Desserts

Biscotti – Two great places to get excellent Biscotti recipes

Maria Vannelli’s Almond Biscotti recipe @ She Loves Biscotti website

Stephanie Jaworski’s Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti recipe (Joy of Baking) A great beginner’s recipe!

A terrific butter/oil-free biscotti

~ Classic Coconut Carrot Cake ~ Betty Crocker https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/coconut-carrot-cake/7d483bc6-f143-44e8-8c99-f7b481874380

I reduced the sugar to 1 cup and it was plenty sweet!

Linzer Cookie @ www.springerlecookiemold.com/recipes

Linzer Cookie recipe by Gingerhouse Springerle @ www.springerlecookiemold.com/recipes

This recipe is used with many gorgeous Springle molds, used traditional almond flour (Bob’s Red Mill), as well as All-Purpose Flour (King Arthur), and had minimal rising agents.

Melt Baker’s 100% unsweetened cacao chocolate into a small pyrex open jar set in a double boiler. I added just a bit of confectionary sugar, butter, and oil because adding fat to the melted chocolate makes it shiny and more liquid. 

~ Fresh Berry Cream Cake ~

This five-star Fresh Berry Cream Cake recipe was located on Sally’s Baking Addiction website. It is layered with many of the berries included in the Blackbird Cafe pies including blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Each layer includes the Lemon Curd recipe described expertly on the site. 

~ Holiday Rum Balls ~

My recipe below is adapted from the Rum Balls on this website, Australia’s Best Recipes

Ingredients

  • 2 cups confectionary (powdered) sugar
  • 1/2 cup plain flour sifted
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1 cup unsweetened crushed coconut
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped raisins (I chop these up in a food processor)
  • 1/2 cup of finely crushed pecans
  • 125 g butter melted (approximately 9 tablespoons)
  • 3 tbs Bermuda Black Rum (or other high quality black rum)
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  1. Mix the first six ingredients together in a large bowl (I use my Kitchen Aid Mixer)
  2. Add the next three ingredients into the mixer. Mix well.
  3. Let it sit for a few minutes. If it’s too wet to handle, add a little more powdered sugar so that you can make a slightly wet ball easily (it should be sticky).
  4. Make small balls the size of a rounded teaspoon. Roll in an assortment of coconut, powdered sugar, crushed pecans. You may need to roll them twice.
  5. Place them carefully in a tin can lined with foil. Drop leftover crumbs over them. Keep refrigerated.

~ Banana Bread ~ with toasted Coconut from the Meera Sodah’s cookbook,

EAST, 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Banglore to Beijing (page 273).

Before baking and topping the bread with coconut chips, I added a small layer of crushed pineapples to the top of the bread. Then I popped it in the oven. Once the coconuts began to brown, I tented the top of the bread with aluminum foil to prevent the coconuts from burning too much. During the final 15 minutes, I removed the foil.

As an after-dinner dessert, I served it with a side bowl of my homemade yogurt with a swirl of Vermont maple syrup. 

Simple Chocolate Cake that comes out great!

https://www.joyofbaking.com/cakes/SimpleChocolateCake.html

You can’t go wrong following the step-by-step video with Stephanie Jaworski. She does such a terrific job describing exactly what to do. (I did add freshly brewed hazelnut coffee and not the water to this recipe.)

The buttercream frosting by Heather from The Toasty Kitchen is a Whipped Buttercream Frosting recipe that is loaded with butter! Consequently, I frosted only the middle as well as the top and froze the rest. Hersey’s chocolate is sprinkled on the top.

Incredibly Moist and Easy Carrot Cake

Butter-free Carrot Cake that is EASY, beautiful, and delicious!

Soft and Chewy Granola Bars

Joanne and Adam Gallagher @inspiredtastes Inspired Tastes

https://www.inspiredtaste.net/21462/soft-and-chewy-granola-bars-recipe/ These granola bars taste great but they fall apart easily and need to be refrigerated.

~ Blueberry – Peach Coffee Cake ~

This recipe was found in the 1990s at one of Vermont’s local berry picking locations. The recipe card including the ingredients is located at the end of the slideshow.