Desserts have always been my favorite thing to cook. I cant help ittheyre also my favorite thing to eat! Over the years, Ive collected notebooks full of family-favorite recipes for every occasion.
Of course, when I fell in love with pressure cooking, I had to try making something to satisfy my sweet tooth. One of the first recipes I adapted was a rice pudding that Ive been making for thirty years. In the pressure cooker, it came out richer and creamier than ever before, and it was so easy to cook.
From that moment on, I was hooked.
I cant wait for you to see how easy it is to make delicious desserts for your next baby shower or family get-togetheror just a little something to celebrate the end of a long day.
My excitement for cooking began at a very early age and was centered on desserts for several years. My mother was in charge of dinner and I was responsible for making all the treatsdid I ever love my job!
Fast-forward several years and I now have my own family that is equally happy to help me create delicious, memorable desserts. Sweets and treats have an impressive ability to bring smiles to peoples faces and joy to a room!
My love of all things pressure cooking runs deep, and it was only a matter of time before these two loves combined. Desserts made in a pressure cooker are absolutely amazingthe textures and depth of flavor are on a whole new delicious level, and the cooking process is often easier and faster!
You will discover so many impressive and delicious desserts and learn new cooking techniques as you cook your way through this book! May it bring much joy into your lives as well!
Making Desserts in Your Electric Pressure Cooker
WHY PRESSURE COOK DESSERTS?
Electric pressure cookers have been a hot-ticket item for a few years now, as people have discovered how to make fast and flavorful meals in these appliances. However, electric pressure cookers are capable of so much more than cooking Sunday dinner!
When you use your electric pressure cooker to make desserts, youll notice the following advantages:
Better taste. Some desserts just taste better when theyre cooked in an electric pressure cooker. Any dessert thats best cooked in a moist environment, such as a water bath, is a perfect match for the pressure cooker. For example, the steamy environment inside your pressure cooker creates a super-creamy cheesecake that cooks evenly. Desserts baked in the pressure cooker are much more forgiving than those baked in the oven and wont dry out as easily.
Quicker cook times. This hallmark of pressure cooking applies to desserts as well. Cheesecakes, puddings, pies, and so many other favorites are ready in a fraction of the time compared to those conventionally prepared.
Cool cooking. In the heat of summer, no one wants to turn on the oven. Desserts made in the electric pressure cooker offer a wide variety of sweet treats without heating up the house.
Hands-off convenience. Instead of standing at the stove babysitting a sauce or pie filling, stirring constantly, with an electric pressure cooker, you start the pressure cooker and walk away. How easy is that?
Automatic portion control. Because desserts made in the electric pressure cooker have to fit inside the pressure cooking pot, the recipes often call for smaller pans and reduced ingredient amounts. This smaller size leads to automatic portion control. Instead of a cake that serves twelve to sixteen people, we have cake recipes that serve two, four, six, or eightjust enough to satisfy that sweet tooth without leftovers to tempt you for more.
Cute and fun. The pot-in-pot method of cooking desserts in the electric pressure cooker lends itself to using cute and fun smaller-size containers, such as Mason jars, ramekins, and Bundt pans. These desserts come out of the pressure cooker party-ready.
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR PRESSURE COOKER
While there are a lot of different parts and buttons, your pressure cooker is actually pretty simple to use when you get to know it. Read the user manual that comes with it for details on your particular model; however, note that all brands of electric pressure cookers are made of similar parts. For your convenience, weve included a quick explanation.
Housing. This is the outer part of the pressure cookerthe one with the buttons and the heating element inside. Do not add ingredients directly to the housing; you may damage your pressure cooker.
Cooking pot. The inner removable pot is made of stainless steel, ceramic, or nonstick aluminum, depending on your brand, and its where the magic happens. While adding the ingredients to this pot, you can treat it just like a pot on the stovefor example, lift it up away from the heat to slow the cooking when thickening sauces. Once you lock the lid in place and bring the pot to pressure, however, youll be unable to access this pot until the pressure is released.
Lid. All electric pressure cookers have a lid with a handle, valve, and mechanism to release the steam on the exterior and a place to attach the sealing ring underneath.
Pressure release valve/button. This plastic piece is located on the lids exterior and controls whether the pressure inside the pot can escape. (Depending on your model of electric pressure cooker, you will have either a valve or a button to release the steam.) Use it to seal the electric pressure cooker and release the steam quickly.
Sealing ring. This removable ring attaches to the underside of the lid and is made of tough, food-grade silicone. When the lid is locked in place, this ring seals the pressure cooker so air cannot escape, allowing the machine to build pressure inside the pot.
Float valve. This small valve fits inside the lid and is paired with a miniature silicone gasket. When your electric pressure cooker reaches pressure, steam pushes the float valve up and seals the cooker. In this raised position, the lid locks and cannot be opened until the valve drops again when the pressure is released.
Choosing a Button
Some pressure cookers are very basic, having just two buttons: High Pressure and Cancel. Other electric pressure cookers, also known as multi-cookers, have multiple buttons and many pressure cooking levels. While your user manual will have an in-depth explanation of these buttons, there is one principle that holds true no matter what button you choose: The buttons are generally preset cook times for different foods; your pressure cooker cannot sense what you are actually cooking and cannot tell you when the food is cooked.
The recipes in this cookbook were developed using just two buttons:
High Pressure/Manual/Pressure Cook: