The overall view, before the destruction begins!
The Golden Cage, from The Cake Bible. A rich yellow cake, with and apricot buttercream frosting, covered with a caramelized sugar cage!
Actually, I'm cheating and using an earlier picture that came out better than the 93 one.
White Chocolate Ravioli with a Raspberry Puree Sauce, from The Joy of Chocolate. The ravioli are filled with a chocolate and hazelnut mixture.
The "Liver Pate", from the Cocolat cookbook. Actually it's a chocolate mousse with a coffee gelee on top, but it looks surprisingly realistic. Tastes a lot better though!
The Chocolate Cabbage, from The Joy of Chocolate. A spherical chocolate cake, with a ganache center, surrounded by chocolate leaves that are molded off of real cabbage leaves!
My own creation! Chocolate Truffles as a bunch of grapes! I even molded a stem and grape leaf out of chocolate to complete the effect.
Blueberry Swan Lake, from The Cake Bible. A white chocolate cake with a lemon buttercream frosting, topped with a lake of blueberry puree and decorated with meringue and whipped cream swans!
The Chocolate Pine Cone, also from The Cake Bible. By far the most time consuming of the desserts this year, as each of those petals of chocolate had to be individually made and placed.
The Chocolate Log, from the Joy of Chocolate, with Meringue Mushrooms from Maita Heater's Great Desserts. The log is a sort of jelly roll, with a thin layer of cake alternating with semi-sweet chocolate. The effect in cross section is very like a log.
1994. The theme for 1994 was "Gem and Rick's post Microsoft plans." I made lots of desserts that symbolized what we planned to do with our time. Of course most of that has since been preempted by the birth of our daughter Caroline!
The overall effect!
My chocolate castle, symbolizing work on the computer game I wrote, Castle of the Winds. The tower tops are chocolate covered ice cream cones, the draw bridge is a graham cracker, the arrow slits are slivered almonds, and the crennelations (sp?) on the battlements are chocolate mints! Oh yeah, the moat monster is a gummy worm :).
My kind of reading! A yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. The hinges and embossing are cast in dark chocolate, the pages are done with a basket-weave tip in plain buttercream.
One of Gem's hobbies is marbling paper, so I decided to marble some chocolate! The Queen of Sheba cake is a dense chocolate torte with toasted sliced almonds, marbleized with dark, white, and milk chocolates.
Camping is something we both enjoy, so I took Abbey Mandel's Boule de Neige (snowball) and redid it as a dome tent!
I'd been doing a lot of sailing that summer crewing on my friend Dave Cornfield's 34' sloop Far Star, so I decided to make a sailboat. I started with the recipe for a Chocolate Banana Charlotte from the Cocolat cookbook, and remade it into this! The hull is homemade lady fingers, and inside are rum soaked bananas, chocolate mousse, and whipped cream for the deck. The sails are royal icing on tulle (the stuff wedding veils are made of), curved into the shape of a main and jib. Some royal icing shells for waves and the dessert was complete!
I'd hoped to spend more time playing piano after I left, which unfortunately hasn't worked out so well. This keyboard is actually modeled after my synth keyboard, which is red (if not quite as wavy as this one!). Raspberry, apricot, and chocolate buttercreams on top of a white chocolate cake.
Gem loves to garden, so I had to work that in somehow. The roses on the sides of the cake are chocolate (actually white chocolate with red food coloring), and were quite tasty! It's a cheesecake with a chocolate flower on top. The petals of the flower are made by painting chocolate on the backs of rose leaves, and then peeling them off (veeeeeery carefully).
The aftermath. This year, only the castle really survived!
1995's theme was "A Dessert Tour of Europe." I placed a map of Europe on the table, with Indiana Jones style red lines leading off to all the different desserts.
White Chocolate Ravioli with Raspberry "Marinara" Sauce.
Okay, I cheated on this one a little.
Pear Apple Crisp with Cinnamon Creme Anglaise
1996's theme was "All those berry desserts I can't make in September." The reason for this was that the party was held in July for Gem's birthday, instead of for mine as usual. We decided with a baby due that week (who ended up arriving on the 20th), a party on the 28th was just not going to work! This gave me the opportunity to work with lots of berries you just can't get in September, so I had a berry good time! Unfortunately, we had a 90 degree heat wave that week, which made chocolate really hard to work with. Chocolate melts at 90!
Peanut Butter Truffles
Chocolate Phantasmagoria
From the Death by Chocolate cookbook.
This dessert was the biggest challenge. It's not that hard to make really, if the temperature is below the melting point of chocolate. I had to stuff it in the freezer to get the frosting to set, before it all flowed off the cake!
A yellow cake with honey buttercream frosting with marzipan bees flying above a honeycomb of chocolate.
Strawberry Cheesecake with a Coconut Macaroon Crust
Gem's Blueberry Nectarine Cobbler
Lady Fingers over orange bavarian cream and chocolate mousse.
A chocolate walnut rum cake, with caramelized walnuts on top.
1997 was the 10th anniversary edition of the dessert party. I foolishly decided to do a greatest hits party, with attendees voting on what they liked best from previous years. The result was that I ended up doing all the hardest desserts in one year! Never again...
Let's see. I had to do the boat, the chocolate castle, the chocolate cabbage, the book, the golden cage,
baklava, the white chocolate "ravioli" with rasperry sauce, a gateau grand marnier, the lutec, an apple pie (well, Gem made that as usual) and truffles. Phew!
The boat is one of my favorites. It's got a ladyfinger hull, rum soaked bananas for ballast, chocolate mousse, and a whipped cream deck. The sails are done with royal icing on tuille, and the waves are icing as well.
The chocolate castle, complete with a gummy worm moat monster and an edible dragon! The crennelations are chocolate mints, the arrow slits are slivered almonds, and the towers are ice cream cones. The drawbridge is a graham cracker and the doorway is candied ginger. Save for the flags on the towers the whole thing is edible!
Caroline's kind of photo album.
About half an hour after we cut the cakes. This is not a party to be fashionably late to!
1998 - "Desserts you can make with a 2 year old".
The original plan called for "Chocolate covered 2 year old" and "2 year old smeared with butter", but after a discussion with Gem, I decided to go with something more traditional. I did get rather more help in the kitchen than I really wanted.
The Spread.
Frozen Chocolate Mousse topped with whipped cream filled chocolate cones.
A wheat free cake! Gem discovered she's allergic to wheat, so this cake is made with ground almond flour. Yum!
Dave and Linda's Wedding Cake Reprise. This is the middle layer with raspberry buttercream and yellow cake inside, and lemon buttercream outside. For the full wedding cake see
The hordes descend!
Chocolate Caramel Hazelnut Damnation
This dessert, from the Desserts to Die For cookbook, was the hardest one of the year. It had a chocolate fudge cake, chocolate caramel ganache, chocolate caramel mousse, hazelnut praline, and a chocolate caramel cheesecake! I traced Caroline's hand to make the stencil for the top.
Caroline's birthday cake. Her birthday is the week before mine, so she got this Old Fashioned Cake with chocolate speckles in the batter and sprinkled all over. This one was from the Death by Chocolate cookbook.
Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake
Also from the Desserts to Die For cookbook. This had blueberries cooked inside as well as fresh ones layered on a sour cream topping. The crust is made from homemade citrus shortbread cookies.
Pear Apple Crisp with Cinnamon Creme Anglaise
Gem's big dessert for the year. As usual, it vanished instantly.
2000 - Highlights
This year I had a few vegans at the party, which left me the challenge of making a dessert they could eat. This is the 7 secret ingredients cake. It's wheat free and vegan, and still remarkably tasty. In fact at least one person said it was their favorite of all.
The Marjolaine. Three different nut cake layers, a couple different buttercreams, and studded with caramelized nuts. Yum!
Apricot Mousse Cake. Yellow sponge cake, apricot mousse and a thin layer of homemade apricot jello.
2001- Highlights
A return visit from the golden cage. Had a little trouble separating the cage from the mold this year, so it was a rather broken affair.
This is the same chocolate banana charlotte the boat above is made from, this time in it's normal form.
Chocolate Tuxedo Truffle Torte.
Two of my good friends from college made it out to the Dessert Party this year. Dave Lee came up from California, and Byron "Spike" Biggs made it all the way from the east coast. This is the Chocolate Spike in his honor.
Butterscotch Walnut Pumpkin Cake. This was one of the new recipes I tried out this year. Normally I'm not a huge butterscotch fan, but this was pretty tasty.
This year's theme was pirates! Mermaids, ghost ships, islands, you name it, I made it, we ate it!
Grand Mariner Island
Actually this is the Gateau Grand Marnier that I've made before, in another form. Still very tasty though!
A Golden Treasure
The everpresent baklava in a pirate chest. My friend Ben would probably kill me if I didn't make it.
The Compass Rose
Cheesecake with fresh berries and a pecan cookie crumb crust. My favorite cheesecake, from The Cake Bible.
The Map
The Chocolate Hazenut Torte from Cocolat. Made with ground hazelnuts instead of flour, with a bittersweet chocolate glaze and toasted nuts on top.
The Ocean Floor
White chocolate sand, with chocolate hazelnut and rum centers. Served with raspberry puree.
The Mermaid Lagoon
Inspired by "The Voyage of the Basset", one of Carrie's favorite books. White chocolate mermaids and a sea serpent lounge about in a blueberry lagoon set in an island of lemon buttercream.
Peanut Butter and Kahlua Cannonballs
Two kinds of truffles, with ladyfinger cannons.
Blackbeard's Blackberry Cobbler
X Marks the spot!
This dessert came from The Best Recipe, which has a great section on cobblers and fruit tarts.
The Flying Dutchman
A Ladyfinger hull, rum soaked bananas for ballast, chocolate mousse in the hold, and whipped cream for decking. Oh, and caramelized sugar sails!
The Ship's Wheel
The Chocolate Demise cake from the Death by Chocolate cookbook. Pecan tuilles both around the cake and layered inside between the truffle cake layers and the chocolate ganache.
Pirate's Plumder Cake
My mother and father flew out this year to attend the party for the first time. My mother, in addition to being my sous chef, contributed this delicious plum cake, which took top honors from quite a few attendees.
2003 – The “No Theme” theme!
This year's party didn’t really have a theme to start with. It was mostly just a collection of desserts that I’d always wanted to make that hadn’t fit any other year. Of course a few things happened along the way that added to the excitement. The week before the party, while I was loading my car to go to my daughter’s party with her birthday cake, I accidentally triggered the candle lighter in the bag with the candles to go on top, the napkins, and the paper plates. By the time I returned to the car with the cake itself, it was on fire in my garage. Saved the cake, but the car was totalled.
This led to the “Burning BMW Cheesecake”… It also led to my lack of a camera for this year's party, as that was in the bag as well. So the pictures on this page are courtesy of my friend Pete Duniho, who was kind enough to step into the roll of official photographer.
This year's spread. I'll mostly show just the new things below.
A nice closeup of Baklava
Chocolate Cashew Brownie Cake
Mixed Berry Cobbler
The Lemon Bombe
Banana Cake with Passion Fruit Buttercream
White Lilac Nostalgia
Milk Chocolate Orange Creme Brulee
Ah yes, how well I remember. My poor car. I had my friend Heather Smith, who's a trained firefighter, ignite the candles on this one, just in case.
And the inevitable devistation.