Desserts

My daughter Eimile picked out this recipe from a food blog. We used a Griswold #1 gem pan instead of the mini tart pans. They don't come out quite as pretty as when you use the mini tart pans, but we were really happy how they turned out. The shortbread crust is the way to go, and making the lemon curd from scratch is well worth the effort! 

I grew up spending my summers on the beach in Capitola, California. One summer I slept on the beach for 66 days in a row. Campfires on the beach were a nightly occurrence, and s'mores were a staple while hanging out by the fire. Regrettably, I don't sleep on the beach much anymore, but I can still bust out my cast iron skillet and make s'mores in my kitchen. This is an easy recipe as long as you keep an eye on the marshmallows and don't let them burn!

We had a Christmas party a few years ago, and someone brought a chocolate pecan pie. It rocked my world. I ended up casually moving it away from the other deserts so no one would eat it. I must have eaten three pieces that night.

I recently scored a nice cast iron loaf pan the other day, and I couldn't wait to get home and try it out with my banana bread recipe. My mom used to make banana bread all the time when I was a kid. I jazzed up her recipe a few years ago for my kids by adding chocolate chips.

This is another family recipe. Looking at the ingredients, I don't think it's a very old one! My mom learned this from her late sister Peggy. All you have to do is combine the ingredients, pour the batter into a loaf pan, and bake it in the oven. It doesn't get any easier than that! 

I ran across this recipe on Cooks.com as I was researching traditional gem pan recipes rom the 1860's. This quick and easy recipe was perfect for my Griswold #1 gem pan. 

I came up with this recipe based on the Blueberry Gem Muffins recipe. I substituted lemon zest and Meyers lemon juice, but couldn’t bring myself to take out the blueberries. Lemons and blueberries just seem to go together. 

Over the holiday's, my daughter Eimile was home from college and pushed hard for this recipe. It took a few tries to adapt this recipe to cast iron, but we eventually got it right.  A perfect recipe for my Wagner #2 3-cup muffin pan!

In summer, many of the farms on the north coast of California, sell big flats of perfectly ripe strawberries fresh from the fields. I use my #8 10 inch Griswold large logo skillet for this recipe.

I grew up eating this cake at family gatherings. Besides loving the cake, I also remember the unusual looking bundt cake pan with the hole in the middle of it. Bundt pans are actually an Americanized version of a German “bundkuchen” (group cake) pan, served at gatherings in Germany. 

This is the recipe that was famously entered by Ella Helfrich in 1966 at the annual Pillsbury Bake Off. She used a bundt pan to bake her ‘Tunnel of Fudge’ recipe. This cake mysteriously develops a "tunnel of fudge" filling as it bakes. She came in second, but her recipe was so popular, it created the market for bundt pans. Nordic Ware received more than 200,000 orders for bundt pans within days of the competition. I bake this cake using a Griswold 965 "traditional style" bailed handle cast iron Bundt pan for this cake.

Apple cider bundt cake is the BEST fall bundt cake! Simple and delicious, this easy spiced apple bundt cake tastes like the apple cider doughnuts I used to eat when I lived in the midwest. I use my Wagner "B Mold" traditional style Bundt pan for this recipe.

This cake is a delicious clone of the dense rum cakes you’ll find in Italian-American markets during the holidays. I use the same Myers's dark rum I use in my other Caribbean recipes/ The rum creates an incredibly moist texture and rich flavor that is deeply satisfying.

This recipe is adapted from “The Silver Palate Cookbook,” written by Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso. The ingredients for this decadent chocolate cake take hardly any time to whip together, and it bakes in a cast iron Bundt pan for under an hour. Finish it off with a chocolate buttercream frosting or a chocolate ganache.

The “Kaisergugelhupf” cake was named after the favorite cake of Emperor Franz Joseph I. The story goes that Franz Josef would regularly visit his mistress in the mornings. She would serve him a freshly baked Gugelhupf, which she prepared from a family recipe. As a backup in case her cake failed, she also ordered an extra gugelhupf from the local pastry shop. This “reserve Gugelhupf” became known as the “Kaisergugelhupf.”  Of course use my German “Royal King” gugelhupf pan from Gottbill sel Erben for this recipe!