Intoxicating Desserts

By Food & Wine
Updated May 05, 2017
Credit: © Quentin Bacon
Exquisite recipes, from bacon-bourbon brownies with pecans to the sublime black pepper-raspberry sorbet with Prosecco.
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Porter Bundt Cake with Whiskey-Caramel Sauce

Credit: © CON POULOS
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This richly flavored cake features quintessential Irish ingredients such as dark porter beer, dark brown sugar and whiskey.

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Zebra Icebox Cake

Credit: © Con Poulos
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This beautiful, upscale version of a classic icebox cake benefits from a chocolate filling that is spiked with Marsala wine.

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Crêpes Suzette

Credit: © Con Poulos
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While restaurants traditionally make the buttery, orange-flavored sauce for this famous dessert tableside from start to finish, Pépin finds it easier to prepare largely in advance when entertaining. He flambés the liquor in front of his dinner guests and pours it over the platter of crêpes while still flaming.

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Petits Pots à l'Absinthe

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Absinthe adds a subtle anise flavor to these puddings, which are delicious with berries.

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Chocolate-Stout Tiramisu

Credit: © Paul Costello
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For this rich tiramisu, Jason McCullar first makes a ginger-spiced cake using a recipe from Steen's syrup, a Louisiana cane syrup (steensyrup.com). Then he soaks the cake in a reduction made with chocolate stout (Rogue brewery makes a good version) before layering it with mascarpone cream.

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Coffee-Rum Truffettes

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Jacques Pépin flavors truffles with many ingredients, but he is especially fond of the coffee-rum combination in this recipe.

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Sour-Cherry Lambic Sorbet

Credit: © Frances Janisch
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"Above all, sorbet should taste—and feel—almost like eating fresh fruit," says ice cream maker Jeni Britton, who makes this sorbet with an old-fashioned style of Belgian beer called lambic, which is made with wild yeasts.

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Guinness Ice Cream with Chocolate-Covered Pretzels

Credit: © Maura McEvoy
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This dessert, created by pastry chef Cory Barrett, is an ode to Michael Symon's father, Dennis, who loves beer, pretzels and chocolate. The ice cream has a strong, malty Guinness flavor that goes supremely well with the salty, milk chocolate–covered pretzels. If you don't want to make the chocolate-covered pretzels, they're easy enough to buy.

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Chocolate-Bourbon Tart

Credit: PHOTO © CEDRIC ANGELES
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Michael Glissman's tart is like a dark-chocolate truffle in a crisp, flaky cocoa crust. Bourbon adds a wonderful smokiness; be sure to heat it carefully with the sugar so it doesn't ignite.

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Black Pepper–Raspberry Sorbet with Prosecco

Credit: © Jody Horton
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Chef James Holmes of Olivia, in Austin, topped raw oysters with this sweet-savory sorbet before deciding it would make an excellent cocktail with Prosecco. A good-quality, store-bought raspberry sorbet is a fine shortcut.

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Poached Pear and Brown Butter Tart

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
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New Orleans Chef John Besh says he is crazy about winter fruit and loves using it in this brown butter-custard tart. He sometimes swaps the pears for apples or even quince.

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Cherries Poached in Red Wine with Mascarpone Cream

Credit: Ben Dearnley
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Thick mascarpone cheese mixed with honey makes a luscious topping for cherries poached in red wine. You can serve the dessert either warm or cold. We love it both ways.

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Crêpes with Strawberries and Muscat-Yogurt Sauce

Credit: © Marcus Nilsson
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Nichole Birdsall tops these crêpes with strawberries, a superfruit high in vitamin C and potent antioxidants, and a creamy, orangey sauce sweetened with a splash of Bonterra Muscat dessert wine instead of sugar.

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Coffee-Rum Truffettes

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Jacques Pépin flavors truffles with many ingredients, but he is especially fond of the coffee-rum combination in this recipe.

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Goat Cheese Mousse with Red-Wine Caramel

Credit: © Con Poulos
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An easy mousse is topped with a spicy caramel sauce made with thyme, black peppercorns, red wine and ruby port.

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Buttermilk Cake with Riesling-Poached Pears

Credit: © Michael Turek
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"We get these crazy organic pears that are ugly as sin," says Tory Miller of the Moon-glow variety he uses throughout the cold winter months. Peeling them, though, reveals a fruit so beautiful and juicy that he prefers a minimalist approach, either serving them raw or poaching them in wine, such as the Riesling he uses here.

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Chocolate-Red Wine Cake

Credit: © Frances Janisch
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A recipe in Anne Willan's 2001 Cooking with Wine inspired this fluffy, not-too-sweet cake, which uses just enough wine in the batter to give it a slight boozy flavor.

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Almond, Elderflower and Lime Travel Cakes

Credit: © Kate Mathis
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Inspired by French travel cakes (small sweets meant for bringing to parties, picnics and other events), William Werner created these miniature desserts. He calls them "gussied-up pound cakes."

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Bacon-Bourbon Brownies with Pecans

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
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Kat Kinsman tops her rich brownies with bacon and pecans. To enhance the smoky flavor, she mixes some of the bacon fat into the batter.

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Manhattan Ice Cream Float

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At Spire in Boston, Gabriel Frasca makes his own bourbon ice cream and cherry syrup for this clever riff on a Manhattan. For his superquick version, he blends vanilla ice cream with bourbon and uses a high-quality black cherry soda like Stewart's or IBC.

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Cucumber-Lime Pops with Gin

Credit: © CEDRIC ANGELES
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Tim Love freezes all kinds of cocktails on sticks for backyard parties, but his cucumber-mint version is especially good on a blazing-hot day. To prevent the pops from melting too quickly, he adds gelatin to the mixture.

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Blackberry Fool with Calvados

Credit: © John Kernick
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A classic British dessert of pureed fruit folded into whipped cream, a fool is one of the first things Peter Ting learned to make after moving to England in 1976. To give this one a little extra sophistication, he macerates (soaks) half the blackberries overnight in Calvados, then tops the fruit with dollops of whipped cream he's mixed with blackberry puree. The leftover macerating liquid would make a delicious drink mixed with sparkling water or champagne.

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Bourbon-Nectarine Ice Cream Sundaes with Pound-Cake Croutons

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This is an excellent grown-up version of an ice cream sundae, made with lush nectarines cooked in bourbon. The best part: the crisp, buttery pound-cake croutons.

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Cherry Lambic Crisps

Credit: HECTOR SANCHEZ
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At NYC's Vandaag, chef Phillip Kirschen-Clark uses beer in everything from cocktails to desserts. Kriek—lambic beer fermented with cherries—intensifies the fruit flavors in these crisps.

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Strawberry-Red Wine Sorbet with Crushed Meringue

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Jean-Georges Vongerichten takes advantage of the first strawberries of summer to make this perfect alfresco dessert. As the red wine–infused sorbet melts, it forms a tart sauce for the sweet, tender berries, which also get topped with crunchy bits of meringue, a splash of aged balsamic and fresh whipped cream.

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Ruby-Grapefruit-and-Campari Ice Pops

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
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Using fresh-squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice makes all the difference in these sweet-and-tart pops.

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