will there be enough dessert?

leftover desserts from our party: 1 bowl of brownies (out of 2), about 1/4 of the cookies, 1 plate of nanaimo bars (score!), and half of the key lime bars.

completely gone: the vegan brownies. you try to figure that one out...

the brownies turned out pretty well; i think i still like lisa yockelson's recipe over Cook's Illustrated. the nanaimo bars needed more custardy filling, but they turned out fairly well. the black and whites almost went completely; i don't know if it's because they looked pretty (i hate powdered sugar icings) or because they were actually good. probably a bit of both. the key lime bars were quite good - kind of like cheesecake bars - but were impossible to cut neatly. i wonder how the cookbook solved that problem...

but the vegan brownies. they were too dense, and not sweet enough...i must find a better substitute for sugar, as the all-natural cane sugar i used had, well, an all-natural cane sugar taste. i was going to make a frosting for them, but then i ran out of of vegan chocolate. oops!

experimental baking has gone fairly well so far this summer. not too much of it has actually been experimental - mostly we end up ingredients that lend themselves to things i already know how to make: bread pudding, fruit crisps, etc. although i admit to shamelessly exploiting the fruit crisp recipe from The Best Recipe.

next up: strawberry rhubarb pie, and banana cream pie. i wish i had a rhubarb plant (and as long as i am in wishful thinking mode, i wish i had a nanaimo bar plant).