nuts and butter, spread evenly on bottom of spring- form pan. In a food processor mix everything except the toffee together until very smooth. Stir in toffee. Pour into spring form pan, place on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Turn off oven and let cheesecake sit ( in oven) for 1 hour.
This is best if made the day before and refrigerated over night.
This recipe serves at least 12.
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