You know this scenario. You’re invited to someone’s house for a get together. You flip over a dish they’ve prepared for you. You beg for the recipe and cross your fingers that they are willing to share it with you. That’s how I got this treasured treat from a friend’s family recipe archive. The dinner they prepared was delicious, but this dessert was over the top! (How I love it when people share and don’t mind at all if you pass it along.) So, I think you should rescue this recipe and make it your own! (Oh, and I’ve thrown in a recipe for homemade vanilla ice cream just for grins!)
vanilla
Lemon Angel Dessert
It’s kind of like the cowboy who swaps out his black hat worn in fall and winter for a lighter color or straw hat for warmer seasons. So it is with desserts. As we approach summer we tend to move away from heavier, chocolaty desserts to lighter, brighter treats, and lemon is right there on top of the list. Recipes for Lemon Meringue Pie, Lemon Chiffon Cake, Lemon Squares, Lemon Tarts, Lemon Mousse and Lemon Cookies seem to come out of hibernation this time of year and appear regularly at Easter buffets, picnics and pool parties. Then there’s the luscious Lemon Angel Dessert with alternating layers of homemade lemon custard, angel food cake pieces and whipped cream. Light yet rich, it’s the perfect make-ahead dessert that can sit in the refrigerator for several days and it just gets better as it sits. There are tons of old-timey recipes for Lemon Angel Dessert where the egg yolks are cooked and the raw egg whites are folded in, which is a concern to many people. So, I was delighted to find this recipe for Lemon Angel Dessert that replaces the eggs whites with whipping cream. (The egg yolks are cooked with sugar and lemon juice.) By itself, the flavor and texture of angel food cake is unmistakable, but when layered and soaked with lemon custard and whipping cream, Lemon Angel Dessert is just pure heaven!
Whipped Coffee and Coffee Cake
As TIKTOK goes, so does the youth of the world. The short, often dazzling video clips have hooked us on everything from dare-devil stunts to over the top recipes. As a recipe creator, I’ll admit I’ve been hooked and reeled in a number of times, and I’ve learned the hard way that many TIKTOK food videos are fabulous eye-candy, but lacking in accurate ingredients or technique. Not so with DALGONA, the newest TIKTOK trend. It’s whipped coffee that, with only 3 ingredients, makes the most delightfully luxurious, frothy caffeinated foam! The word Dalgona comes from the Korean candy made with melted sugar and baking soda. Whipped Coffee has the same caramel color with a powerful hit of coffee flavor. It’s so fun and easy to blend up, and my advice is to start with a delicious instant coffee or espresso. The better the coffee, the better the Dalgona. Also, this method works beautifully with sugar substitutes like Monkfruit and Allulose. It’s delicious over iced coffee, milk or a hot cup of Joe. I was thinking that you’ve gotta have a great coffee cake recipe to go with your Dalgona. Enjoy both!
Christmas Cookies
What makes this the most wonderful time of the year? Well, besides, glad tidings, family and the holiday spirit, it’s gotta be Christmas Cookies! Here are two of my favorites!
Watch my How To Video for Christmas Cookies here!
Swig Sugar Cookies
If you don’t want another cookie addiction, then maybe you’ll want to bypass this week’s column. If, however, you want to jump on America’s latest cookie craze, then you’ve come to the right place! Swig cookies, with their scrumptious pink frosting and craggy edges, are somewhere between a soft sugar cookie and shortbread, and they have certainly won our hearts! (To date, there are about 41 million search results for Swig Cookies on Pinterest. I’d say we are obsessed with these sweet treats!) The Swig cookie originated in Saint George, Utah in 2010 at the Swig Drive-by Drink Shop. Known for their signature frosty drinks and sweets, Swig has now expanded to multiple locations in Utah and several other states. The minute I heard about them I employed “The Niece Factor.” That’s when I make a big batch of cookies and drive them over to my nieces and wait for their response. With these Swig Cookies I got a text about 20 minutes later (before I even got home!) that the entire batch has been devoured. That’s good enough for me! I think you’re going to like these cookies. They’re fun to make and may even be worthy of a spot on your holiday cookie exchange platter this year.
Lemon Syllabub
Sometimes even the big guys make mistakes. I mean big as in TV GUIDE big. But if it wasn’t for TV Guide’s typo in one of its cookbooks, I may never have tried this recipe at all, and that would have been a bigger mistake. As it turns out, I now have a brand new favorite dessert and it couldn’t be any easier to prepare. I can almost guarantee if you love lemony lusciousness, it’s going to be one of your new favorites too. So here’s the story. Years ago, TV GUIDE produced the Celebrity Dish Treats and Sweets Cookbook with recipes from television stars who are also gourmet cooks like Barbara Mandrell and General Hospital’s Robin Mattson. As I’m perusing the pages, I come across a recipe for Lemon Syllabus. Syllabus?
Now I’ve heard of Lemon Syllabub, but never the latter. The best way to describe Syllabub is a creamy, fluffy decadent lemon mousse. The recipe has been around for centuries and it got a new life recently when it was served up on PBS’s popular series Downton Abbey.
I had never tried Syllabub before—it was never in my cooking syllabus. But it is now.
I’ve given you two different versions, both ridiculously simple. One is with apple juice and the other with white wine. Both take about 10 minutes to make and an hour or so to chill, and each has a wonderful, rich flavor. I just ask that you don’t let your guests know how simple Syllabub is to whip up. Instead, serve it as if you were a Cordon Bleu master chef. It tastes that good. So, that’s the story. From a “syllie” typo to a decadent dessert that I will now serve time and time again!
