As promised, I did keep up at least for another week–here’s this week’s dessert, 14-1: Chocolate Fondue.
Alas, there was no party to serve it at–it was a random Thursday (tonight actually) and just the two of us. But with a mini electric fondue pot and a pre-prepared fruit bowl from the market, any day can be fondue day. This, my friends, is the future.
We’re closing in on the 11th anniversary of this project, and if I ever have hopes of finishing it (which I still do), I need to figure out a strategy. I’ve spent enough time in my real life learning how to “professionally” manage projects, so I’ll apply some of that here and aim to knock out at least one recipe a week until I finish everything non-meat-related. Then I might just dump the rest online and call it a day.
You don’t care about any of this–you’re here to read about 15-46: Mousse Casablanca, right? Everyone wants to “jump to the recipe” already.
Blah blah something about how this is fancy and 80s.
Here’s the thing with this recipe–it seems too “kiddy” to be an adult dessert recipe, but is also something you most likely wouldn’t serve to kids (unless you grew up as a quasi-adult like I did). I’m not sure who this is supposed to be for?
I had high hopes of catching up on this thing in a timely fashion, but let’s face it–we’re all surprised I’m even still updating it all at this point. The 10-year anniversary came and went a few months ago without much (or any) fanfare, but I AM still here–just not as attentive as I used to be. Let’s face it–a LOT has changed over the last 10 years. No plans to completely let it die yet, but I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.
Anyway, here’s 16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake, which was one of two desserts I served for Christmas 2023 (XMAS 23).
Seemed Christmas-appropriate, plus it’s gluten-free! That doesn’t matter to anyone that’s in this house, but someone out there might care about something like that.
I had a goal to finish all the ones I cooked in 2019 by the end of 2020…not sure if I’ll meet that goal (EDIT: I did!), but here’s one more from last year: 16-49: Chocolate-Glazed Raspberry Tart. Not only is this from last Thanksgiving (along with 6-42: Turkey Pot Roast and 17-15: Cream Puffs), but I also made a version of it as part of a fancy Christmas dinner 12 years ago (XMAS 08) as well. Since today is Christmas Eve, I think it’s a good day to tell you about it.
When I made this back in ’08, I made 6 individual tarts instead of one big one–I was afraid it would look weird once I cut it, so I thought individual servings would look better. I had been watching a LOT of Top Chef at that point (and still do, but that’s the ONLY cooking show I’ll watch).
Since I had a few of the same guests attending as that Christmas dinner back in ’08 (and the same number), I decided to make the same modification this time. Usually I will reverse modifications when I recook recipes I’ve already done to try to honor the “original” recipe, but this time I decided to stick with it.
I often wonder when I “evaluate” these recipes if I’m biased in my ratings/attitude towards them because of my own personal feelings about their contents. If I don’t personally like pears, does that unfairly impact my review of 15-41: Pear Halves with Chocolate Topping? Probably. Just a thought.
I’m not a huge pear fan, so if you haven’t figured it out by now, pear halves with weird chocolate bread topping wasn’t my jam. But if months of quarantine have you curious about weird desserts from the 80s, read on.
Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s the final dish from Mother’s Day this year–only 6 months after the fact. Better later than never, I suppose.
You can find the other dishes I made for this year’s Mother’s Day under the tag MD2018 (there’s also last year’s MD2017). If you’re interested in a Simply Delicious Thanksgiving feast I did a few years ago, check out TGV 2016.
My mom always loves dipped strawberries, so I thought these would be a nice alternative to the mail-order/delivery ones you see all over the place around the holidays. Since I was also making 16-10: Strawberry Shortcake, it ended up being a very strawberry-heavy Mother’s Day. 🍓🍓
A few months ago, we celebrated Pi Day in my office. Most of the pies were store-bought, but I decided to flip through Simply Delicious and see if there was anything worth contributing. I decided on 16-11: Meringue-Topped Chocolate Pie–everyone likes chocolate, and we had had a mishap with the lemon meringue pie on the way back from the store while preparing the day before.
If you’re not familiar with Pi Day, it takes place on March 14th, which when written as a numeric date is 3-14 (at least in the U.S. it is–some countries reverse the order). Pi (the mathematical constant represented by the Greek letter π) is usually rounded up to 3.14, so March 14th is celebrated with actual pies (and a bit of math) as a play-on-words. 😂
No one really needs an excuse to eat pie, but “It’s a math joke” is certainly an acceptable one.
I recently attended a baby shower for a former co-worker and took it as an opportunity to knock out two more Simply Delicious desserts: 16-39: Apricot Tart and this one, 16-24: French Chocolate Cake. I wanted to bring something fruit/nut and something just plain chocolate, since some people there had nut allergies and others might just want something simple and chocolate.
This was a combination birthday party/baby shower (same person being honored for both), which will hopefully explain the odd decorations on my version of the cake. I’ve spared you pictures of the worst of my decoration choices, but let’s just say I made liberal use of all 4 colors of a grocery store icing kit. I kept meaning to hit a craft store for better cake decorations (or even Amazon), but time got away from me. ⏳
I went pretty cookie-heavy last year when I baked for the holidays, so this year (XMAS 16) I only included one cookie recipe: 17-20: Macadamia Chip Cookies. These ones got pretty rave reviews as well (17-42: Luscious Lemon Bars received the most accolades this year), and I definitely found myself sneaking a few before I packed up and shipped off everyone’s treat packages. 🎁
Simply Delicious is right about one thing: these cookies do make a great gift, and they ship well. Macadamia nuts are a smooth, mild nut that most people won’t be offended by, and the combination of white and semisweet chocolate are the best of both worlds.
Cold desserts are not my area of expertise, but I gave it a shot for this recipe. ❄ 15-18: Chocolate Favorites were a hit! I really just got a kick out of saying “Chocolate Favorite” when describing these little treats. 🍫
Bite sized pastries are the best! These two layers did come out as intended, a one-two punch of chocolate flavors. This recipe did indeed make me want to rejoice. 😆