Holiday Recipe Swap 🌲🌲🍷🥂🥧🍗🎄🎁

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Share you favorite holiday dishes.

This is a showstopper dessert that I make exactly once a year because it is soooo rich.

This is complicated and a lot of work the first time you make it. Once you see how it goes together it’s a lot faster the next time through.

Death by Chocolate Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients
Pecan Crust:
1 C. pecans, chopped
6 deep dark chocolate cookies, crushed
1 tsp. melted butter, to coat pan

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake
8 oz. semi sweet chocolate (Ghirardelli is my favorite)
1/4 C. strong brewed coffee (I use Kahlua, because this is a recipe where it’s about going all in)
3/4 lb. cream cheese
3/4 C. granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Pumpkin Cheesecake
1 C. fresh (or canned) pumpkin puree
1 lb. cream cheese
3/4 C. sugar
2 Tbs. flour
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. all spice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 tsp. ground cloves

Semi-Sweet Ganache
1 C. heavy whipping cream
2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. sugar
12 oz. chopped chocolate

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9x13-inch round springform pan with melted butter. Mix pecans and deep dark chocolate cookies together and press 1 cup of the mixture into springform pan.

For the dark chocolate cheesecake melt semi sweet chocolate in a double boiler. Then mix melted chocolate and coffee together and set aside. Mix together cream cheese, sugar and salt and add eggs, one at a time, then add vanilla extract. Add melted chocolate and pour into springform pan and keep at room temperature.

For the pumpkin cheesecake, line a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment paper and butter both (pan and paper). Mix together the pumpkin puree, cream cheese, sugar flour and eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla extract, all spice, cinnamon, and ground cloves. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake both cheesecakes at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Turn off oven and leave cakes in oven for 20 minutes longer. Take out and keep at room temperature for 20 minutes. Put chocolate cheesecake in the fridge and keep pumpkin cheesecake at room temperature.

For semi-sweet ganache, bring to a boil: heavy whipping cream, butter and sugar. Add chopped chocolate and whisk.

Pour 1 cup of ganache over chocolate cheesecake and top with pumpkin cheesecake. Put in the freezer for 1 hour. Take out of freezer and glaze with remaining ganache and pat remaining crust on sides.

Keep Refrigerated!

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I’m not a sweets person, but this is tradition in my family. (Also I am lazy.)

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Only two ingredients: whipped cream (real, not coolwhip dammit!) and chocolate wafer cookies.
Whip the cream, sweeten a little.
Layer the cookies with cream in a row, coat the outside with more cream, leave in the fridge over night, cut on the diagonal. Enjoy! :slight_smile:

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peppermint marshmallows

you need–

3 packs unflavored gelatin
1.5 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water divided
generous pinch of salt
1 whole vanilla bean
6-8 peppermint sticks crushed into small pieces (about three-fourths of a cup)

powdered sugar
cornstarch

stand mixer with whisk attachment
candy thermometer
13 x 9 casserole dish

put the gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of the water. have the whisk attachment standing by.

in a small saucepan combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, corn syrup and salt. place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes. uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan and continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, approximately 7 to 15 minutes. once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from the heat.

turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. once you have added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high. continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. scrape the goo from the middle of the bean and add the vanilla during the last 2 minutes of whipping. add the crushed peppermint sticks at this time as well. while the mixture is whipping prepare the pans as follows.

combine the confectioners’ sugar and cornstarch in a 1 to 1 ratio in a small bowl. lightly spray a 13 by 9-inch metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray, you can also very lightly grease it with vegetable shortening but it must be done very lightly and very evenly. add the sugar and cornstarch mixture and move around to completely coat the bottom and sides of the pan. i find a silicone food brush makes the process of coating the sides with the “dust” easier. return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.

when ready, pour the mixture into the prepared pan, using a lightly oiled spatula for spreading evenly into the pan. dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. reserve the rest for later. allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza wheel dusted with the confectioners’ sugar mixture. once cut, lightly dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining mixture, using additional if necessary. store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

if you don’t like peppermint leave it out and you get plain marshmallows. you can substitute a half teaspoon of vanilla extract for the vanilla bean if needed.

edited for spelling.

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I’m one of those who detests coffee, so I thought I’d share what I do with those cake or cookie recipes that add coffee to make things more chocolatey…

Instead of adding one cup of hot coffee to the mix, I add either spearmint or peppermint tea. After it’s baked, you can smell it across the room. Fellow mint chocolate lovers tell me it’s delicious.

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My dad had a story about his parents making eggnog from scratch. They were getting on, and as they were getting ready for a party, his dad came into the kitchen, and surreptitiously added some more brandy. Then his mom came back in, and, forgetting she’d already added brandy, added some more. Then his dad came back to add some whiskey. And so on. Eventually all that booze sort of congealed the whole batch through some unknown alchemy. Their solution was to press the clotted mass through some cheesecloth. Apparently the fluid that came out the other side was delicious.

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classic. but i will say i do love a real fruitcake. i made one 4 or 5 years ago (maybe more?) and i still have one chunk of it nestled deep in the back of our refrigerator. hmmm, perhaps i need to test it and see how it’s doing…

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I hear hikers are bringing it back. It travels well.

I learned that there is a Trappist Monastery near to where my dad grew up that is famous for its fruitcakes, so one year I sent one to each of my aunts for Christmas.

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:yum:

I had an idea way back to make a crystallized alcohol that I could carry around in little cello-wraps like candies. Add one of these to fruit juice or so, and instant mixed drink. Never got around to it though.

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Very convenient! Is it even possible?

And then there’s the issue of fruitcake in space.

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One thought: mix a bit of vodka with a lot of grape tang, divide into little cubes, let the cubes dry out. Dissolve the cubes in ginger ale.

Haven’t tried it, but when I do, I’ll let you know

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i would love to have one made by monks! they probably really know what they are doing. for the record, this is the one i’ve made, and while it was a bit involved, it was totally worth it:

http://www.thedomesticfront.com/its-fruitcake-weather-buddy/

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http://www.coffeecakes.com/assumption-abbey-fruit-cake.html

Cheaper if you order from the brothers directly. You get a card with their photo on it with the cake.

http://assumptionabbey.org/fruitcakes.asp

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Wouldn’t the alcohol just evaporate?
Grape Tang sounds interesting…

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Powdered alcohol?

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Now I get it. Microencapsulated alcohol makes a lot of sense.

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Alcohol doesn’t fully evaporate even if you dump it into a skillet on high heat, and it bursts into flame. Even if you flambé something, the flambé still contains alcohol.

There would probably be less of it, but whatever powder I’m using would likely absorb most of it. I’d basically just let it all clump together and then air dry. I wouldn’t put it in an oven or anything.

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I’m feeling rather stupid here. I keep thinking “but alcohol evaporates!” but of course it takes time.

Best rum cake I ever had was in Paris. The waiter served a nice yellow cake, then proceeded to pour about a gallon of rum all over it.

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I have had that same cake, also in Paris. It tasted like the lightest freshest poundcake ever, but it was absolutely drenched in rum. Good stuff.

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Exactly!

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