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| Chocolate pecan perfection |
Once Halloween comes and goes, it's really not that long until time to make preparations for Thanksgiving. For some reason, it really crept up on me this year. That reason, while multi-factorial, was really because some friends had to move up their annual Friendsgiving/Thanksgiving potluck to accommodate a trip to Maui. So here we are at week 45 and I am making a Thanksgiving pie. Hooray for pie!
Given the hostess' proclivity for chocolate, the choice was a no-brainer: chocolate pecan pie. A perennial favorite for my Flip the Bird dessert table, making this for a potluck meant that I could possibly branch out this year while still enjoying a little sliver. There was a little drama that occurred in route when I placed the pie on the roof of the car while gathering my belongings. Yup, you guessed it, the pie slid off the car, but magically landed right side up on the curb with only minimal damage. Pie catastrophe averted. Phew.
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| Black pearl layer cake |
Week 45 also brought a 40th birthday celebration for which I'd insisted upon making a cake. After a little back and forth, we settled on the Black Pearl Layer cake as being appropriately dramatic and delicious. I was super excited to make this since I'd initially found the recipe over a decade ago and still hadn't gotten around to making it. This showstopper is my type of cake. Lofty chocolate layers studded with black sesame seeds and and indulgent gingery chocolate ganache filling, all wrapped in swirls of lightly sweetened whipped cream frosting. Well worthy of the original Vosges truffles that I used to save up for as a treat.
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| A slice of yum |
Finally, since I had some egg whites leftover from the chocolate pecan pie, I decided to give myself a bit of a technical challenge by throwing together some macarons. Green team macarons with lychee-vanilla bean buttercream filling, if we're being specific. I also tried out my new macaron piping tip (much bigger than the usual decorating ones) which took some getting used to. Overall, the macarons were reasonably nice and the flavor was as pretty great. I think I've finally got my macaron game pretty well up to speed.
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| Les macarons! |
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