Just Desserts

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and you know, in my humble opinion, you can never have too much of a good thing

And in this case, that means dessert. Today, I'm going to be fixing a few confections that are just the perfect ending to any meal

First up is a decadent Charlotte Russe, and then it's on to my ooey-gooey toffee butter cake

And finally, my sweet Southwest Georgia pound cake, where nobody does it better

So stick around y'all cause today is like a dessert dream come true

So the first dessert I'm making today is called Charlotte Rus'

It's an old, old dessert that's been around for years and years and years

It's very much like a trifle. Now I'm going to put a fourth of a cup of milk in my saucepan

and while that's just warming up, I've got some water here, and I've got a plain gelatin here

and we're going to just sprinkle that gelatin into that water, and I'm going to let that bloom

We're going to take this off, and I'm going to add my gelatin to the milk

and give that a stir, and it's already thickening up that milk

All right, I've got that dissolved, and I'm just going to sit that over here, and then we're gonna move on over here to our egg whites

And these eggs are at room temperature. You always wanna start with room temperature eggs

They just work better. All right, so we're just gonna dump our whites into here

and then you'll wanna save your yolks for another dish. Okay, and this is our last egg

Alright, now I'm going to put these aside and save these for another recipe

Alright, now we're going to beat these until they form stiff but not dry peaks

Alright, that looks like nice stiff peaks. Alright, I'm going to move this to the side and bring in this other bowl

and in this bowl I'm going to beat two cups of heavy whipping cream, and I'm going to add

a cup of granulated white sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla. And I'm going to beat this until

it forms stiff peaks also, and then I'm going to fold these two things together along with

our milk and our gelatin and our water. Okay, this is starting to thicken up a little

All right, let me move this out of the way. What we're going to do now is we're going to fold in

our sweetened whipped cream into our egg whites. And while that gelatin dissolving, I'm going

to go ahead and start folding these two things together. And when you fold, you want to go

under and over. So to make sure that milk's not too hot, I'm going to pour it back into this cold

bowl and that will chill it back down. And that's fine. It's just, it almost feels like

the temperature of my body. So I'm just going to drizzle that through here and then fold

it in with the other ingredients. It's going to make a wonderful, gooey, sweet center for

our charlotte roosts. Alright, now we're going to make a mold out of this charlotte roosts

Well, I'm going to use just a glass pyrex dish and I'm going to start with ladyfingers

and I'm putting about three across the bottom and then I'm going to come in here and I'm

going to stand up these ladyfingers around the bowl and you want to make sure that you

that you fill in all the gaps because we're going to unmold this onto a dish

All right now I got some sweet sherry and I just going to take our sherry and we going to come in here and I going to brush our lady fingers with the sherry Alright now I got some wonderful strawberry

preserves. These are store bought. Now I'm going to put a layer of the strawberry preserves

down there. And you can see how that's coming along. Now I'm going to move over here and

get our cream filling and I'm just going to fill up the middle of these lady fingers

And then I'm going to top it with some more lady fingers and if I have to, I'll break

some pieces to just finish that. Alright, I've got it all covered with lady fingers

now and I've got a little bit more sherry left so I'm going to take that last little

bit and just dab on top. And now I'm going to take a plastic wrap and I'm going to seal

this up real good and I'm going to stick it in the refrigerator for four to six hours

because I want this chilled very, very good. And when we come back, y'all

I'm combining two of my most favorite things in the whole world

a gooey butter cake and toffee chips. So don't go away. Gooey butter cakes

We're back, and before we get on to that gooey butter cake that I was talking about before

break, I want to go ahead and unwrap our roots, because I had one that's been in the refrigerator

now for about four hours, and I'm going to go ahead and unmold this, and I'm going to

slowly tilt it, and let the air get up in there. Look how good that looks

Now I had some filling left over and I'm going to dress this with just a little of our filling

and I've got some raspberries and strawberries. I'm just going to drop some fruit around it

I'm going to come in here and fan me out a berry and put in the center of that

Mmm. That looks just delicious. And I'm going to sit that over there

Now, y'all have seen me make gooey butter cakes several times on the show

I think out of all the gooey butter cakes, just the basic recipe may very well be my favorite

it. And then I'm adding chocolate toffee bits. And you can find these in your baking section

These are just yummy. So I'm going to start with the base to our gooey butter cake. I've

got a stick of butter melted here. I've got a yellow cake mix here. I'm going to add one

egg and one stick of melted butter. Now while I'm mixing up this, I'm going to go ahead

and add another stick of butter. So that's going to melt and we're going to mix this

up and this batter is going to be real, real thick. All right, I've got our crust and one

egg and one stick of melted butter blended together here, but because I'm cooking outside

and using my little mini oven, a 13 by 9 by 2 wouldn't fit in this oven, so I'm doing

it in two 8 by 8 pans. All I'm going to do is divide our batter up, half in one pan and

half in the other, and we're just going to press this into our pan. Now we're going to

come over here, and we're going to make the filling to our gooey butter cake. And I'm

going to use this same bowl. I don't have to wash it. It's not going to affect the center

of our gooey. I'm going to start with an 8-ounce package of cream cheese that's been softened

to room temperature. I'm going to add two eggs, a teaspoon of vanilla, another stick

of melted butter. I'm going to get every drop out. And one 16-ounce box of powdered sugar

Now we just going to beat this up until it smooth Alright. And now we're going to add our toffee bits to this

going to fold those in. Now you can get toffee bits two ways. You can get the plain toffee

bits or you can get toffee bits with chocolate. Now I'm going to divide this center into both

of these pans. And I'm just spreading this out. All right. Now I like a little sprinkled

on top so when it bakes you can see that it's not just a regular gooey butter cake. So I'm

going to take a few and just put on top like that. Now I'm going to put these in the oven

It's been preheated to 350 degrees, and because of the sizes of these pans, I'm going to just

watch that. I'm going to keep checking on them periodically after like 30 minutes. So

I think I've waited long enough. I'm going to come in here and cut me a piece

Oh, that looks good. You can see those strawberry preserves. I just love the way this looks

It's got the different textures in there, the cream center, and the strength that the lady fingers give it

The next thing up is the Southwest Georgia pound cake. So I'll see y'all back in a minute

Our gooey butter cakes turned out really, really good. It's amazing how well these little ovens will bake

These gooey butter cakes look delicious too. Sometimes I'll use these to put in the center of baked Alaska

Oh, I'm going to try to resist tasting it and just keep those piled up there

They look scrumptious. Alright, let's talk about pound cakes. This is one of the favorite pound cakes of the folks that live in southwest Georgia where I was born

I was born in Albany, Georgia, and a lot of people over there make these cakes. And I'm

going to start with two sticks of real butter at room temperature. Now I'm going to add

three cups of sugar. And I'm going to beat these together until they're nice and creamy

All right, now I'm going to add the eggs. Alright, that's nice and creamy now. Alright, now I've got three cups of all-purpose flour

and I have a half a teaspoon of baking powder, and I'm going to give those a quick sift together

and that was bacon powder now, not soda. All right, now we're gonna add our dry ingredients

to our creamed mixture. We're gonna start with flour and end with flour

If we started with the heavy cream and ended with cream, it would almost make our batter look like it had broken

And I'm going to add a teaspoon of vanilla

All right Now I going to take a Bundt cake pan and I going to spray it because you

want to make sure that your pound cakes always come out and don't leave chunks in the pan

And I'm going to dust this with a little flour. We're just going to pour our batter around

And we're going to start this cake off now in a cold oven

And we're going to bake it for an hour and 15 minutes

you'll want to just take your spatula and level out your cake like that. Now like I

said, we're not going to turn our oven on until we put our cake in the oven. When we

put the cake in the oven, we're going to turn it to 325 by an hour and 15 minutes, and it's

going to be so light and rich and dense at the same time. I think the cook has earned

the right to taste a gooey butter cake. So let's see how they turned out. They look yummy

You can see the toffee nut and the chocolate in the gooey part of that. Mmm. It's unbelievable

rich. While our cake's baking, I'm gonna clean up and when we come back, I'm gonna

show y'all ways that you can take that ordinary pound cake and really dress him

up. So I'll see y'all back in a minute. I was telling y'all earlier that Southerners love their pound cake, but we also love doing

different things with it, like our toast, buttering it and frying it up in the black

skillet, where there's just lots of things that you can do with a pound cake, besides

just eating it straight up. Personally, I love my strawberry shortcake made with fresh

pound cake. You know, you can get the little cups in the grocery store that have the indented

center, and that's what my mama used to use a lot of times, and they were perfectly yummy

but nothing, absolutely nothing, takes the place of real shortcake. So I'm going to take our cake and I'm going to just pour fresh strawberries and that juice over it

And I want to really get that juice all over it to soak into that piece of cake

And then I'm going to top it with fresh whipped cream. And you've got the best strawberry shortcake you've ever put in your mouth

And another flavoring that I really, really love is the flavor of lemon curd

I just love it. Now, you can make your own lemon curd or you can do as I've done today and just use a store-bought

And I'm just going to let that lemon curd just drip all over that piece of pound cake

And then I'm going to top him with just a little fresh zest

These are just a couple of my favorite ways and I'm sure once you make that pound cake

that you're going to come up with plenty of other ways yourself. Well, did y'all enjoy today's show

I hope that you did, because, you know, there's just nothing better than just a whole bunch of desserts

The Southwest Georgia Whip and Cream Pound Cake is so unbelievably dense and rich and delicious

And the gooey butter cakes, I swear to Peter, I didn't think I could improve them

but I think that the toffee bits just really take it over the top

And the Charlotte Russe, oh, it's just delicious. It's an old-timey dessert that we can still enjoy today

I hope y'all love all the recipes, and as usual, America, I want to send you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yours