Thanksgiving - Dessert

So, we finally (a full 2 months and change later) reach the end of the Thanksgiving meal: dessert. Last year, sis and I planned a delicious dessert and then forgot to ask the parents to stock the ingredients. Whoops! This year, we made up for that mistake in grand style. While sis and I are (obviously) great cooks in general, I think that dessert this past year was by far the best part of the day. We made parts: figs with goat cheese and peppered-honey and olive oil blood orange red navel orange cake.

Sis was in charge of the figs. These seemed to come together pretty quickly and easily, and tasted exquisite. This was the first time I ever had fresh figs -- man, they are delicious! These were a little crunchy, and the goat cheese and peppered honey added a sweet creaminess. I found myself wishing we had made more, as I only got to taste one!

Ease: 9
Taste: 10
Comfort: 6 (too fancy for comfort!)

I took on the cake. This was actually a fairly time-intensive recipe relative to what I usually attempt. I also learned to supreme an orange, which is not terribly difficult after all. It was actually pretty fun to muck about in an orange's innards and keep all of those lovely little juice portions intact. The cake was a huge hit -- it was dense and moist (sorry, y'all, but moist is totally an okay word to use when describing cake!) and tasted just magnificent with the orange bits on top. Everyone really loved it and kept coming back for more; I loved it especially because it didn't have that too-light sweetness of a "normal" cake.

Ease: 6
Taste: 10
Comfort: 8

I cannot recommend either and both of these recipes more highly. They seem super fancy but are actually reasonably easy to make (especially the figs!). They also go very well together, so feel free to impress guests with both, as we did!

So, we reach the end of Thanksgiving -- at last! Stay tuned as we move past T-givs into other culinary and crafty adventures. With our wedding just around the corner (3 months!), I'm going to start sharing some of the fun and personalized details we plan to include.