Dessert Cocktail Party

Hey there, y'all. I'm Paula Deen, and today we're in for some fun because we're going to skip the main course and head straight for dessert

A couple of friends of mine are coming around later for what I call a little dessert cocktail party, so we better get started

First, I think we'll whip up this lemon curd pudding with a fresh dollop of sweetened whipped cream on top

Next, it's Nacho Mama's Banana Puddin'. In fact, it's my friend Rachel's and it's simply sinful

Then I'll show you a recipe for the light and airy pecan dream

That's always a favorite around here. So forget about dinner, y'all, and just bring your sweet tooth

you know here in savannah if you know anything about us you know that we can be very decadent

In fact, sometimes we're just downright devilish, and that's what we're going to be at tonight's party

We're skipping the meal. We're going straight to desserts and cocktails. But before we start our show today, I feel that I need to speak with a wine expert

to help us pair our wines up with all these incredible desserts that we're going to be having tonight

You know, Margaret Mitchell once wrote that the blood-red furs of the North Georgia foothills

made the best cotton land in the world. But what she forgot to mention was that it also makes some pretty fine wine

And I couldn't be luckier because one of my dearest friends, Dan Baldwin

happens to run this itty-bitty winery down the road called Chateau Alain just outside Atlanta

And, you know, Dan knows more about my food than I know about his wine

So let's go see what he's got for us. Dan, what I'm trying to do here today is match up my dessert wines with the desserts that

I've prepared. And I'm hoping that you can help me. Dessert wines by definition are sweet wines including a port, a sherry, a cream sherry

and some of our muscadine wines here. Listen to this now to go with your wonderful wines

Nacho Mama's banana pudding. Now what would you have me serve with that

Well, we might very well have this Duncan Creek muscadine wine, or possibly even this peach-flavored summer wine

It would go lovely with that dessert. Why is that? Well, because the Duncan Creek has a lovely muscadine flavor

that is kind of a wild, fruity character that might even be described as tropical

and would go along nicely with the bananas. And the peach would not be too far off from that flavor also

What else are you going to be having, Paula? Lemon curd pudding. Well, for the lemon dish, I believe the peach muscanite would work very nicely with that

And the peach is actually not peach colored at all. No, it's a peach essence that makes that nice aroma. Smell that

Mmm. I think this is just perfect for the lemon curd pudding

Thank you very much. Glad you're enjoying it. Delicious, delicious. All right, now what can we do for that pecan shortbread

I have a very lovely cream sherry here that is both sweet and would pair very lovely with nuts

And the pecans will pair very well with this sherry. It has a nice nutty character all its own

Why are we in this sweet wine territory with our desserts? At the end of the meal we have very robust flavors

We have chocolate, cheeses, coffee, cigars. And some of these dessert ones pair very well with these flavors

Thanks again, Dan, so much. Thank you, Paula. Just enjoy it. I will

We've collected all our magical spirits now, so let's get our party going

This dessert that I'm starting with today is so incredibly good. The name is lemon curd pudding, and we're going to begin by separating our eggs

I'll never forget the first time that I made this recipe. I have a dear friend named Bob Christian

In fact, he is one of the country's finest decorative artists. He brought me in one morning a recipe

He said, Paula, you've just got to try this. It's so good. He said, it's one of my favorites

And so I said, I'm going to get right on it, Bob. I walked into the kitchen, made it, and we ate the whole pan immediately

I turned right around, made another pan, and we ate it too

It so delicious So we just going to beat these until they form soft peaks

See how quick we did that? Now we're ready to assemble the rest of our dessert

We're going to begin with sugar, flour, about a half a teaspoon of salt

We're just going to blend our dry ingredients in. and then we're going to add our half and half

And if you don't have half and half on hand, you can use milk, it doesn't matter

But I just like the half and half because it makes it just a little bit richer

You know, and another thing I like about this dessert, it's very simple and plain

but you have the ability to dress it up and it really looks like you've gone to some trouble

And we're just going to beat these up just slightly. So we're just going to mix those eggs into there

And now we're just going to add fresh lemon juice. And now we're going to zest these lemons

And this gives it such a nice bite. I would not suggest leaving out your zest

So we're just going to transfer that over to our bowl. And then we're gonna take our meringue now and fold it into our batter

And you won't believe when you take this out of the oven

This dessert is gonna have a very light, delicate, cake-like top. And then in the bottom you're gonna have this rich lemon custard

And I think when I'm through with this and you see it, you're gonna know why I made two

recipes back to back. Now we're going to put this into a prepared bowl

You can do this in a square dish or a round dish. I've chosen a round one today

And we have lightly greased it and we're just going to pour it

You can see it already starting to separate a little bit. You can see some of the liquid coming out that's going to make that wonderful rich custard

And we're going to water bath it because it is a little on the delicate side and we don't

want that bottom to burn or get too hard. So that's all we do. We're ready for the oven

now. We're going to put it in a 350 degree oven for about 35 minutes. And always be careful

when you're working with a water bath because you don't want your liquid to go into your

dessert and you certainly don't want it to slosh up and burn your hands. And I happen

to have another one in this oven. And you can see the cake part kind of floating around

on top of that custard. And I told you earlier, this looks very plain, but you can dress up

this dish to look very, very festive. So with this one, I'm going to plate it up and I've

just got to have a taste. And this is good served either warm or cold. But I love putting

them in the little compotes. And then you can sprinkle it with a little powdered sugar

and let it even flow around on your plate. That'll just let folks know that there's powdered

sugar somewhere in this. Now we're just going to top it with a little fresh whipped cream

I love fresh whipped cream. Going to stick a little fresh mint and a little lemon twist

You can see how I transformed this ordinary dessert into a fantastic dessert

I'm starving. Gotta taste it. I can see why we ate the whole thing

It's so good. I've got such a surprise for you in our next dish

It's called Not Yo Mama's Banana Puddin'. So y'all don't leave me

I have such fun when I make this dish. I can't help but laugh every time I make it

because it makes me think of my friend Rachel that lives in Jacksonville

Well, one day Rachel had been up to see me, and she said, Oh, my gosh, Paula, she said, I have the best recipe for banana pudding

It's so different from what we usually do. She said, I've got to send it to you

So she was true to her words. She sent it to me along with a note saying

Paula the original name of this recipe was called Mama Banana Pudding But Rachel said that when she finally got around to making it and she tasted it she said well it damn sure ain my mama banana pudding

My mama's banana pudding is not that good. So she said, I've renamed the recipe Nacho Mama's Banana Pudding

And I thought that was so funny. She went on to tell me that she had ended the day with a terrible bellyache

because she had over-served herself. Now, one of the things that makes this banana pudding different from your regular southern

banana pudding is these wonderful buttery chessmen cookies that we're putting in it

You know, normally you would use a vanilla wafer. Now if you want to cut up your bananas earlier in the day, you can

All you have to do is just toss them in a little lemon juice

And that'll keep them from turning dark on you. Because brown bananas really are not so appetizing looking

This is another real simple recipe, y'all. We're going to start with an instant vanilla pudding

for our custard. We're going to add the milk. And you can see that that doesn't take long

for it to start getting thick. So we're going to let that set for a minute

and it'll thicken on up. And over here, we're going to mix together a softened cream cheese and a sweetened condensed milk

This stuff is, this makes anything good. And we're going to take our very same beater

We don't even have to wash it because eventually it's all going to wind up together anyway

When you get the two ingredients blended, then you can move it up to high speed and really get it creamy

You can see how quickly now, just while we will blend in this, that our pudding sat up

So we're just going to fold these together. Great start. Oh, that's so good

I really love this recipe because no cook, no bake. Now this is the only thing that I do differently from Rachel

She uses a prepared whipped topping where I would be using a fresh whipped cream

So you can do either one there, whichever you like. And you don't have to be careful folding this together because it's not going to break on you

So we're ready. And you'll notice we're not even doing multiple layers on this

We just spread that out and then we're going to finish this off by just topping it with

another layer of cookies. Look at the cookies, they've got all kind of different symbols on them

You see the horses and the crowns. Look at that, it's got all the chest pieces

All we're going to do now is throw it in the refrigerator, chill it good and it's ready

to eat. Now I've got one here that's been in the fridge about two hours now

And I think that we're going to find he's nice and chilled. Yeah, see how he's set up

Let's see. Banana pudding is a dessert that is so unpretentious. I'm not even going to bother garnishing this one

I'm just going to dig right in. I can see how Rachel over-served herself

It's a great new twist to an old-fashioned favorite. And coming up next, pecan dreams

The last dish I'm preparing for y'all today is called Pecan Dreams

Pecan, pecan. Depends on where you're from. I'm going to start with flour and powdered sugar

Just going to kind of stir those together. I formulated this recipe with a buffet in mind

because I thought it would just be a great ending to a meal

and people do love it. We're just going to take a stick of butter

Imagine that. And an 8-ounce package of softened cream cheese. I'm going to kind of do it in chunks

rather than just throwing the whole bar in. It'll be easier to cut in smaller pieces

If you like shortbread cookies you gonna love this recipe And I do I love the crumbly buttery flavor that you get from a shortbread We gonna cut the butter and the cream cheese into our flour and sugar mixture

This is when a good man comes in handy, you know? You can ask him if he'll just cut this in for you, and you pretend to fan around the

refrigerator and be busy and working over there. And before you know it, he's done all the hard work

You can see how crumbly it's going to be. And that's all about shortbread

Okay, we're there. So we're just going to put this into a greased dish because you want to make sure when you

go to cut these that they're going to come out nicely for you. Now I'm going to just kind of work up my dough a little bit to make sure all that loose flour

and sugar down there is in there good. So don't ever hesitate

I feel like God gave me one of the best spoons in the world right here

Okay, we've got them packed in there good. And now for the pecans, toss them around in there

and then kind of press them down into your dough. Okay, we're going to put this in a 350-degree oven

and we're going to bake it for about 30 minutes. And the most important part of this dish

is to make sure it's completely cooled at the end of its cooking time

I have one that's already baked and this one's been out cooling now for about two hours

And it's very important that you be able to touch your dish without any heat coming from it

because we're fixing to dress this with fresh whipped cream. cream. And if you have heat coming from this, it'll break down your whipping cream and you'll

just have a runny mess all over it. So this is the most important step of this dessert

Now, I've already sweetened and whipped this cream and I'm going to add toffee bits. Now

this is found in the baking section at the grocery store. So it's going to give our whipped

cream a whole different twist. And we're just going to fold that in. And it's important also

that your cream be whipped stiff enough. And we're just going to scoop this right on the

top. We're just going to spread this over the shortbread. I do love whipping cream. But

I want to make sure that I grease my pan good enough so that it'll pop out

And I did. Look at that luscious shortbread. Can you see the layer of pecans in there

And then the toffee chips give your fresh whipped cream such nice texture

I think this is my favorite show so far. And when we come back, I'm going to share some hot baking tips with you

Just a couple of little quick last minute tips for you

On your lemons to render the most juice from it, personally I like to stick mine in the microwave for about 10 or 15 seconds

But if you don't have a microwave, just take it and just roll it, and it'll break up all that meat inside that lemon

And these little reamers are wonderful. It'll get right up in there and just ream that lemon right on out of there

For storing your nuts, it's very simple. Just put them in a freezer bag, press the air out of them

seal them up, and keep them in your freezer. These can go directly from the freezer to your food processor

You don't have to wait no downtime. In fact, these nuts can even last up to a year in the freezer

As you can see by my table, I've gotten everything prepared, and I've even got my wines matched up with the desserts I'm serving

which is the lemon curd pudding, the pecan shortbreads, nacho mama's banana pudding

and down here I have the lemon curd pudding that we dressed up from this dish right here

And you can see how yummy and pretty that dish is. I hope that all of y'all's dessert cocktail parties are a success

And until next time, America, best dishes from my kitchen to yours