Western Desserts Winners and Awards

After much deliberation and anguish to just choose 3 of the best cakes, Jan finally came up three she liked most – Before I announce the winners, let me say (and please know that this is not  just a concessional statement) that everyone of those entries was a winner and I thank you all whole-heartedly for participating so enthusiastically in this event. (PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO SEND YOUR ENTIRES TO MY NEW GUEST EVENT - Details here http://priyasnowserving.blogspot.com/2011/02/announcing-second-guest-event.html)

Jan actually made many of the recipes she’d liked and tried them for herself before making her decision and in her own words has explained her reasons for picking the top three desserts– that is dedication, folks! Thanks Jan :)

The Best Desserts and the Dessert Maker Par Excellence award go to the following three entries –

Molten Chocolate Cake  from Paaka Shaale

Chocolate Banana Cake from Anna's Table

Sticky Toffee Pudding from Hot From My Oven

Since Jan also decided to give an honorable mention to Candy Girl for her Lemon Buttermilk Cake, I think I will pass on the award to her as well J

Lemon Buttermilk Cake from Candy Girl

Congratulations!!

 Please accept this award and display on your blog

All Participants, please accept this One Fine Dessert Award from me with sincere thanks and appreciation and lotsa love! Please collect and display with pride for your wonderful entries

In her own Words – Jan Silverman

 First of all, every entry is amazing and award winning.  All of you are excellent and creative cooks and bakers.  I very much enjoyed exploring your wonderful blogs and plan to try many of your entrée recipes as well.  With so many incredible entries, deciding on the “best dessert” has been quite challenging.  

Sixty percent of the entries were chocolate desserts.  Obviously reflective of Valentine’s month and of course we ladies love chocolate.  The 2 I selected for awards are Chocolate Banana Cake by Anna’s Table and Molten Chocolate Cake by Paake Shaale.

Molten Chocolate Cake Paaka Shaale

There are many versions of this, but in this recipe by Paake Shaale I really liked the “eggless” cake and also the chocolate syrup in addition to the hot fudge sauce.  The combination worked perfectly for a not so sweet cake, but a very sweet topping. Also I liked that it was a combination of 2 different recipes.  She used the cake from one and the topping from another.  The presentation with vanilla ice cream and sliced Almonds was very attractive and enticing.


Banana Chocolate Cake Anna's Table

The dark chocolate, banana, and melted white chocolate is a delicious and decadent combination.  I especially liked that Anna creatively modified another recipe for plain banana cake by adding dark cocoa and inserting melted white chocolate inside the cake (what a nice surprise) and drizzle on top.  The presentation was lovely.

The non chocolate dessert I selected for an award is the Sticky Toffee Pudding from Ramya on her Hot from my Oven blog.
Sticky Toffee Pudding

The Pudding with dates is very tasty and the warm toffee sauce is out of this world.  The dessert itself is fabulous, but I also like that it lends itself to so many variations such as adding toasted nuts, or fruit.  Additionally, the sauce works on any flavor of cake, ice cream, cookies, bread puddings, fruit crisps, etc.  The presentation on the red heart plates was charming.

 Honorable Mention:

 Lemon Buttermilk Cake Candy Girl

This is a wonderful easy to make sheet cake for lemon lovers.  Although I was unable to find locally the cake enhancer (I’ll order online), the original cake recipe was very moist and flavorful.  The frosting with lemon zest mixed with sugar on top gave an extra zing of lemon to each bite.  This is definitely a nice alternative to chocolate.