Dessert Inspiration

A lot of my inspiration for special occasion baking comes from a few key places, kind of an 80/20 rule for Julie's culinary inspiration. 80% of what I bake comes from Bon Appetit magazine, Gourmet magazine and the blogs of Smitten Kitchen, Dana Treat and Not Without Salt and 20% from everywhere else. The magazines are nationally recognized and always filled with great ideas and beautiful photos. The blogs are written by women whose taste can be trusted, something I have come to be certain of after trying many of each of their recipes and reading dozens more. They are true flavor enthusiasts and they post recipes they have adapted, tried and tasted.

Recently, I was a part of another Supper Thyme, a bi-monthly supper club I started with friends. The guests and theme rotate and this month was Farmer's Market, for obvious reasons! My course was dessert and as usual, I looked to my favorite blogs for inspiration and most certainly found it. Instead of re-posting the recipes, I'll just link you right to the ones I made and tell you that they were AMAZING and I made very tiny adaptations. I opted for the more seasonal blackberries instead of cherries in the Brown Butter Bars and actually made them into individual tarts. I used heavy cream instead of half and half in the Brown Sugar Sour Cream Ice Cream. Other than that, I followed the recipes to a T.

The response to the dessert was just what any baker would hope for - total delight all around. I'm not saying that lightly either. They really, really liked it. Definitely a great base recipe on the tart especially - brown butter is just such a luscious flavor and one we don't experience often enough. Use it with plums, blueberries or apricots and it would be wonderful as well. I'll make it with pears for a Thanksgiving dessert. And then, as if that combination wasn't enough, I decided to make a little candy to go with coffee and Bacon Caramels seemed just the ticket. Honestly, it was overkill after the dessert, but there were very nice just the same.