Strawberry Chocolate Marshmallow Tarts

April 1, 2012September 29, 2015Leave a comment

Picture this:

Shortbread crust filled with smooth, sweet chocolate pastry cream

Slathered in rich chocolate ganache.

Topped with strawberry marshmallow peaks.

And finished off generously with a blowtorch.

And to top it all off, they’re individually sized so you don’t have to share.

Why yes, thank you, I’ll take two.

DIY cupcake baked alaska tutorial with chocolate, ice cream, and meringue

Baked Alaska Cupcakes

March 22, 2012October 16, 2015Leave a comment

When tasked with coming up with something delicious for a dinner party, I decided to make baked Alaska. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I was pretty sure it had something to do with meringue and ice cream, so that sounded good enough for me. I did some homework and decided to make the tasty treat in miniature.

Pretty little chocolate cupcakes hollowed out

Add in a scoop of strawberry ice cream (homemade, of course)

Pipe on the meringue and go crazy with the blowtorch.

They were absolutely delicious and everyone loved them.

Although, in retrospect, serving them frozen solid right out of the freezer probably wasn’t the best idea.

I suppose I’ll just have to make them again.

Carrie’s Dessert Table

December 8, 2011September 29, 2015Leave a comment

A few months ago, my little sister turned 18! Of course, a party was in order, and parties mean desserts.

Mini cheesecakes: chocolate oreo, chocolate raspberry, and vanilla bean raspberry.

Cake pops! These were super chocolately and, of course, covered in sprinkles.

Some fabulous chocolate covered strawberries.

Note the cute little tags. These matched perfectly with the invitation and the party favors.

Yummy chocolate truffles.

Super tart lemon meringue pies. Because they’re smaller they have to pack even more of a lunch. Some had a classic pie crust and other had pecan crusts.

These are so much fun to make and even more fun to eat!

My dad made this great stand for me.

Happy Birthday!

Dessert Trio

August 24, 2011September 29, 20153 Comments

Okay. Maybe I went just a little overboard with this one. But I had to practice my lemon meringue tarts and as long as I was doing one little pie I might as well do two and just add cocoa to half the dough. And the ice cream was made ahead of time, then I just had to try out my new digital thermometer for tempering the chocolate. And don’t they all look so cute on the plate?

I made a little lemon meringue pie. I used my favorite pie crust recipe and replaced some flour with almond meal and ground pecans. I rolled out the crust, cut 3 inch circles, and bakes them in a mini cupcake pan. They were the perfect size.

I made the other little tart using the same pie crust recipe, but this time I replaced some flour with cocoa powder. The filling was a sweet pastry cream with melted chocolate. I covered the filling with a layer of chocolate ganache, then topped the whole thing with some intensely raspberry whipped cream.

And the ice cream! I’m still eating what’s left of this right out of the tupperware with a spoon. I made a vanilla-bean cheesecake ice cream and mixed in some fresh blackberries. The cup the little scoop is sitting in was made with white and dark chocolate and hidden at the bottom of each cup it a fresh blackberry.

One teensy problem: I took these pictures during the afternoon right before the guests arrived and I thought the plate looked quite nice. When it came time to prepare each plate after dinner, however, I had a plating epiphany and started squirting chocolate all over the plate and marbling it fancily. Ergo, these pictures were taken indoors as I was rushing to prevent the ice cream from melting. Although I edited the pictures later to try to adjust the colors, I hope you’ll excuse the photos and enjoy the technique.