Dessert Carnival

These are the mini desserts I made for Christmas.It was a big fashion this year to make all these small desserts.

You can see fresh pineapple cubes baked in butter and dark sugar and the seed of a vanilla pod. Cooled en topped with a scoop of coconut ice cream.

A glass with a layer of stewed little cubes of apples seasoned with cinnamon, a layer of stewed berries and topped with a previously baked and cooled crumble crumbs.

Pears stewed in Poire Williams and honey with a very fine thin cookie

Mascarpone creme topped with fresh stawberrys that where marinated in orange juice or orange liqueur.

Stewed apple cubes topped with baked dice of what we call "peperkoek".

You best can exchange "peperkoek" with a cubes of a spiced cake. "Peperkoek " has all kind of spices in it like ginger, cinnamon, cloves and so on and honey witch makes it a soft but chewy kind of "bread " or cake. We here in Belgium eat it for breakfast or as a snack in the afternoon sometimes we put some butter on the slices. The Dutch also know it but call it "Ontbijtkoek". People never make it themsselves but buy it storemade. It is a very old kind of "bread". Bread nor cake, nor cookie is the exact word for it. It is something in between all these things.

On the left you see a glass with a layer of a white coconut pudding, a layer of stewed berries and topped with crumbles of "speculaas"
Speculaas is a sort of gingerbread cookie but it has more cinnamon in it then ginger. It is a typical Belgian / Dutch spicy cookie that is mostly baked in winter for the holidays but is also a much loved cookie that you can buy the whole year round.

The last one is a simple skewer with fresh fruit and you serve warm chocolate sauce with it to dip the fruit in.

Enjoy!