Everyone will think you’re some kind of culinary queen. Shh, don’t bother correcting them.
Thanksgiving is coming up quickly. Your mom may not trust you to make the turkey, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pitch in. Here are some delicious desserts you can make on your own that will impress the whole family.
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SWEET ROASTED PUMPKIN SEEDS
You’re in that post-Halloween slump, you’ve got all these pumpkins sitting around that you’re going to have to lug out to the dumpster eventually—why not get something delicious out of it? While most carving pumpkins aren’t sweet enough to use for pie, their seeds are perfectly good for roasting. Cut it open! Rip out the insides! (It’s really cathartic, actually.) Removing the seeds from the pumpkin guts is honestly the most amount of work in this recipe—and that takes about twenty minutes, tops (and that’s if you’ve got a big pumpkin.)
Ingredients*
· 2 cups pumpkin seeds
· ¼ cup margarine or butter, melted
· ½ tsp cinnamon
· 1 tbsp brown sugar
· 1/8 tsp salt
· 1/3 cup white sugar
*This recipe is for quite a large pumpkin, so don’t worry if you don’t have enough seeds. Also, you’ll need extra brown sugar/white sugar to sprinkle on the seeds while roasting, so that’s to your taste!
1. Preheat your oven to 300 F.
2. Wash the pumpkin seeds to remove any stray guts and dry. Mix them in the sugar-butter mixture and carefully spread out the seeds (in a single layer, if possible) on a baking sheet.
3. A lot of recipes I found end up burning the seeds to a crisp, so be careful! In the end, they’ll be in the oven for 45 minutes.
4. Remove approximately every seven minutes to mix the seeds (make sure both sides cook fully) and sprinkle on a little more brown sugar/cinnamon. Let cool and enjoy!
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BAKED BRIE
I can’t even begin to describe this recipe. It’s deceiving, really, because you just throw everything in a casserole dish and throw it in the oven, but heaven emerges.
· 1-2 wedges of brie (it’s to taste, really—how much do you want to eat? Don’t try to put more than 2 in a single casserole dish, though) (Also, younger/cheaper brie tends to be firmer, and therefore works better in this recipe. Go figure. Thank the cooking gods that inexpensive ingredients are actually preferable for once.)
· 1.5-3 tablespoons brown sugar*
· ¼- ½ cups fruit jam (raspberry and blueberry work really well)
· Slivered almonds (to taste)
· Really good bread. Like, go all out and get a baguette or something, though if you toast regular white bread it’ll probably be pretty good as well.
*I’ve also seen honey used in place of brown sugar. It’s to your taste!
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place cheese (rind and all) in casserole dish, spread jam on top, sprinkle with brown sugar and almonds.
2. Heat until cheese melts—it won’t be long, and it tends to vary on the brand of cheese used, so check on it every few minutes! It should be 5-10 minutes, though.
3. When it’s all done, the cheese, jam, sugar, and almonds should all be melted together in one casserole dish of deliciousness. Enjoy with your bread! Feel super classy!
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APPLE CRUMB PIE
My apartment devoured the pie before I could take a real picture, so photo courtesy of AllRecipes.com!
It sounds really fancy, but actually the crumbs let you mess up more than usual.
6 cups sliced apples—it’s about 1 apple to a cup, but don’t worry if you have too much/too little. This is the glory of apple crumb.
1 9-inch pie shell—you can make these from scratch (or buy mixes at the grocery store), but pie shells are just as easy to find! Plus it’ll save you a bit of time. Plus spreading them thin enough across the pie pan is really nerve-wracking.
Ingredients
· 1/2 cup brown sugar
· ½ cup white sugar
· ¾ tsp cinnamon
· ½ cup packed brown sugar
· 6 tbsp butter
· ¾ cup flour
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Mix sliced apples, brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl and spread evenly in pie shell.
3. Mix white sugar and flour, and then cut in the butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over the apples.
4. Bake until crumb mixture is browned, which, depending on how terrible your dorm/apartment oven is, could be 40-45 minutes. Just keep an eye on it!
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DESERT ROSES (aka roses des sables)
Alright, so—this isn’t a really common dessert in the US, but it’s delicious all the same. Plus it’s based in dark chocolate, which is a very autumn sort of flavor—don’t you think?
(This recipe makes about 25 medium cupcake tins, so feel free to halve or quarter it as you see fit!)
Ingredients
· 18 oz dark chocolate (approx. 12 Hershey bars’ worth)
· 6 tablespoons butter
· 1 tablespoon sugar
· Corn flakes as needed (approx. ¾ of a box—Special K makes honey flavored corn flakes that we thought went really well with this recipe)
1. Break up the dark chocolate into small chunks and melt it—very slowly! Chocolate burns easily!—over low heat.
2. Add the butter and sugar and melt until smooth. Mix in the corn flakes as needed—the cornflakes-to-chocolate ratio should be pretty similar to the consistency of Rice Krispies.
3. Spoon into medium cupcake tins. Freeze for 20-30 minutes. Enjoy!