Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part four: pumpkin cakes
This is part four in my series of pumpkin dessert recipe roundups. I’ve already looked at cheesecakes, trifles, and bread puddings. And you thought pumpkin pie was the only thing you could serve at Thanksgiving! For this post, I’m turning my attention to pumpkin cakes.
Who doesn’t love cake? It’s really the ultimate dessert, isn’t it? That’s why we serve it at all the important milestones of our lives. You get married, there’s a cake. Baby shower? Cake. Birthday? Cake. You get the picture.
Pumpkin is a great ingredient to use in cakes. I love spicy desserts, full of cinnamon, nutmeg, and other classic flavors of the fall. These cake recipes all include these wonderful flavors that are associated with pumpkin and offer something different for those of you who don’t love custard (which is part of bread pudding, pumpkin pies, and trifles). Plus, just about all of them include cream cheese frosting. Is there anyone who doesn’t like cream cheese frosting?
Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part three: pumpkin trifles
I’m continuing to scour the internet for you, providing all sort of pumpkin dessert recipes for you to consider for your Thanksgiving feast. I’ve already discussed pumpkin cheesecakes and pumpkin bread puddings. In this post I want to discuss an option that may not even be on your Thanksgiving dessert radar: trifle.
I know I, for one, always think of trifle as a summer dessert, with its layers of cake, fruit, and custard. My siblings and I were obsessed with our mother’s trifles when we were growing up, always begging for her to make it. With layers of peaches, berries, pound cake soaked in orange juice (and sometimes liquor, when we got older), and vanilla pudding, they were (and continue to be) truly delicious. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that I never thought about making a pumpkin trifle.
Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part two: pumpkin bread pudding
I’ve been digging through all the pumpkin dessert recipes out there so you don’t have to! This is the second in my series of posts about pumpkin desserts, the first being about pumpkin cheesecake. In this installment, I want to turn my attention to one of my favorite desserts of all time (whether or not it’s made with pumpkin): bread pudding.
I love, love, love, love, love bread pudding. There is something so rustic and soul-warming about it. It’s the perfect texture due to the combination of bread and custard. Aside from that, it’s incredibly versatile. If you’re a chocoholic you can add chocolate chips, chunks, or sauce. If you love fruit, you can add just about any type of berry, bananas, apples, or anything else. Of course, if you just like bread pudding, there’s the great standby recipe.
Thanksgiving pumpkin desserts part one: pumpkin cheesecake
Thanksgiving is coming, and along with the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and cranberry sauce it also means pumpkin desserts! Yes, I usually eat so much at the main meal that I swear I won’t have dessert. If we’re being honest here, I’d much rather have another helping of stuffing over dessert, but at the end of the day, if Thanksgiving is about anything, it’s about gluttony (oh, and giving thanks), so there’s always room for dessert.
Every year I bring a pumpkin dessert to the festivities, because I know it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without something spicy and pumpkin-y to end the meal. Well, the first part of the meal, anyway, because later in the evening, the first round of sandwiches come out. In any case, I’ve tried to remain somewhat creative in my choices for dessert, avoiding the traditional pumpkin pie, and opting for something a little less obvious. Because of this, I’ve browsed through many recipes, and I want to share some of the ones I’ve tried and some of the ones I’ve wanted to try in a series of posts. This first entry focuses on pumpkin cheesecake!
The beauty of the Thanksgiving sandwich – Eat, Drink, and Be Snarky
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Hands down. No contest. I love all the food, the great times with family (without the stress of having to worry about presents), and the football. I love the turkey, the stuffing, the potatoes, the vegetables, the pies. I love it all.
One of my fondest memories of Thanksgiving is making sandwiches out of all the leftover food. In my family, we wouldn’t even wait until the next day, we would make sandwiches around eight in the evening, after dessert. It seems like in recent years, the Thanksgiving sandwich has become more and more popular, and why shouldn’t it? It’s delicious.
Is prix fixe good or bad? – Eat, Drink, and Be Snarky
Just the other day an e-mail found its way into my inbox, advertising the new prix fixe menu at one of my favorite local restaurants. Somehow, I’m always excited when I get mail like this, but I’m not quite sure why. After all, prix fixe menus sort of take away all the great parts about eating out. With a prix fixe menu, you don’t get to choose whatever you want, you don’t get to control what courses you are served, and sometimes you don’t even get to pick the wine out!
Yet, there is something really appealing about a prix fixe menu and all the things it does offer.
Pasta with an Autumn Sage Cream Sauce
Just this week one of my coworkers was talking about how she only grocery shops once every two weeks. She commented that she doesn’t really mind shopping, but she hates having to plan meals for two weeks. I think my jaw dropped when I heard this, and then I mentioned that I end up at Whole Foods 4-5 times per week on average. I just can’t plan ahead. I’m so bad that sometimes I’ll buy something for the next day and when the time comes, my mood will change and I’ll end up going back to the store for something different.
Tonight was one of those nights, sort of. I didn’t end up going back to the grocery store, but the plan I had totally took a back seat and something new was created. With fall in the air, I was inspired to cook something using one of my favorite fall flavors: sage. What I came up with was a Thanksgiving-ish pasta dish that was downright delicious … if you love sage as much as I do.
The pasta ended up having many of my favorite flavors from the holiday: sage from stuffing, the dried fruit of a cranberry sauce, and the unexpected crunch of walnuts. It really worked.
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