Fall Feast Dessert: Apple Tarte Tatin served with Pumpkin Ice Cream

Sometimes creating a feast, such as our Fall Feast, is all about planning: planning the menu, planning the shopping list, planning time to shop and prep and cook, planning the table setting and decor. A person doesn't always have time to use original recipes for every single dish, nor should they have to. Somewhere in the "planning the menu" stage is research, or actually looking at some of those cookbooks one has on his or her shelves. For this particular dessert, we relied on Emeril and Williams (-Sonoma, that is).

Emeril Lagasse's take on the classic Apple Tarte Tatin, which was published in Food Network Favorites (2005) produced a sweet-tart, very caramel-icious dessert that was a nice change from apple pie. It was a bit time-consuming (making the caramel), but had its easy components (using frozen puff pastry as the top, well, technically bottom since you flip it). To make it ala mode, we made our own Pumpkin Ice Cream using the recipe in Williams-Sonoma Ice Cream manual. Also a bit time consuming, if one is making their own pumpkin puree (we did), but full of warm spice and pumpkin flavor with a hint of bourbon that paired very well with the apple tarte.

This brings us to an end of our week of Fall Feast posts. It surely was a feast, fit for the season as well as for the wonderful guests for whom we cooked it. To us foodies, nothing says "We love and appreciate you!" like a specially-made homecooked meal. So hey, Mom, Dad, Kate, Chris, Elizabeth...we love and appreciate you. And thanks for all the compliments to the cooks!