Countdown to 2012-Best Desserts

Here we are on the last day of 2011, and the subject for Countdown to 2012 is Desserts.  Desserts, desserts, how I love thee, or sweets of any kind for that matter.  I participated in 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies and Sweets, Crazy Cooking Challenge-Fudge, and The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011, all of which meant posting a recipe for sweets.  Even though I have thought about this all week, it has been very difficult to pick the top few.  This is what I finally came up with:

Holiday Shortbread.  These were the cookies that I made and sent to three other bloggers for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2011.  This may be my number one recipe as it was the featured link on at least two other blogs.  I am not a very good photographer and don't have much of an area to take photos in, but I think that the photo is also one of the best ones I took this year.

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk.  I know that this is not a dessert recipe, but it is such a great recipe to have in your arsenal.  It can save a considerable amount of money, and you can package up the milk in those 1/2 and 2/3 cup amounts that recipes sometimes call for without trying to figure out what you are going to do with the rest of the can.  Marsha over at The Better Baker has been making the recipe with half sugar and half Splenda with great success.  I made Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk for both the recipes listed below.

Easy No-Machine Ice Cream.  Take a can of sweetened condensed milk, 2 c. of whipped cream and whatever else you want to add and a little waiting; and you can have honest-to-goodness homemade ice cream without an ice cream maker.  I about went wild with this recipe this summer, thinking up a new flavor combination just about every day.

Frozen Peaches and Cream Crisp-GF.  This dessert is based on the Easy No-Machine Ice Cream mentioned above.  I wanted a fancied-up version of the ice cream for a party.  The crust can be gluten-free if made with gluten-free oats.  Other fruits can be used.  I plan to do a raspberry version soon.  This was the family's most favorite dessert of the summer.

No-Fail Fudge.  This is my go-to fudge recipe from Farm Journal.  Many, many flavors of fudge can be made from this one basic recipe just by changing the flavor of the chips and extracts.  The varieties in the photo are just a few examples.

Coconut Pecan Cake Balls.  This is the latest recipe that I have played around with.  Although I had a little trouble with the dipping and the balls weren't all pretty; these were a big hit with the people at work.  I want to play with this one further.

Because of their versatility, I am going to give Honorable Mention to several mix recipes that I posted in 2011:    Homemade Cake Mix.  I most recently used this to make "Melt in Your Mouth" Pecan Toffee Cookies from The Better Baker, and I could not tell the difference between them and the ones I made using a purchased mix.  1001 Cookie Mix.  Although the recipe I posted was from Domino Sugar, C&H Sugar has revived this recipe and is currently prompting it.  They are inviting people to post recipes developed with the mix on their facebook page so there will actually be 1001 recipes.  Homemade Brownie Mix  Besides the variations I posted with the mix recipe, I posted additional uses for the mix here and here.

For a recap of my picks for the week:
Monday:  Best Breakfasts
Tuesday:  Best Breads
Wednesday:  Best Soups
Thursday:  Best Main Dishes
Friday:  Best Side Dish/Vegetables (because I had no crockpot recipes posted)

Sno White over at Finding Joy in My Kitchen has been a most wonderful hostess for this party.  Head on over there to see what other bloggers have chosen as their best dessert recipes for 2011.  You still have time to create a post a link up yourself if you like.

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY  2012!  MAY ALL YOUR WISHES COME TRUE!