a very thankful day

I admit it. I kind of went overboard on the whole Thanksgiving dessert thing. I started keeping a list of things I wanted to bake, and the list kept getting longer... and longer.

I had a good excuse, though, because the guest list kept getting longer, too. I have four siblings, with lots of kids... and now those kids have boyfriends and girlfriends who have Thanksgiving with us. We have some close friends who are like family who join us every year... and then there are always a few extra friends who thought they were going to be out of town but now they're in town and didn't buy a turkey and of course you can join us! So we had 32 people, and I kept baking.

First I made a Chocolate-Almond Torte.. because there are chocolate lovers in every crowd.

I love Pear-Frangipane Tarts, so I made one of those.

My daughter wanted to use my new cupcake tree, so I made some yummy chocolate cupcakes with espresso and chocolate buttercream, expertly piped by Angela. We made them for the little people, but of course the taller people ate their share, too.

This is my first Thanksgiving without my dad, but I made his favorite dessert anyway. It's a French Apple Tart, with an apple-vanilla bean compote that goes down first, followed by a spiral of sliced apples. Of course I used the apple corer-slicer he gave me for my birthday for this job.

It turned out beautifully and I think it was the most requested dessert to take home. My dad would have had second helpings!

Also in the tart category, I made a Linzertorte.. and a Cranberry Streusel Tart.

Then it was time to turn my attention to pumpkin, but not another pie... I made a pumpkin roulade, with cream cheese filling and a ginger-caramel sauce. No left-overs of this one!

All told, I made seven desserts. We were all very thankful for butter, sugar, flour and eggs, among other things, this Thanksgiving.