I'm making this Sunday for my bridge group on Monday.

Charlotte Rousse

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin 3/4 C. sugar 1/4 tsp. salt 2C. milk 1 C sour cream 4 slightly beaten egg yolks 2 tsp. vanilla 12 Lady Fingers (the soft ones) split. 4 stiffly beaten egg whites 1 C whipping cream Raspberry sauce

In med. saucepan combine gelatin, sugar and salt. Stir in milk and egg yolks. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture coats spoon. Remove from heat, stir in sour cream and vanilla. Chill until mixture mounds slightly. Line 9" springform pan with split lady fingers. Fold gelatin mixture into stiffly beaten egg whites, whip cream and fold into mixture. Fill springform pan. Chill 6 hours or overnight Unmold on platter. Top with raspberry sauce: Thaw 2 10 0z. pkg. raspberries. Combine with 1 10 oz. jar current jelly and 2 T. cornstarch. Cook and stir till bubbly. Cook 1 minute more. Strain and chill. For really pretty presentation, add fresh raspberries to top of cake. Serve extra sauce with cake. Sounds involved, but it's a really pretty easy recipe and can be done the day before. Put sauce on just before serving.

eld ~ I am still chuckling over the directions in your post -- "fold in the floor". The mental picture is hilarious! I am definitely going to make your recipe -- sounds yummy. Thanks for the laugh and the recipe! =)

Very tasty and very easy. Use the best chocolate you can find. I usually use trader joe's belgian dark.

Molten Chocolate Baby Cakes

Otherwise you could make cream puffs. The dough is easy to make and smells so terrific when baking. Your choice to fill them with whipped cream...once had them filled with whipped cream laced with baileys irish cream. Or you can fill them with ice cream and drizzle some chocolate sauce or melted chocolate on top. You could fill them with macerated fruit and put in a puddle of melted vanilla ice cream. And they always look so pretty.

I don't make pastry either but I've made this before and it turned out great and delicious.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.justapinch.com/recipes/dessert/cake/eclair-ring.html.amp

I second chocolate mousse or pot de creme. It's easy, yet elegant.

I must be missing something ...and im not taking sides but for the life of me I can't see where Elmers post was belittling to Threejs.????

Red and white parfaits. Stir together sweetened whipped cream (with vanilla added) and sour cream. In fancy glasses, alternate layers of whipped cream mixture and cherry pie filling. Easy, delicious and very pretty.

stacy- Ina Garten has a recipe like this for Raspberry Eaton Mess. She has the ingredients laid out and her guests make their own parfaits. Fun!

Glenda, I have been wanting to make a flan, but since I have never done so am a bit intimidated. What recipe did you use for your flan, please. I would feel much better using a recipe someone has made and says is good in their estimation. TIA

No offense intended, 3js. Comments are opinions, I'm not sure what else to say. Do you expect everyone's opinion to be the same, or is your rule that only people who share your views should comment?

The last two Thanksgivings I've gone to, each a different medium size mixed group of two different families in different parts of my state, I noticed that the pumpkin pies went mostly untouched in favor of berry and fruit pies, ice cream and cakes. No one in my family likes pumpkin pie either. So to the suggestion of making small pumpkin pies, my reaction was, hmmm, many don't like that. If you do, great. It doesn't change what my own experience is. There was no need for you to consider a general comment to be a personal one. It wasn't so directed.

walnut creek, friend from Columbia, shared her recipe and I just searched for it and cannot find. Sorry. It was delicious! She's gone back home, now and I'm no longer in touch with her.

I've made THIS a number of times. I put it in a trifle bowl so you can see all the layers. The recipe is super easy, requires no cooking and isn't overly sweet. If you want to make it even lighter, change the ratio of mascarpone and whipped cream more towards the whipped cream.

mimipadv - Ina Garten's recipe looks delicious! Lots of good taste and textures as well.

Cream puffs filled with vanilla pudding (if using boxed pudding, whip up some whipping cream and added it to it) and drizzled with the above raspberry sauce is also very good. Place the cream puffs in a ring with the extra sauce in a pretty bold in the center of ring. Or, you can fill the puffs with ice cream. With ice cream it's last minute, with vanilla pudding you can do ahead of time. Meringues are very pretty and can be filled with your favorite ice cream or buy a Betty Crocker pie crust, bake it as for a one crust pie and fill with 1 pint of chocolate, 1 pint of strawberry and 1 pint of pistachio ice cream (mixing the colors up so each slice gets a bit of each, put pie in freezer to firm up and top with meringue, sealing meringue on edges of crust. Bake 1-3 min. at 400. Watch closely as meringue browns quickly.

The Eaton Mess looks fun for guests to dig in and make their own!

I've made this several times with my already frozen berries. It's beautiful, fast, easy, delicious and not too heavy - serve in stemware. 5 stars on Barefoot Contessa site:
Frozen Berries with White Chocolate Sauce

Thank you for all the suggestions! I am going to read the recipes over and see which one strikes my fancy. Forgot to say I can't eat chocolate, though (a tragedy I know, since I love it).

One more we love. It can be very beautiful/fancy if you take time with pear placement. This time of year I add dried cranberries among the pears.

Caramelized Pear Upside Down Cake

Yum! Isn't this a drool worthy thread?

Eld, I hope that you understand that mousse is a cooked dessert, not raw. The eggs start out raw, just as in all recipes, but are always cooked in the process of creating the mousse. They spend several minutes on the eye of the stove, cooking with the rest of the ingredients.

One of my favorite company desserts for the holidays is warm, spicy gingerbread with an orange hard sauce.

I was looking thru my pinterest for suggestions and this came up...looks
so good and easy - very seasonal. I haven't made it yet, but this might
be our dessert sometime over the holidays! Would be beautiful in champagne glasses.

Orange mousse with cranberry sauce

I meant to add that I went to the goodwill and bought a bunch of margarita glasses for cheap. Anything you put in them suddenly becomes very fancy be it pudding with fruit, or ice cream with topping or fruit drizzled with a flavorful sauce and topped with cream...add a few fancy cookies and you've got a winner. One of my favorites is vanilla ice cream with lemon sorbet drizzled with limoncello. Another from rachel ray is coffee ice cream drizzled with maple syrup and sprinkled with salted peanuts or walnuts.

Well they all sound delish to me!

Oh yeah another one was I cubed up pound cake and put it in the bottom of the glass and then added macerated fruit in grand marnier. What I like about a dessert like that is that it gives the blush of "healthy". :)

Super easy , very good , and it's pretty especially in a fancy glass dish.

1 large can of peach halves in heavy syrup

1 batch of graham crumble

Decadent French vanilla ice cream

And Praline liqueur !

Here's the recipe for the Graham crumble .

INGREDIENTS

• 9 whole graham crackers, crushed
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, freshly ground
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted
• Preheat oven to 325 degrees and grease a small baking sheet.
• Mix crackers, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg together. Add melted butter and mix throughly.
• Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes and serve immediately on favorite dessert.

Heat the peaches in syrup to get them warm add into the fancy dish one peach half and a little syrup .

Sprinkle on top some of the crumble

Add a nice scoop of the vanilla ice cream

Sprinkle a little more crumble , if you want to top with a cherry you can .

Now drizzle that wonderful praline liqueur around on top. Oh go ahead and have a little sip you are working hard !

That's it !

praline liqueur

Thanks, Rhizo, the recipe that I used did not use warm milk.

Roxanna, thanks, I corrected my typo.

Elmer, this thread asked us to share a dessert recipe for Casey's dinner party. I know you meant well, but ,people can be sensitive to your critiques. The question of the thread wasn't asking about whether a specific dessert is popular or not. Here we see the difference between how a man responds and how a woman responds to the same question. Take with a grain of salt. This from a person who loves pumpkin pie.

My mantra when I was first pregnant and being good about what I ate (eons ago)---Pumpkin Pie is a yellow vegetable.

My go to is coffee ice cream with creme de cocoa drizzled over.

That orange mousse looks like it would be wonderful. Everything does!

I ran across THIS RECIPE in one my magazines, a simple pavlova with a holiday spin.

My favorite is fruit pizza. It is not overly filling; easy to make; can be made the day before; and using red and green fruit (especially strawberries and kiwis) and strawberry glaze, it is quite festive-looking. And everyone loves it!!

rhizo - was reared on hard sauce but rarely see it used now. Will you share your orange hard sauce recipe? Many thanks.

Awww, eld -- you spoiled it! When I copy the recipe, I'm going to keep to the original, LOL. Always nice to have a chuckle in the kitchen. =)

There are so many good sounding recipes on this thread, my mouth is watering right now. I want it all. Maybe we can have an only desserts dinner for New Year's. LOL.

Thanks for responding, Glenda, about the flan recipe. Does anyone else have a tried and true recipe that can be shared?

Roxanna, let me know how you like it!

dandy, lots of possibilities with the hard sauce.

1 1/2 cups XXX sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 tsp. freshly grated orange zest (no white pith)

2 T. orange juice or brandy or rum or orange liquor or bourbon.

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy, then mix in the zest and liquid. Pour or drizzle over your dessert while still runny, allow to harden just before serving.

I'm leaning towards the pavlova but with raspberries instead of pomegranates.

Has anyone made a pavlova? I'm wondering how much it crumbles when it is cut. I've made meringue cookies before which are basically the same (baked meringue) and if I remember correctly they really fell apart when you bit into them.

you could make individual pavlovas. Then they will be beautiful for presenting whole on dessert plates- no crumbling. I have one recipe that has lemon curd under the raspberries...yum!

ETA link to recipes

oly, just had a Pavlov(a) experience. Saw your pictures and started drooling!

Olychick - can you please share your recipe for Pavlova? I love individual Pavlovas and have made them several times, although I like to explore different versions. I love the texture. I have a question - do you find that humidity affects the Pavlovas? Next time I am baking, I will be on the west coast, where it is often rainy. I might pop them into the oven for a while to thoroughly dry before serving.

Oh boy I'm drooling too. And starving lol

Oly, those are a work of art!

Flan is good. The recipe is easy but there is always a box mix that you could make and just not say was from a box. I know people that do that, just pretend they made it from a recipe. But when asked for it, they can't find it. LOL

Flan recipe I used was called Spanish Flan, given to me by a friend from Columbia. She made it for a potluck Christmas party, and was so pretty and delicious. She even loaned me her flan dish to make mine in. When I served it I turned it out on a flat crystal plate with strawberries around it.

Cherries Jubilee.......I typed out the whole recipe but somehow it didn't post. I have to get dressed now and leave for dinner. If you're interested, I'll retype. It's just a flaming cherry sauce over vanilla ice cream. Very easy....this recipe uses canned cherries. Also have a recipe for Bananas Foster....same idea but I think for Christmas the cherries are more fun (though the banana recipe is really yummy. Sooo easy!!! Let me know if you're interested.

Olychick I would like any pavlova recipes you would care to share, thank you.

I'd love the pavlova recipes and the Cherries Jubilee, and also the Bananas Foster, please!

Cherries Jubilee

1 1/2 tsp. grated orange rind 1/2 C. fresh orange juice 1/2 C. sugar 1 can (1 lb. 14. oz.) pitted bing cherries, drained 1/2 tsp. corn starch 3 T. brandy or cognac (can use Grand Marnier or rum) 1 qt. vanilla ice cream

Combine orange peel, orange juice and sugar in saucepan. Cook stirring over low heat until sugar dissolves. Add cherries, simmer uncovered 5 minutes. Remove from heat, drain, reserving liquid. In small bowl combine cornstarch and 1 T. water until smooth Stir into reserved liquid in saucepan. Bring to boil stirring. Reduce heat and simmer 1 minute. Add cherries, heat gently. Pour into metal serving bowl. In saucepan, heat brandy slightly over low heat. (Do NOT overheat or you will burn off all the alcohol and it won't flame...I know from experience) Pour over cherries and light. I do this at the table. Have your dishes of ice cream already scooped, and pour flaming cherries over ice cream. Serves 6

Banana's Ole' (a take on bananas Foster

1/2 C. butter 2/3 C. packed brown sugar 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon 4 medium bananas, sliced 1/3 C. light rum

1 quart vanilla ice cream

Melt butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cook and stir till golden brown, 3 - 5 minutes. Add bananas. Heat and stir until coated. Heat rum (again, gently over low heat. Flame and pour over banana mixture. Spoon sauce over ice cream. 6 servings.

Oh, no! I didn't make/shoot those pavlovas, just found some nice pics to show how beautiful the individual ones could look. I've made them before, but am not in the habit of shooting pics of my food! I've hung out here long enough on GW that I should think to do it, but I'm usually making pic worthy food when I have guests and just getting it to the table is tough enough. I did go back and link the sites where I found the pics; sorry for the confusion. When I make them I've used the Sunset recipe: Sunset pavlovas

Stacy, everything I've read about storing pavlovas says, "don't". But airtight at room temp after they've cooled, seems to be the best advice, if you must. Warming in the oven for a second would probably work, as long as they haven't gotten soggy. One site says she stores them in her oven overnight after turning it off (I've made meringues that way), but I think that would make them very crispy in the center instead of the slightly soft texture you want. But honestly, a crispy meringue with whipped cream and berry sauce, nothing wrong with that!

eta: this is the recipe I have for individual servings filled with lemon curd and topped with berries from Epicurious. I just noted that they suggest air tight wrapping and freezing the meringues if you need to store them.

Epicurious Pavlovas with Lemon Curd and Berries

Crispy meringues with ice cream or macerated fruit and whipped cream are fun and so easy and the meringues can be made the night before and just left in the oven particularly if you have a double oven.

Olychick - Thank you for the recipes. I personally love crispy Pavlovas with fruit and whipped cream. The flavors and textures are wonderful, although I have had guests express appreciation when I served the softer versions. Sigh, I love them all! lol!