No-Bake Desserts – Addie Gundry, Food Network Star Contestant

The dog days of summer are a perfect time to dig into and enjoy the treats in Addie Gundry’s No-Bake Desserts: 103 Easy Recipes for No-Bake Cookies, Bars, and Treats.

In this book, the Cutthroat Kitchen winner teaches us how to combine favorite flavors, from fruit and chocolate to nuts and caramel, into over one hundred easy no-bake cheesecakes, pies, fruit tarts, candies, cookies, bites, bars, fruit desserts, frozen desserts, gelatin desserts, puddings, and single-serving desserts in a jar.  Combining her professional French culinary training with her love of easy entertaining solutions, Addie translates classic favorites from tiramisu to banana cream pie into easy go-to recipes that you’ll use all year round. Learn how to whip up Chocolate Éclair Cake, Mini Lemon Meringue Pies, Strawberry Shortcake in a Jar, and Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bites with ease.

Food Network fans will recall that Addie is a contestant on the current season of Food Network Star. She was gracious enough to fill us in on some behind the scenes information including her plans for the future as well as sharing one of her refreshing recipes with us today as well.

Besides the grueling schedule of the Food Network Star competition, Addie has been churning out cookbooks – several books have been released and she has many more coming this year, you can check out a list of her titles on her author’s page here at Eat Your Books.

When you are finished reading all about Addie and checking out her recipe, be sure to head over to our contest page to enter our giveaway for No-Bake Desserts open to US members.

Q: Hi, Addie, thanks for agreeing to talk with our members today. You have seven titles (I believe) coming out this year can you tell us about them and how long you have been working on them?

We have 4 titles this year (No-Bake Desserts, Family Favorite Casseroles, Everyday Dinner Ideas, and Cookies)! We began production in 2015 and we moved rather quickly! I have submitted 11 manuscripts to St. Martin’s Griffin and 2018 will be a big year for the series, as we plan to publish 7 books!

Q: Out of those titles which was the most fun and which one was the most work?

The most fun: No-Bake Desserts. The book is filled with confetti and glitter. All of the recipes are easy and adorable, allowing me to spend more time playing with the styling and really showing the fun behind food!

The most work: Slow Cooker. Slow cooked recipes take time! Making a quick No-Bake dessert may be a 20 minute task where as a slow cooked chicken recipe could take 6 hours! Simply put, it was just more time consuming!

Q: Are you a cookbook collector yourself? Can you tell us about your collection (feel free to share a photo) and tell us who your favorites authors are?

Absolutley! I am a big collector. I love practical books, such as Weber’s Grilling and then the not-so practical books like Alinea. And by not-so-practical I mean books that I do not cook from but that I love to look at. In my kitchen now, on display, is Thomas Keller’s French Laundry book. This was given to me for Christmas by Chef Keller when I worked for him and I keep it in my kitchen because it reminds me of a saying that he has hanging in his – “What would you do if you knew you would not fail.” I like the reminder, as sometimes things can get dicey in the kitchen and in life!

Q: I have to ask about Food Network Star – I was in your corner – when I saw you first come on the screen I told my husband – I know her! (Well, I knew your name from adding your books to our Eat Your Books library). How was that experience?

Haha I love this!! And thank you!! The experience was wild. Absolutley surreal. From spending time with Bobby and Giada to running around like a maniac in that kitchen I just never knew what was next and had to be on my toes at all times. We filmed in February and at the time I was 8 weeks pregnant! I am due in 6 weeks, so life is about to change over here. I filmed for about 5 weeks and no one knew about the growing belly. At one point a stylist told me I should lay off the cake 😉 This made it all particularly harder considering I was exhausted and slightly nauseous! The days were long, 15-16 hours and the continuous stimulation was just beyond overwhelming – but in a really good way! It was just a blast. I met some REALLY neat people, cast members that I am still in touch with today and plan to be lifelong friends with. All sequestered together for that long you get to know one another quickly. It’s an odd little group we formed and I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot about myself too. It is a LOT harder than it looks! You are given a task and just have to start cooking! The first few minutes in the challenge you may not even know what you want to make but you better start doing something because you don’t have a lot of time. It was a lot of fun!

Q: Do you have any regrets about anything that occurred on the show – anything you’d like to do over?

Oh man. Part of me wishes that the producers knew I was pregnant because I think that is interesting! That said, I was only in my first trimester and it is best to keep that to myself. In all honesty I gave it my all! I was passionate and excited and I was bummed to hear feedback that said otherwise. I think they were looking for someone with a HUGE personality and I was just a little too calm haha.

Q: I know that I would totally freeze up making some of those dishes with such a time constraint – what dish came out better than you thought it would? What dish failed that you thought was a winner?

I was worried about the potato salad that I made for the glamping episode. It came out better than I thought but still tasted like canned potatoes, which sort of is what it is!

I was so into my low country boil skewers!! I used Lipton tea in all of my dipping sauces and in the actual dish, I thought it was a winner! Then I got the boot haha! They did like the food and I rarely got any food criticism, it was mostly presentations. So I suppose the recipe was a winner!

Q: What are your future plans – more cookbooks?

Baby and books!! We are so excited for the little one to join us in September! I then plan to continue with the cookbook series. I am not so sure about more television, but I never say never!

Thanks to Addie for taking time from her busy career and baby prep to answer some questions for us.

Mocha Chocolate Icebox Cake

Yield: 1 cake; serves 8 to 10 | Prep Time: 20 minutes | Chill Time: 3 hours

My fondest memories of my grandmother are her morning cups of coffee and her long list of icebox desserts that she’d turn to each week in the summer. When I eventually began drinking coffee, both the smell and taste brought back these memories. I don’t know if I remember her combining that morning coffee into any of her icebox cakes, but if she did, it would be exactly this cake.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (9-ounce) package chocolate wafer cookies
• 3 tablespoons whole milk
• 3 tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 31⁄2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 11⁄4 cups powdered sugar
• 12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 3⁄4 cup granulated sugar
• 12 ounces chocolate chips or melting chocolate wafers

DIRECTIONS

1. Crush cookies in a food processor to the consistency of wet sand

2. In a small saucepan, heat the milk until it begins to steam. Stir in the espresso powder and set aside to steep.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the wire whip, whip 2 ½ cups of the heavy whipping cream on high until foamy. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar and continue whipping until stiff peaks form. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside.

4. In the same mixer bowl (no need to wash using the paddle attachment, combine the cream cheese and granulated sugar and mix for 2 minutes, scraping down the side of the bowl, until smooth. Add the espresso-milk mixture and stir to incorporate. Fold the two mixtures together until no white streaks remain. Place in the refrigerator to chill.

5. Meanwhile, put the chocolate chips in a large bowl. Heat the remaining 1 cup heavy whipping cream over the chips and stir until a smooth shiny ganache forms.

6. Place half the crumbs into a greased 8-inch springform pan and press with your fingertips to form a bottom crust. Spoon in half the whipped filling and smooth. Repeat the layering.

7. Chill the cake for at least 3 hours before serving.

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Copyright © 2017 by Addie Gundry and reprinted by permission of St. Martin’s Griffin.