Cakes and desserts - quick and easy recipes - page 76

This creamy, comforting dessert takes hardly any time to assemble and can be left to cook unattended while you prepare, eat, and clean up after a dinner party. Just stir rice, milk, and sugar together in a slow cooker coated with butter and turn it on high. By the time the dinner dishes are cleared and folks are poking around for something sweet, dessert will be ready. Just before serving, stir in brown sugar, raisins, vanilla, cinnamon, and more milk to bump up the creaminess.

The combination of coffee, cream, and booze is as good in a cocktail as it is in a milk shake, but we also like it mixed with puffed rice cereal and marshmallows—similar to a Rice Krispie Treat recipe. Add instant espresso powder to the crispy base, then glaze the top with a mixture of white chocolate, Kahlúa, and cream, for a sweet, coffee-infused treat.

This chocolate cake recipe is delicious. We love a buttery and dense pound cake, but we thought a chocolate version would be even better so we folded lots of dark cocoa into the batter to give it a deep chocolate flavor. After the cake is baked and cooled, it’s drizzled with a chocolate glaze made from semisweet chocolate, cream, and a bit of corn syrup to keep the glaze gooey and shiny.

Some days a milkshake is all you need to stay cool, other days only an ice pop will do. These chai popsicles are wonderfully fragrant, perfect to end off a rich Indian meal of complex flavors or to punctuate a lazy summer afternoon. They’re super easy to put together—once you’ve made the basic mix for our Chai Frozen Milkshakes, all you need are pop molds and a little patience. Special equipment: You’ll need freezer pop molds for this recipe.

We took the basic elements of a s’more and added ice cream—in this case, strawberry ice cream, for acidity, flavor, and an irresistible pinkness. It’s an indulgent tower of broken-up graham crackers, scoops of ice cream, hot fudge sauce, marshmallow topping, almonds, fresh strawberries, and a charred marshmallow topknot. For a berry-free version, check out these Easy Chocolate S’mores Sundaes.

Gooey enough to satisfy kids, architectural enough to appeal to adults, this ice-cream-sundae take on classic campfire s’mores is literally over-the-top. Broken-up graham crackers, scoops of ice cream, hot fudge sauce, marshmallow topping, almonds, and a charred marshmallow add up to a tower of indulgence. For a fruity variation on the s’mores sundae theme, check out our Strawberry S’mores Sundaes.

S’mores are a campfire classic, but even classics get boring. With canned cherries, a box of Bisquick, and a crackling fire, you can have cobbler in 40 minutes. Serve with Crème Fraîche Whipped Cream or, if you’re more or less roughing it, a spritz of whip from the can. Special equipment: You’ll need a heavy, 4- or 5-quart Dutch oven (with a lid) that you don’t mind setting directly over the embers.

Add a strip of bacon to your s’more to kick it up a notch and make your fellow campers jealous. Other variations include using dark chocolate instead of milk, sprinkling toasted coconut, sea salt … the possibilities are endless for these campfire treats.

Think baking a cake is impossible while camping? Think again. With this recipe you don’t even need cake pans—each cake is baked individually in an orange, infusing the chocolate with citrus flavor. So grab your cake batter and tinfoil and start baking!

Picture this: You’re camping, you’ve hiked, pitched your tent, and had dinner, and now it’s time for dessert, only you’re not in the mood for s’mores. We recommend campfire strawberry shortcake—all you need is Bisquick mix, a couple of pie tins, and some strawberries and whipped cream to pile on top. Game plan: If you’re homebound, bake the shortcake in a 425°F oven until done, about 10 to 12 minutes. You can also try Crème Fraîche Whipped Cream instead of standard whip.

CHOW photographer Chris Rochelle reached out to Chowhounds for ways to transform store-bought pizza dough into great dishes other than pizza, and Chowhounds came through: Check outthese Italian-style donuts.

Instant ramen noodles become an edible art installation with this dessert born out of scanning the cupboards for something crispy and sweet one late night. Spread the cooked noodles out on a baking sheet and crisp them in the oven, then drizzle with an easy white chocolate sauce. Voilà: dessert!

Homemade cinnamon rolls hot from the oven are a rare treat. But it takes time and organization to mix the dough, knead it, and let it rise, even before you have to shape the rolls and let them rise again. You can speed up the process by starting with store-bought pizza dough. Just roll out the dough, lavish it with butter and sugar, sprinkle with cinnamon, cut and shape, and let rise while you heat up the oven. You can go from bed to the best breakfast ever in about 2 hours.

Who doesn’t love a hefty slice of dark chocolate cake? This one has an appropriately diabolical twist: a hint of ancho chile powder for warmth and complexity, but that won’t light anyone’s tongue on fire (chileheads can add a teaspoon of cayenne). Spread the layers with sweetened whipped cream or buttercream and sliced strawberries; top with toasted almonds.

Drop biscuits are the fastest and easiest biscuits you can make—all you do is whisk together the dry ingredients, stir in the liquids, and drop lumps of dough onto a baking sheet. The secret to getting these drop biscuits light and tender: beer. If beer isn’t your thing, substitute the same volume of buttermilk. We recommend serving with a hearty dish, like the best chili recipe ever.