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 is 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

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. 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 wines pair very well with these flavors

Thanks again, Dan, so much. Well, thank you, Paula, and 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 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. 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

I'm gonna 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 gonna plate it up and I've just got to have a taste

And this is good served either warm or cold. 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

And 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

We'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

It was called Mama Banana Puddin 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 Puddin'

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

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 set 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 gonna 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 chess pieces

All we're gonna do now is throw it in the refrigerator, chill it good, 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 and 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 the 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 eight-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 going to 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 him 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

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 bacon section at the grocery store. So it's going to give our whipped cream

a whole different twist. And we're just gonna fold that in. And it's important also that your cream be whipped

stiff enough. And we're just gonna scoop this right on the top

We're just gonna spread this over the shortbread. I do love whipping cream

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 bacon 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

Thank you