The Sweet Stuff

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and family :)  I know I did!

Back to my friends-Thanksgiving!

Let’s get to the goods…the desserts!  Because I don’t like to change up my classic Thanksgiving side dishes, the desserts are where I can get creative each year. 

I may have disappointed a few with the lack of a chocolate pecan pie…BUT I had other plans :)

I’ll just start with my favorite this year…this recipe came from the wonderful Giada!

Profiteroles with Ricotta Mascarpone

Thank you Giada!

I started with wanting to make a cream puff but when I read this recipe I knew it was a winner. 

Puff pastry always sounded like it would be hard to make but I’ve heard it was easy and easy it was!!

I made the filling Saturday:

Ricotta+Mascarpone+sugar+vanilla:

The next morning I baked the pastry puffs before the Turkey needed to go in.  Profiteroles/Cream Puffs are actually very easy to make.

Basic Ingredients:  Water, butter, flour, sugar, salt, eggs

All ingredients except the eggs are cooked together on the stove.

Then each egg is added 1 at a time and beat in until the dough is smooth and sticky.

Spoon onto sheet pan, lined with sil pat or parchment

 

I smoothed out the tops with a finger dipped in water, then gave each an egg wash for shine

Puffs (in sunlight)

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Later on I got out the filling, sliced the top off each puff, and filled the profiteroles

The recipe called for a topping of Nutella + cream, heated together.  For me, the cream and Nutella were just NOT getting along well, so I heated up straight Nutella for my topping.  Just as good or better in my opinion!

YUMMMM the filling tasted just like a cannoli!!!

 

With my extra Ricotta, I was reminded of another simple Giada recipe I wanted to try…

The Ricotta Cappuccino

I had all the ingredients on hand:

The process couldn’t of been simpler…

And I finally got to use my cute set of espresso cups!

Delicious…I am so making these again in the summer!

My final dessert was Mini Pies!!  I love all miniature desserts :) 

Basic pie crust recipe my fam always uses:  flour, shortening, water, salt.

I chilled, and was ready to roll it out Saturday:

Rolled out discs, placed into muffin tin, lined each with foil and filled with dry beans to use for weight so the crust doesn’t puff up!

Brian requested banana cream and I was thinking coconut cream since I’ve never made it before.  Luckily they are VERY similar and I was able to make 1 filling for both pies. 

I ended up with an Emeril recipe for Coconut Cream Pie

Basic vanilla custardy pie filling…

Just before I added any coconut, I filled half of the pie crusts with a little filling, topped with some sliced banana, and filled to the top.

Then added some sweetened coconut as well as some I had toasted earlier.  P.S. Toasted coconut is AWESOME in yogurt!!!!

Then I filled the remaining shells with the coconut filling.

Later on, these got topped with meringue and toasted with my torch!

I dusted the tops of the coconut creams with more toasted coconut

Others brought apple crisp and pumpkin pie!

Hope everyone is having a great little vacation :)  Now we’re off to the in-laws for Thanksgiving #3 tomorrow!