Sweet Week 2021
Five desserts in five days
I’ve never been a “pastry chef” but I have made desserts at almost every single cooking job I’ve ever had. Being able to properly execute ice creams, cakes, pies, cookies, and everything in between has elevated every menu I’ve ever written and added a finesse to the rest of my cooking. Actually, barbecue and baking are a lot alike. They both require thinking at least five steps ahead, they both have meticulous mise en place, they both require careful management of the cooking space, and they both are the “no turning back now” type of cooking. Once a cake is messed up, it’s done. There’s no bringing it back. Same with a messed up brisket. If the ingredients don’t come together right the first time, there is no use trying to rescue it.
With the past few years of success of Heat Week, we decided to do the opposite in the opposite season. Instead of overloading guests’ palate with spicy food, we would bog them down with desserts in the dead of winter. The idea is to absolutely destroy peoples’ New Year’s resolutions in the last week in January.
Last week we posted the Maple Bacon Gooey Butter Cake and wanted to devote it’s own post and video to it because it’s such a unique dessert and it’s the only one this week that actually contained a smoked meat. The rest of the recipes this week, we are lumping into one video and one recipe post.
Thursday — Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookie Sandwich
Friday — Beet Red Velvet Brownie
Saturday — Saturday Morning Kolache
Sunday — Banana Pudding Split
For the Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookie Sandwich, we wanted to combine one of my favorite cookies, the classic peanut butter, with the most nostalgic American sandwich of all time, PB&J.
For the Beet Red Velvet Brownie, I can’t really give up all the secrets to that one because it’s not my recipe and I promised the chef who taught me how to make it I would keep it close to the chest.
For the Saturday Morning Kolache, we had a kolache during Heat Week that Clayton made and that recipe can be found in that Patreon video.
For the Banana Pudding Split, we kind of cheated and didn’t actually cook anything for that recipe but I’ll still include it below.
PB&J Cookie Sandwich
*the cookie recipe came from The Cookie Book by Rebecca Firth*
For the cookies:
1.5 C light brown sugar
1.25 C smooth peanut butter
8 TB unsalted butter, melted
0.5 C granulated sugar
0.33 C vegetable oil
2 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 C AP flour
1.25 C bread flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bakin soda
0.5 tsp salt
0.75 C salted, roasted peanuts, chopped
Cream together the sugars, butter, oil, and peanut butter. Add the eggs one by one then the vanilla. Sift together the flours, baking powder and soda, and salt. Fold the dry into the wet until fully incorporated. Mix in the peanuts by hand. Portion out into 80g balls and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes. Cool before assembling cookie sandwiches.
For the peanut butter mousse:
1 qt crunchy peanut butter
1 qt heavy cream
2 lb powdered sugar
Mix 1 lb of the powdered sugar with the peanut butter until fully incorporated. Whip the cream with 1 lb of powdered sugar to stiff peaks. Fold the two together gently until a light mousse comes together.
To assemble cookies:
1 12oz jar blackberry jam
Spread 1 oz jam and 2 oz peanut butter mousse on the bottom of two cookies. Sandwich them together. Wrap in plastic and let sit overnight, enjoy the next day.
Beet Red Velvet Brownies
Melt gently together about a quart each of chocolate chips, white sugar, powdered sugar, and pound of butter. Add a pint of eggs one at a time and a sprinkle of salt and stir well to combine.
Mix together a pint of whole wheat flour, 3 tablespoons of beet powder, and 3 teaspoons of powdered red food coloring.
Add the dry into the wet and pour into a heavily greased and parchment-lined shallow pan and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until the center is set.
For the cream cheese frosting, melt together equal parts of cream cheese and powdered sugar with a little bit of vanilla. Puree with a stick blender or in a food processor until smooth.
Once cooled, cut the edges off the brownies and cut into even rectangles. Pipe the cream cheese frosting onto the brownie and top with sifted beet powder.
Saturday Morning Kolache
Fill the kolache dough from our Heat Week video with a 50/50 mix of cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk. Top with a mixture of your favorite children’s breakfast cereal and bake and cool. To serve, top with a little more sweetened condensed milk and mixed cereal.
Banana Pudding Split
Par melt 1 half gallon each of Blue Bell Banana Pudding and Homemade Vanilla Ice Creams. Mix them together and re-freeze.
Flambe one half pint of spiced rum and reduce by half. Add one 12 oz bottle of cajeta and stir to combine. Store in a squeeze bottle once cooled.
Split a ripe banana vertically in half. Scoop 3 scoops of the mixed ice cream in the middle of the banana. Top with whipped cream, rum caramel, dried banana chips, and mini Nilla Wafers.
