Time for Dessert

The desserts are finished.  My assignment for Easter dinner tomorrow is to bring dessert.  My daughter told me that (and I quote) "since you are so picky about your desserts, Mom, I'm going to have you bring them and then I'll be sure that they will be up to your standards."  Okey, dokey!  As most of you know by now, dessert is something that I'm VERY familiar with.

I decided to make some peanut butter pies.  I am trying a new recipe (always a gamble but how can one go wrong with peanut butter pie, eh?).  First I had to beat the cream cheese, confectioner's sugar, and the peanut butter together in the mixer.  Man, that mixer was working hard.  I thought perhaps it would soften up as it mixed but the stuff was in a huge clump on the beater.    The next step called for me to whisk Cool Whip into the mixture and whisk it until it was creamy with NO lumps.  Let's just say that my arms are definitely feeling the burn right now.

I'm glad that I decided to eyeball it and divide the peanut butter stuff in the mixing bowl into two sections and then whisk one section at a time because if I hadn't, I think I'd STILL be whisking away.  It took lots of elbow grease to do half the batch and then I had to dump that in a pie crust and start the process all over again.

I decided to top the pies with some crushed-up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  These were hard to find at the grocery story the other day.  I was delighted when I finally found some on one of the aisles and grabbed them without realizing that they were the "Dark" version.  I'm hoping this won't make much difference in the final taste.  I put four wrappers' full into a small bowl and then got my handy Pampered Chef's "Mix n' Chop" tool and in less time than it took to say "Yummy", I had a nice little batch of crushed peanut butter cups all set to sprinkle over the top.

The final results look pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.  I think it will pass muster at dinner tomorrow.  Since Dear Daughter is serving Leg of Lamb (and I break out in hives with lamb), I intend to stoke up on appetizers, side dishes and, of course, dessert.

I couldn't stop with just one type of dessert.  I HAD to also bake my Killer Rum Cake.  I wasted ten minutes looking for the darn bundt cake pan (seems I only use that pan for rum cake and Monkey Balls) and in the process, I managed to have several mugs and assorted spice jars fall on my head as I was rummaging around in the cupboards.  When the Commander walked in from the garage after grocery shopping, he took one look at my face (this was after I'd just gotten beaned with the third travel mug) and wisely took the bags of groceries straight through the kitchen and on into the dining room.

Looking at the bright side, the Rum Cake came out looking delish AND I ended up reorganizing two cupboards so all in all, it was a very productive afternoon.  As we head into Easter Sunday, I hope you all have a blessed time with family and/or friends as we celebrate Christ's resurrection.