Time for More Sugar!

With dinner safely in our bellies, and another round of dishes cleaned up and put away, it was time to move on to dessert. We had been prepping and planning desserts pretty much throughout the day, and it was time to bring a bunch of them together.

Stephanie early on mentioned that she wanted to make the Rosemary-Lemon Tartlets with Pine Nut Shortbread. So, early in the day she began with making the shortbread and the lemon curd. Now it was time to assemble them. Stef immediately demonstrated her culinary prowess by deftly rolling out the shortbread between two sheets of parchment paper, ensuring a clean, easy to use rolled dough each and every time. After a bit of rolling, cutting, cup lining, and baking, the shells were complete. Stef is also one of the people in the group that knows how to pipe, so with absolutely no instruction, she was able to fill the cups with skill that would make any pastry chef jealous. A couple of pine nuts to garnish, and the tarts were complete! Fortunately, we were able to get a picture of them before they were gone. Yes folks, those tartlets disappeared pretty quickly. I high recommend this recipe!

Rosemary-Lemon Tartlets with Pine Nut Shortbread

While that was going on, I decided to try to roll out and bake the dough for the Chocolate-Dipped Chocolate-Apricot Sandwich Cookies. Now if you recall from last night, this is the dough that resembled crumbly fudge, and it would not roll out. Well, we mixed in about a stick of melted butter into this dough (it was actually about 2 tablespoons short of a full stick), pat it into discs, and refrigerate it again. This time, it worked. I must say though, it worked in no small part to the fact that I used Stef's trick of two pieces of parchment paper on either side. This time, the dough actually rolled and did not crumble apart. Fantastic! It was into the oven, out of the oven, cooled enough, smeared with apricot preserves, sandwiched together, dipped in chocolate, and ready for consumption (well, ok, ready for consumption AFTER they set up!).

Chocolate-Dipped Chocolate-Apricot Sandwich Cookies

And then, it was time to move on to caramelized delicacies, and our second dinner.