Dessert Club - Secret Exchange

Here's how it worked. At July's gathering we each brought a printed recipe and slipped it in a manilla envelope. Shuffle, exchange. Then, unless you got your own recipe, you had to make that one for August, and no one could say mum.

But of course we all did, just a little. Mostly there was grumbling. It's interesting what happens when folks passionate about dessert are told what they have to make. We all bristled a bit. Our Dessert Club members are like one big Venn diagram. We have tendencies and preferences in the things we like to make and eat. Our palates overlap but none match exactly. Which is why this was a tough challenge for our club, and for some more than others.

At our meeting, we dished, we nibbled, we confessed, we hugged and there was almost some crying. There were some lessons learned, especially about the devil named Phyllo dough. Most of us ended up liking what we made more than we thought we would, having had a month to mull it over. And there were some dang good dishes. As usual we had a tied vote and had to go around again to come up with a winner. In fact, this time there were two winners - both the maker and the provider of the winning dish got copies of my new self-made cookbook "MUFFINS." (You can get it on Blurb here.)

Now. On to the goodies:

Lemon-Rosemary Layer Cake (I made it)

"Stephanie's Cream Cake"...gone terribly wrong!

Peanut Butter Nougat Chocolatiers
White Chocolate Decadence
Pistachio Baklava with Cardamom Orange Syrup

Molten Peanut Butter Caramel Brownie Cakes with Salted Caramel Sauce (I provided this one)

Apple & Cranberry Purses with Warm Caramel Sauce (I think this one got my vote)

...and the winner of the evening....
Banana Cream Pudding Brulee with Gingersnap Crust (so. good.)

Oh, it was a good, good night!