Pumpkin Bombe

Just wanted to post this picture of something fun and tasty. The pumpkin recipe is my own, the cake recipe is not. And cake will work here, but the quinoa cake is perfect. It's rich, moist, and sturdy. 

Start with the bombe pan, I got mine on Amazon. Coat them with a layer of chocolate. Once it is set up, coat them with a second layer. Once they are totally first fill them with

Pumpkin chiffon

I made a little wellin the pumpkin and filled it with caramel. 

I baked a thin layer of the chocolate quinoa cake from Mel's Kitchen Cafe and used a cookie cutter to put it in to the right size to fit in the bottom. 

Then chill again to make sure the shell is firm to remove from the pan. 

I tried to remove them with the flat side up at first and stretch the pan away from it to loosen and I ended up cracking the chocolate. I found it was easier to have the flat side down and peel the pan away from the chocolate. Mine were stick from the caramel so I put them in muffin liners.

Old Fashioned Pound Cake

It was surprisingly difficult to find a pound cake recipe that someone hadn't tried to reduce the fat content in. And I certainly wouldn't want that! So like any  ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶  classic pound cake recipe, this starts with an entire pound of butter.

1 lb butter

3 c. sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

6 eggs

3 c. flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. sour cream

Pre-heat oven to 350

Mix together the flour, soda and salt and set aside. 

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until mixed. Then add the flour mixture and mix until thoroughly incorporated. When the flour is completely combined stir in the sour cream and mix until combined.

Grease your baking pan and bake at 350 for anywhere from 20 - 40 minutes, until the top is a dark golden brown. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes. Run your knife around the edges of the pan and flop upside down on a cooling rack. 

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I got 5 smallish loaves out of this, each one yielding 10 slices. 

I'm guessing the pan size was 2 x 5 or 6

We ate one with macerated strawberries and
sweetened whipped cream. 

I think lemon curd also is very tasty with the pound cake,

and lemon curd with strawberries and whipped cream is always good too

The other 4 loaves I wrapped in plastic wrap and then tin foil and froze.

Mint Cream Pie

We used to spend most holidays at my maternal grandparents house in Maryland. And my Grandpa always made Rum Creme Pie. I don't drink rum, or even like how it tastes (except Fannie May Egg Nog creams), so I changed the pie up a bit.

First I made it with maple. I made a crust out of the maple leaf shaped maple cream filled cookies you get at the dollar store. BTW I love those cookies. Then I used real maple extract and I think maybe some vanilla in the filling. It was really tasty.

Then I made the cream filling with just vanilla as the flavor and folded in fresh strawberries, and raspberries.

That was so good I made the filling lemon and folded in blueberries.

You get the idea. It's very versatile. So be creative. But wait, I have one more. I think it's the best one yet. It even won the Pioneer Day Pie Bake Off in my ward. Though in all fairness this year I made three out of the four pies being judged.

Mint Cream Pie

6 egg yolks
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 (.25 ounce) packages unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups heavy cream
2 drops Peppermint oil
peppermint extract to taste
green food coloring (optional)
1 c. crushed mint chocolates (York pieces, Mint M&M's, andes mints, mini chocolate chip)

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until they are light and fluffy and kinda a pale yellow color.

In a saucepan, soak the gelatin in water until the gelatin is no longer opaque. Bring to a boil.

Slowly beat the hot gelatin into the egg mixture. Set aside

Whip the cream until still peaks form, add peppermint oil and the peppermint mint extract to taste and food coloring to desired shade.

Fold the mint flavored whipped cream into the egg mixture. I found a hand whisk was the best for that. Don't use an electric mixture, it will break down the whipped cream and leave you with a runny mess.

Fold in chocolate candy. Chill mixture until it is firm enough to keep a bit of shape. Spoon filling into pie shells. Serve after chilling for several hours.



This is good in a baked chocolate oreo crust or a regular pastry crust with a chocolate layer spread in the bottom. When the pastry comes out of the oven I just sprinkle it with chocolate chips and let it sit for a while. When they are melted I spread them out.



It makes either two flat pies or one really heaped up pie. I use the latter. The pie pictured above is only half of the filling. I used the other half in individual mini tarts with the same oreo crust. It made about 8.

You can eat it like it is or if you wanna get fancy and garnish it I would use whipped cream or Swiss buttercream pipes and more crushed chocolate candies, crushed or mini oreos, chocolate curls or a dusting of cocoa powder.

Some other ideas I though up that look good are

Coconut - add a dash of coconut and vanilla extract in and fold in flaked coconut

Egg nog - Fold nutmeg and vanilla into the egg filling

I love caramel, though I am not sure what I would add to it to make it that flavor. Maybe Italian soda syrup as the flavoring? And then fold in some caramel ice cream topping just enough so that it swirls in but not mixes in fully? Maybe with some honey roasted cashews too...

Anyway, experiment, have fun, and let me know what you come up with

Icebox Cake

Start with

1 pkg. Nabisco Chocolate wafer cookies
Whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with vanilla

Ice one side of a wafer with a fairly generous amount of whipped cream. Top with another wafer

When done ice the entire thing with whipped cream. Let chill 8 hours. Slice on a diagonal so you see the layers.

Or you can check out Smitten Kitchens recipe for making your own wafer cookies from scratch. I haven't tried it, but I have a lot of faith in Deb over at Smitten Kitchen so I am pretty certain they are good.

I tired this with Annas brand chocolate mint cookie thins, and while I like the mint, the cookies get really soft really fast and instead of being like soft cake they just get soggy.

I found a more elegant way to serve this, here (scroll almost to the bottom)