Calling this desert a "delight" would be like calling Shaq "sort of big". This thing was on hit legit.
The pie was a vegan take on a Reece's peanut butter cup: chocolate pudding mixed with peanut butter, and, per Dags' M.O., plenty of sugar. If he were to make that and just slang it out in bowls, it would've surely been a success. Alas, always one to outdo himself, Dags' wasnt done there; he proceeded to make a crust made mostly of pretzel bits, and serve the whole thing as an uber-pie, which went over extremely well with the Desert Day crowd. Even that Vegan-hater Pyatt liked this one a lot.
The lesson, as always: lots of good things put together makes a great thing. Unless you're allergic to nuts. (Sorry, G.)
[The side lesson: C'mon Pyatt, stop hating Vegan stuff!!!]
In the midst of a wintery wonderland, Jon sprung for a wonderful Lemon Meringue pie that was light and sufficiently tart, a real crowd pleaser. The meringue was definitely the masterpiece of whatever chef was in charge that day: light, airy, and a perfect amount of burning on top.
As if that wasn't enough (even though it was), Jon also brought in some cupcakes. Half of the cupcakes had little ballerinas on them, which was a nice touch. The cupcake frosting was pretty sugary, and would have been a definite Dags circa 2006 fan favorite.
Tristan presented us with a lovely, home made apple pie. We were all astounded to learn that it was his first attempt at it, and boy oh boy did he knock it out of the park.
Kind of like Daniel Nava, only if he was an Apple Pie.
A bit of a new years resolution that took a few weeks to get on track, my goal is to keep this thing up and running. The people want, no, DEMAND their desert updates, and gosh darn it, they deserve it.
Due to circumstances outside of any of the Fearsome Ninesome's control, Dude's Desert Day was unable to be held on the afternoon of January 21. As such, measures (not quite drastic, but certainly necessary) had to be taken to ensure that the people got the sweet content they deserve. And those measures were to institute the first (official) instance of Dude's Desert Breakfast.
Top Row: Dags and the famous Lowell Mug, Drew. Table: Box of Joe, Apple-Coffee Cake, Donuts.
America Runs On Dunkin, and on this particular morning, so did the Desert Day Crew (plus special guest Amy Shanahan). The breakfast included a Box o' Joe, a random smattering of Dunkin's finest Donuts, and some bagels. Mr. Stone Briggs (or rather Ms. Heverling) was kind enough to supplement it with a delicious Coffee Cake.
Frankly I can't believe I'm writing the first DDD blog post in over two months! It's an absolute travesty that nothing has been posted, because believe me we've had some delicious deserts in the past two months. I think I know DDD readers, and they've been dying to know about the frozen food aisle gems that Paul has been bringing, or the 42 key lime pies that Dubs has made, and of course the one of a kind gingerbread full scale replica Dude's Desert Day final supper that Tristan brought! It's been so long since our last post we've even lost a founding member! Farewell to Michael Salvator D'Agostino who is now a vegan and therefore disbarred from DDD.
Now I'll try to do my part by writing a blog post about my desert, even though it's admittedly half-assed. Basically, coming back from a 10 day vacation to see that I was responsible for desert was a little disconcerting, so I panicked and went to my local Trader Joe's. After much deliberation, I settled, no, decided on a delicious looking Berry Crumble Pie as well as a Lemon Raspberry Zinger Cake.
Forgive me father for I have sinned.It has been over a week since my last confession…no wait, I mean my des(s)ert day.I have not updated the blog within the pre-ordained 1 week deadline, so I stand before you (really I am sitting at my laptop) begging your forgiveness.Working in my favor is the fact that I actually brought in two desserts.
The week before my turn came up, I traveled to England for my Grandfathers funeral.I have a lot of family in England and several of them were nice enough to provide us with lodging and some delicious meals.Each of those home cooked meals was followed by a fantastic dessert.I had my first taste of Crème Brule (which was homemade and terrific), some kind of apple pie/tart/crumble (also awesome), and the most “right up my wheelhouse” dessert of all time; Treacle tart.
For those of you who don’t know, Treacle tart is essentially “sugar pie”.Being the lover of sugar that I am, I can tell you that it was friggin’ delicious.I decided that I would learn how to make one.Here’s how it goes.
First, you have to find something called Golden Syrup.I (actually my lovely wife) found it in the British section of our local supermarket.Golden Syrup is a byproduct of the sugar refining process.It has about the consistency and sweetness of honey, but not the “honey” taste.To make a Treacle tart, take equal parts of Golden Syrup and white, unseasoned breadcrumbs (1 cup of each) and mix them in a bowl.Add a small amount of lemon juice and a little bit of lemon zest (I used the zest and juice of one small lemon).Pour the mix into a pastry crust and bake at 350F for about 20 minutes.I left mine in the oven for about 30 minutes, and it was over done.There is nothing in the tart that needs to be cooked, so don’t worry about under cooking it.The gooeyer the better.
Once the Treacle tart was done, I became worried that it would not go over well with my very American audience.Therefore I decided to make a second more American dessert, Dutch Apple Crumble.Smell that?That’s irony.
Fortunate for me, the Dutch apple crumble also has a lot of sugar in it, maintaining it’s “in my wheelhouse” status.To make the apple crumble, you will need 4-6 apples, thinly sliced.There should be enough apple slices to slightly over-fill whatever pie plate you want to use (Pyrex or Corningware work best).To the apple slices, add 1/4 cup of white sugar, 1/3 cup of brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (more or less if you prefer).Stir up the apple/sugar mix and pour it into the pie plate.For the crumble you will need 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of white sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.Mix up the dry ingredients, and the “press” in a stick of butter (or in my case 1/2 cup of vegan margarine).As the butter mixes in the “stuff” will become a little sticky.Use your hands to press it together into small lumps and then break (crumble) them up.Pour the “crumble” over the apple/sugar mix and then bake at 350F for about 30 minutes.You want the crumble on top to brown but not get too hard.The apple mixture will boil and shrink, so don’t worry if the pie plate is over-filled; the whole thing will shrink.The end result will be a squishy on the bottom, crumbly on the top, pie plate full of appley sugary goodness.Enjoy.
So this time around I didn't realize it was my turn for desert until yesterday afternoon. By the time I got home, the bakery I planned on going to was already closed, so that'll have to wait for another time.
Anyway, I was out almost all night so I squeezed in a trip to my local Stop & Shop for a baked good or two. What I found was a special little treat called chocolate cream pie. Now, I had never heard of chocolate cream pie - only banana cream pie like on Sesame Street. But in the true spirit of Dude's Desert Day I decided to try something new (and hopefully delicious).
The chocolate cream pie looked like a pie crust, heavy pudding, whipped cream, and then chocolate bits and pieces on top. Overall, it was pretty tasty - and Denbo said it was 'delicious.'
Driving home last night I was running over in my head the various options for desert day. Could I beat out famous W's Key Lime Pie? Could I lay a smack down to some tiramisu? What sort of wizardry could run circles around the workings of Drew's Nicki? That's when it hit me...Bova's bakery has the workings of a serious competitor and thus was my only option for a desert that did not have the passion of one made from scratch. So off I went...
I first saw the sign in the distance with it's neon glow "Open 24hrs!"... you never know when you need a serious desert.
I was greeted by the friendly faces of the BOVA's staff...
And then of course the variable selection of delectable treats...
The selection was immense with the aroma of confectionary sugar and Italian pastry that was glorious and mouth watering. It was a venerable cornucopia of desert greatness. It was a difficult decision and with my car double parked I was leaning towards cannoli's...then I noticed the delicious éclairs on the bottom row. It was a toss up either way and I couldn't decide...but wait! This is America...and in America I do it my way, check all those boxes people! I'll take em both! And thus we had another great desert day... :)
