Dessert #2 and #3 TC's Birthday Cake and Tartlettes

Cherries...one of my favorite things in life. Honestly, my grandmother used to bake me a cherry pie for my birthday ever year and I would eat it for breakfast the next day as a special treat. I have to preface this with the fact that I have a knack for making sweet treats, but I don't like eating them. I'm more of a salty/savory gal like my mother. The cherries above came from Afton Apple Orchard http://www.aftonapple.com/. I order them every year usually 10 lbs of tart cherries and 10 lbs of blueberries. Afton Apple Orchard is where Tim and I got married last year.

Last night we had friends JA and DMW over for dinner (yes, the pasta dinner more details later) and DMW is a vegan so I attempted to throw something together as a treat. I decided since I had all these fresh berries (most of them I will make jam out of) that I would make little tartlettes. To make the crust I used the following: 1 c flour, 1 c oatmeal, 1/2 c brown sugar and I would estimate 1/2-3/4 c of oil. I smooshed all the ingredients together with a little cinnamon and pressed them into muffins tins. I baked them at 350 for about 10 minutes. When the crust were semi-cool I spooned the filling mixtures in: 1 c berries (I used cherries and blueberries) 1ts vanilla, 1 Tb sugar, 1 ts cinnamon. By the way these are all rough estimates because I had to think quickly. Bakes the tartlettes another 10 minutes and let cool. Since Cool Whip is actually vegan we topped the tartlettes with that instead of whipped cream.

Here's a recipe I found on http://www.epicurious.com/. The recipe is from Ice Box Desserts by Lauren Chattman.

Pop-Art Raspberry Icebox Cake

27 Chocolate Wafer Cookies (I used mint cookies)

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate melted (I used semi sweet chips)

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

3 Tbl cold H2O

112oz bag frozen raspberries

3/4 c sugar

2 cups heavy cream chilled

2Tbl framboise (I used Chamboard)

• Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap wrap. With one cookie at a time spread the cookie with melted chocolate and place 3 of them on the bottom and long sides of the pan. Place pan in freezer.
• Sprinkle gelatin over cold H2O and let soften for 2 minutes

• Combine raspberries and sugar in pan and cook till sugar dissolves, stir in gelatin and let cool to room temperature.
• Combine heavy cream, raspberry liquor and vanilla in large bowl and whip until stiff peaks. Gently fold in cooled raspberry mixture.
• Remove pan from freezer pour all , but 1/4 raspberry mixture into the pan. Insert remaining 18 wafers into mousse, arranging them vertically in three rows of 6 so they are lined up with the chocolate wafers on the sides of the pan. Spread the remaining mousse over the wafers and smooth.
• Cover with plastic and freeze until completely set, overnight and up to one week.

Tips:

• I didn't let the cake set overnight. It was in the freezer for 10 hours.
• The cookies were hard to cut, but the mousse was awesome. Next time I will leave out the cookies and top with berries and mint.
• I couldn't find chocolate wafers anywhere so I used mint cookies instead. That might have been part of the cutting process, but I thought vanilla wafers (which are readily available) would "pop" out as much.