Desserts

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Spray cooking spray on whoopie pie pan.

Add Brown Sugar, Vegetable Oil, Pumpkin, Eggs and Vanilla to a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon, until they become one.

Add the Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves and Salt and stir again.

Add the Baking Powder and Baking Soda and stir.

Add half of the Flour and combine until you can no longer see the Flour, then add the 2nd half and do the same.

Drop 1 heaping teaspoon full into each of the slots on the whoopie pie pan.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, careful not to over bake these.

Remove from the oven, wait 5 minutes and then using a mini-offset spatula or a butter knife, gently pop the cakes out of the pan and put on a cooling rack. Repeat until you use all of the batter.

Now make the filling by using an electric mixer to beat the Butter and Cream Cheese together in a big bowl until smooth and combined.

Add the one cup of the Confections sugar and combine, then add the 2nd cup and combine.

Add the Milk and then the last cup of Confectioners sugar, Vanilla and Cardamom and combine.

To assemble the whoopie pies, make sure the cakes have completely cooled and then spread about 1 Tablespoon of frosting on the bottom of one of the cakes, and then place another cake on top of the frosting, making a sandwich.

I lay these on their sides once they are assembled, to store put in an air-tight container, do not refrigerate.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Peel, core and slice the apples (see photo below for size of apple slices.)

Place apple slices in a bowl with the citrus juices, zest, 1/2 cup sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Roll out the pie dough for the bottom of the pie and place it in 9 inch pie pan.

Now put all the apple slices with the spices, juices and all into the pie crust.

Time to make the Cinnamon Roll topping: roll out another pie crust.

Sprinkle the 2 Tbsp Sugar and 2 tsp of Cinnamon evenly across the pie dough.

Roll the pie dough up like a jelly roll. (See photos below.)

Wrap the roll in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Take the roll out of the fridge, and unwrap it.

Using a sharp knife, cut the roll into thin slices, and voila! Mini cinnamon rolls.

Place the cinnamon rolls, one by one, on top of the pie until it's covered. You want there to be some spaces to let the steam escape. (I left a little hole in the middle.)

Using the beaten egg, brush all of the cinnamon rolls and any exposed crust with the egg wash.

Place the pie on a cookie sheet (to catch any drippings) and bake for 1 hour, the crust will be golden brown and the juices will be bubbling out. Serve warm with my Vanilla Cinnamon Whipped Cream.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a 18x13 half sheet pan with parchment paper, if any of the sides of the pan are not covered by the parchment, grease them with butter.

In your mixer, add Butter and Sugar and beat together until creamy.

Add the Eggs and Almond Extract and beat until creamy.

Add Baking Powder, and Salt until just combined.

Add half of the Flour and beat until just combined.

Add half the Milk and combine.

Add the rest of the flour and then the rest of the milk.

Beat just until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl one time.

Spread the batter out in the sheet pan, on top of the parchment paper.

Peel, core, & slice the apples into thin slices.

Arrange the slices in four rows down the length of the pan, slightly layering them on top of the one before and then lightly push them down into the batter with your fingers.

To make the topping, mix the Brown sugar, Flour, and Cinnamon together.

Mash the softened Butter and Almond Extract into the topping with your hands until combined and crumbly.

Sprinkle the topping evenly over the apples.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let cool and then cut into slices to serve.

Pour milk and cream in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

Remove the saucepan from the heat.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and the salt together in a heatproof bowl with an electric hand mixer until pale yellow.

Bring the temperature of the egg mixture up by ladling a little of the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture, and mix fully into eggs. Then ladle in a little more of the hot milk and mix again.

Lastly, pour the entire egg/milk mixture to the saucepan and incorporate fully with the rest of the milk.

Bring the heat back to medium, stirring constantly with wooden spoon, until the custard reaches 195°F on a thermometer.

Immediately turn off the heat and then strain the custard through a fine mesh strainer into a new heatproof bowl.

Chill the entire bowl over an ice bath (which means putting your bowl into an even bigger bowl that is half-filled with ice water), stirring constantly for 5 minutes.

Add the Violet extract and stir again.

Transfer to a storage container with lid and chill in the fridge for 5 hours (you can also chill overnight).

Before churning, add the violet food color. I used Wilton Violet Icing Color. Add a very small amount (just a dab) and stir. See if you like the color, if you want more, you can always add more until you achieve the color you want, but do it in very very tiny increments.

Churn the gelato in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

The gelato will still be soft and will need to go into the freezer for about 8 hours (or overnight).

I served mine with some fresh violets (that I found at my local Stop n Shop) and it really makes a beautiful presentation with minimal effort.

Pour Heavy Cream into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high speed.

Once it becomes a little thicker, gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat it all together, until all sugar is combined.

Keep beating the cream until the whipped cream can form stiff peaks (about 1 Minute) when you pull the beaters out. (You can stop beating the cream to test this.)

Then add Vanilla and Cinnamon and beat until just incorporated.

Serve immediately.