Following Thanksgiving dinner, my family offered up four desserts. We probably could have done away with all but one, but in my magazine reading for the holidays I came across two recipes that I couldn’t resist.
It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the dark, spicy pumpkin pie that my mother made when we were children. My oldest sister has taken over the duty, and for years she has made pies on Thanksgiving morning. This is really the only version of pumpkin pie that I care for. When she brought them in, the house was suffused with the scents of cinnamon and cloves, and it made my mouth water!
If you have a copy of the December 2009 “Southern Living” issue, one of the desserts I made was featured on the cover: Chocolate-Citrus Cake.” Actually, the making of the cake was a collaboration. I made the two chocolate cake layers (bittersweet chocolate with 62% cocoa solids). I also learned how to make ganache (which I assure you I will be making again, soon!), that was used as the filling between the layers. My niece, Kim, who is the family cake specialist, brought a vat of fresh whipped cream, assembled the cake and then iced it with whipped cream (in place of the 7 minute boiled icing). She decorated it with an orange slice and thin chocolate wafer cookies. It’s to die for……
Usually at Easter, Kim’s sister makes her famous iced sugar cookies. I’ve been the recipient of a personal bag of those cookies, which I really treasured. One of the kids begged for the sugar cookies, so we were blessed with a bowl of them half a year early!
I found one more dessert that I wanted to make: Pecan Pie Cheesecake, from the December, 2009 issue of “Cuisine at Home.” I put this together on Tuesday only to find that the spring-form pan had not been sealed and wrapped properly. Water from the boiling water bath around the cheesecake leaked in, and ruined the crust. I decided that I would try it just one more time, and started over on Wednesday.
The crust is made of chocolate wafer cookies, toasted pecans and butter. Over that, you bake an incredible cheesecake that has a quarter cup of bourbon in the filling. This cake can be made a day ahead. All you need to do to finish it is to make a sauce of brown sugar, heavy cream, butter, MORE BOURBON, kosher salt, and toasted pecans. Make the sauce before you are ready to serve dinner, and it will be thickened and ready to serve in time for dessert. Yummy!
We were all so stuffed after dinner there wasn’t much room left for dessert….and half the cake, and half the cheesecake are in my refrigerator. Oh, DARN! I really did try to get my family to take it home with them. I should count my blessings that I got to taste it at all, and not worry about leftovers! *G*