· 6 min read
Dessert When You Are Cooking Everything Else
The course most worth handing to somebody else is the last one, because it is the one you will be least able to face by eight in the evening.
If you are cooking dinner for eight, the course to stop cooking is the dessert.
Not because it is the hardest. Because it is the one that has to be finished at the point in the evening when you have been standing up for four hours, the kitchen is a disaster, and somebody is asking where the corkscrew is. A pudding that needs assembling at that moment is a pudding that goes wrong or goes out late.
This is a practical guide to which desserts need nothing from you on the night.
What needs nothing at all
These come out of the fridge, sit for half an hour, and get cut.
The Basque burnt cheesecake is the purest version of this. It needs no accompaniment, it is served at room temperature, and it improves for sitting out. Nothing beside it, nothing on it.
Prague cake and the muraveynik are the same proposition: rich, finished, and complete on a plate on their own.
The Esterházy needs nothing either, and it is the one to order if anybody at the table does not eat gluten, because it is gluten free by construction rather than by substitution.
What needs thirty seconds
The honey cake and the Napoleon both want to be out of the fridge for half an hour, which means remembering during the main course rather than doing anything.
Both cut cleanly with a warm knife wiped between slices. Both look better on a plate with nothing on them than with a smear of coulis, whatever restaurants have trained us to expect.
What needs a small amount of work
The choux buns want to be taken out of their box and arranged, which takes a minute and makes them look like something.
The pastries in general, oreshki and trubochki and kurabye, benefit from being put on a board rather than served in the box, and that is the entire effort.
The meringue roll is the one item where a little fruit on the plate genuinely adds something, so if you were going to buy raspberries anyway, buy them.
Timing the delivery
The thing people get wrong is ordering for the day of the dinner.
Order for the day before if the dessert is one that keeps: the cheesecake, the honey cake, the Napoleon, the muraveynik, the Prague cake, anything dry. All of those are as good or better on day two, and a delivery on the day of a dinner party is one more thing to be waiting for when you should be cooking.
Order for the day itself only if it is a cream cake or filled pastry, which genuinely wants to be as fresh as possible: the meringue roll, the choux, the strawberry cake when it is on.
And choose a window that ends well before you start cooking rather than one that overlaps with it.
Serving sizes for a dinner
After three courses, an 18 cm cake serves twelve comfortably, because people are full and take small slices. For a dinner of eight, one cake leaves a third of it, which is exactly the right amount of cake to have in the fridge the following day.
If you want two things on the table, one cake and one box of small pastries reads as far more generous than two cakes, and it lets people take a little of each.
The gluten question
Worth resolving before you shop rather than at the table.
Esterházy is the gluten free cake on our list, made with almond meringue and no flour. The pavlova, when it is available, is also flourless.
Everything else contains wheat somewhere, including the Basque cheesecake, which has a small amount of flour in it despite having no base.
If somebody at the table cannot eat nuts as well as gluten, message us before ordering. That combination narrows the list considerably and we would rather tell you honestly than sell you something you have to apologise for.
Making it yourself versus ordering it in
There is no virtue in ordering and no virtue in making, so here is the practical split.
Make it yourself if the dessert is simple, can be finished hours ahead, and does not compete for oven space. A poached fruit, a set cream, a tart baked in the morning, a chocolate pot. All of those are better homemade and none of them will cost you the evening.
Order it in if the dessert needs oven time while the main course needs oven time, if it needs assembling within an hour of serving, or if it needs a technique you will be attempting for the first time in front of guests.
And order it in if the honest answer is that you are already cooking three courses for eight people and adding a fourth job is how the evening goes wrong.
The cakes on our list are all in the second category, because layered cakes, meringue and set soufflés all need a day or two and a cold kitchen, which is exactly what nobody has on the day of a dinner party. That is the whole argument, and it is not a grand one.
Common questions
Which dessert needs the least work on the night?
The Basque burnt cheesecake. Out of the fridge, half an hour, cut, and nothing beside it.
Should I order for the day of the dinner or the day before?
The day before for anything that keeps, which is most of the cakes. The day itself only for cream cakes and filled pastries.
What is the gluten free option?
Esterházy, which is built on almond meringue and contains no flour. It is the original recipe rather than an adaptation.
How long before serving should a cake come out of the fridge?
Thirty minutes for most of them, an hour for the Basque cheesecake if you want the centre soft, twenty minutes for anything with whipped cream.
Do I need to serve anything with it?
No. Every cake on the list is finished as it arrives. The meringue roll is the only one where fresh fruit beside it adds anything.
Can I order two days before and keep it?
Yes for the keepers. Three days is the outside limit for most, and the muraveynik will go four or five.
Ordering
Choose the date at the checkout at least 48 hours ahead. For a dinner party, order for the day before and take one thing off the list.
Order it for the date you need
Everything here is baked to order for your date.
48 hours notice, 72 for bread. Delivered across London and Surrey.