By Nora Vasconcelos
In 2010, Dorothy Kern started her blog Crazy for Crust because she wanted to increase the attention towards the pie crusts. But her love for desserts led her to create new fun and delicious recipes.
Throughout the years she started to see how entertaining and tasty was to transform two desserts into a totally different one. It was the beginning of a new trend and of a new book.
Dessert Mash-Ups presents recipes that combine all sort of textures and flavors into colorful and mouthwatering creations such as Sconuts, Blueberry Muffin Waffles and Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bites.
Going through the pages of this book, recently published by Ulysses Press, is a total delight for dessert lovers, either because one wants to try them all, or because it’s really tempting to go straight to the kitchen and to start preparing them.
Last week, Dorothy was kind enough as to answer some questions for me about her book, here are her answers:
- When and how did you come up with the idea of “mashing up” desserts?
Actually, I’ve been doing it from the very beginning on my blog, Crazy for Crust. One of my earliest recipes was what I called a “Pieookie” which was a shortbread cookie shaped like a pie. Ever since then I’ve been mashing up desserts on a regular basis, so writing a book on the topic was just a natural progression.
- How did you decide which dessert could work well with which other one?
I tried to think of things that would work well as something else. I do this with pie on my blog all the time (pie fudge or pie cookies). I’ll regularly think: what can I turn into a s’more? or What will go good with brownies? and I go from there.
- Did you have to go through many attempts before you were able to develop all the recipes of this book?
Some of them were easier than others, for sure. Some of them I was able to do on the first try, and others to several attempts. I think the Lemon Bar Cheesecake took the prize: I made it about 4 times!
- Which was the funniest part and the most complex one of this process of creating new desserts?
I think the funniest part is seeing the looks on peoples’ faces when I tell them an idea. You see them process that you can turn fudge into pie and you can almost see the lightbulb moment they have, followed by the look that says “I want a piece of that!”
The most complex would definitely be the science behind it all. How can you make the recipe the way you want it to turn out and make it actually work? Sometimes that was successful and sometimes, like in the case of the Lemon Bar Cheesecake, I had to adjust my vision as I went along.
And here, some of her recipies: