Monday, July 30, 2007

Top 10 summer desserts

Top 10 Easy Summer Desserts
As requested, here's a list of my current top 10 easy summer desserts. They take only minutes to make, shape, bake, or chill. You might have to try all of them!

1. Ice Cream Pie
Buy or make a pie shell, fill with softened ice cream, refreeze and enjoy!
2. Ice Cream Burrito
Fry in butter a flour tortilla until it puffs, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, fill with vanilla ice cream, mmm.
3. Blueberry Pie
Buy or make a pie shell; if in a hurry, cook pie shell and make pie filling separately, add sugar to taste (usually 1/4 to 1/2 c.), a little lemon juice and 2 T. tapioca to blueberries and stir on top of the stove until juice oozes out, then scoop into golden pie crust, fantastic.
4. Ice Cream Bon-Bon
Scoop a small round ball of ice cream and roll in melted chocolate, refreeze, delightful.
5. Ice Cream Sandwich
Use cookies, sandwich with softened ice cream, roll in chips or nuts on the edge, refreeze and yum!
6. Ice Cream Cake
Cut a cake in two or four parts, sandwich with softened ice cream, refreeze. May be iced over the top, usually with whipped cream or chocolate sauce. Go-o-od.
7. Apple Crumble
Cut several apples into bite-sized pieces, add enough brown sugar to totally cover each piece (at least 1/4 c.), add cinnamon to taste, add a handful of oats to cover the top, cook at 350 until golden brown, crunchy and sweet.
8. Raspberry Sauced Cake
Chop some raspberries, tumble them with white sugar to cover each one, pour over white cake. Add more raspberries on top until cake is deliciously buried.
9. Fruit Ice Cream
Cut fresh fruit into bite sizes and stir into soft vanilla ice cream. Freeze only lightly 'till like soft ice cream. Lovely.
10. Fruit Salad
Use your favorite fruits and only 2 or 3 different kinds at a time to keep distinctive tastes. Too-sour fruits may be rolled in confectionery sugar. Cut to mouth size, refrigerate briefly until chilled. Nuts may be added for crunch or small scoops of sorbet. Cool and good.

The tricks for making a dramatic result are twofold: taste and contrast/visual impact. Therefore, pick ice cream or fruits that you and your guests really like, that taste good together. Contrast comes from different colors and textures. Therefore, chocolate and vanilla work well. If you want to keep it very simple, the ice cream and the crust in ice cream pie make a soft and crunchy contrast. But you can heighten the experience by adding other sensory elements of both taste and texture. Fruit and candy mix-ins have become very popular for exactly this reason. You can use any fruit or candy, just be sure to cut everything into bite-size pieces or even smaller, because some candies and fruit, including crushed rocha, toffees, strawberries pieces, and sauces like Nutella, freeze very hard, and will make the pie hard to cut and hard to eat. For ice cream pie and the like, use layers: peanuts, chocolate ice cream, thin layer of Nutella, crushed rocha, vanilla ice cream, rows of large milk chocolate chips. (See picture.)

Mel Baker is writing a cookbook.






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