2 desserts that show your love for family

Published 1:42 pm Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Since Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday this year, dinner might well end up as more of a happy family free-for-all rather than a late evening out enjoying a romantic candlelight supper somewhere.

And that’s fine and dandy, too, because love’s for everybody, after all, not just exclusively for sweethearts.

Right? Right. Otherwise, I clearly wasn’t paying attention when I should have been.

Here, then, are two family-size desserts that will let you spend a “Zip-a-Dee-Do-Da” day and still finish in fine form around the table with those you love best.

The first is a comfy, kind of humble-looking (but nonetheless people pleasing) marriage of chocolate and cherries that can be made earlier in the day, or slides into the oven when you sit down to eat and then is served warm for the final flourish to the meal.

The how-to came to us quite a while back, among a collection of different brownie mix concoctions that Marysville cook and cookbook author Dianne Berst sent along, and has been patiently waiting ever since.

(By the way, Dianne has another cookbook that’s hot off the press, and we’ll give you the whole lowdown on it in an upcoming Forum column.)

Meanwhile, here’s the second Valentine’s Day dessert possibility. It’s a recipe I’ve fiddled with that started out as an ad for a certain pricey candy that I tore out of a newspaper some years ago. You’ll notice I add some sweet orange marmalade, but you could probably equally well stir in some cherry, raspberry or strawberry preserves instead, if you’d rather.

Another thing: This particular recipe works well both as a chilled, mousse-filled pie or, frozen, as a sort of ice-cream pie. If you want to doll it up for presentation purposes, just give each slice a small swirl of whipped cream and a chocolate curl or two.

Now for:

Cherry chocolate crisp

1package (19.5-19.8 ounces) brownie mix

11/3cups quick-cooking oats

3/4cup chopped pecans

1/2cup (1 cube) butter, melted

2cans (21 ounces each) cherry pie filling

Vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the brownie mix, oats and pecans. Add the melted butter and stir until all dry ingredients are moistened (mixture will still be relatively dry).

Spoon filling into an ungreased 8-inch square glass baking dish. Sprinkle brownie mixture over pie filling. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until the edges are bubbly. Transfer to a wire rack and cool slightly or completely.

To serve, scoop the crisp into bowls while warm or at room temperature and top with vanilla ice cream.

Makes 8 servings.

Candy bar pie

6plain Hershey candy bars (1.5 ounces each), broken into pieces

13 large marshmallows

1/4cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk

Scant 1/2 cup sweet orange marmalade

1cup whipping cream

Prepared chocolate pie crust

In a double boiler over simmering water, melt the chocolate and marshmallows in milk, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat, stir in the marmalade and cool to room temperature.

In a medium mixing bowl, whip the cream; fold in the chocolate-marmalade mixture and turn into the crust. Chill until very cold to serve as a mousse pie, or freeze for an ice-cream pie. Chilled pie will keep several days in the refrigerator; frozen pie will keep up to 3 months in the freezer.

Makes 1 pie.

The next Forum will appear in Friday’s comics pages.