I need some ideas for desserts

I use a 9x13 Foxfyre

that sounds like it would work Boomer - I don't think it has anything to do with the butter...I am sure how you do it works great - probably better than the melted butter actually - I have a hard time drizzling it over the entire thing without missing spots

Do you have access to pre-fab phyllo dough? I find that stuff a real life-saver.

Just unwrap a few pieces (put a damp tea towel over for the time it takes to rewrap what you're not using), use a disposable paint roller from the dollar store to spread melted butter on each layer (this was a recent Fine Cooking tip - I've used disposable paint brushes in the past), stack about three or four pieces of the phyllo, cut it into triangles or squares, put a blob of fruit/jam/ricotta/lemon curd/preserves/spices in the middle of each triangle/square, roll it/fold it/crimp it, put it on a baking sheet and bake. So so fast and yum.

I've done it with apple slices, apple sauce, cut up plums/cherries. It makes more of an impression than it should.

Kinda like insta-strudel.

You can make these as plain or fancy as you want.

I've also done them with steamed cauliflower and a bit of cheese sauce in the middle. You can make fast sausage rolls the same way.

Another easy but less healthy option is "monkey bread"

Canned biscuits, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

Actually saw some being commercially marketed at a grocery the other day...

(I thought that it was a poor bachelor secret)

I'm with Beth. Phyllo dough is a great medium for all sorts of funky stuff.

All great ideas - I made a spinach pie with the phyllo so am out of it. I did buy some tenderflake pastry, though, so guess I could make turnovers. Today I made a quick no-bake cherry cheesecake and an upside-down cinnamon apple cake. I'm going to try all these recipes over the next days and will report back

Thanks for all the help.

I'm still askeered of phyllo. I bought some once and failed to maintain some control of it, threw the whole thing out. That must have been 2o years ago.
I decided recently that I could probably conquer the stuff and bought another packet, now in my freezer.

My big wish, to make croissants sort of like the Rose Cafe's beauties, sometimes almond-sugar-foo foo stuffed. (Croissants, even at the french place, in Abq are ridiculous. Memories of The Buttery, on main street, santa monica . Maybe baby croissants filled with whatever (hazelnuts? nutella?) as a dessert?
And after that I hope to try spanakopita....

A distant goal is to make my own phyllo dough, a kind of reckless goal like making one's own panettone. I've done that, fabulous in star shaped pan'd'oro tins, especially if you candy your own lemon peel and so on, but a major kitchen doughing deal, followed by serious dishwashing/cleanup/floor mop/change of clothes/rest phase. My panettone/pan d'oro pans are in my kitchen as a kind of home-sculpture.

When my sis and I were teenagers, we would always cheer for what, at my dad's, we called "The Dessert".

We thought it delicious and umm, I still do . It's very simple, but very much not healthy.

This is how simple it was: take a bunch of bananas, mash them into a mush, whip up a lot of whipped cream, and mix them in gently together until you've got a heavy cream-like mash. Share it out in bowls and sprinkle generously with chocolate flakes

To add, if you already can deal with phyllo, some good stuff tucked in sounds easy enough.

re the banana whip thing, nimh, that sounds great.
I've memories of a friend who was a vietnamese cook in chinatown LA and on Hollywood Blvd in his own place (right next to the big red X theater, it was called Sing Sing) -- he used to flambe batter coated and quick fried bananas, with remy martin brandy, or perhaps rum. Maybe powder sugared after, can't remember. I suppose that is not appropriate for all, but wow.

That took him almost no time, but then he was a, what, 60 hour a week cook plus other jobs and was swift in the kitchen.
Meantime, I might need to try that banana mash thing.

What do you mean, chocolate flakes? Sprinkles?

We made something similar, but added quark to the whipped cream too.

what's quark?

Quark (at least in the format I find here) is a fine-curd, dry-pressed variant of cottage cheese. A bit less tangy.

It makes the yummiest baked cheese cake.

Osso, you make me laugh. You can watch someone make something with phyllo on youtube or one of those cooking websites.

The trick is to thaw it out in the fridge and when you unwrap it, cover it with a damp tea towel to provide moisture (make sure it stays damp during your cooking process). Once you're done, wrap it back up and refreeze. When the phyllo is fresh, it's pliable and if it rips, so what? It all looks cracked anyway.

I made some kind of horrible no-bake cheesecake thing where you do an oreo crumb crust, mix up some Dream Whip (ugh), add in some cream cheese and vanilla and pour it in your baked crust. Let it set for 15 minutes then top with Cherry Pie Filling. My teeth are already hurting. Anyway, it didn't set - likely because I didn't think and used the soft Philly cream cheese. I scooped it into bowls and called it Cherry Parfait and they loved it. Buncha weirdos. That's the first time I ever made one of those crusts, used Dream Whip and used a pie filling.

<snort>

(clever analogy available privately...)

go for it!

I've made variations of this same dessert when cranberries are out of season and I've run out of supply of the ones I stashed in the freezer. Sometimes I use a bag of frozen blueberries or frozen raspberries in place of the cranberries and then adjust the sugar quantity a bit.

Another dessert that doesn't take a lot of prep work is baked apples. One apple per person, remove the core but be careful not to pierce the blossom end of the apple when doing so. Put a dab of butter in each. Mix together some brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and chopped nuts. Stuff the apples with the mixture. Place apples in a deep-sided pan and add enough liquid to cover the bottom of the pan and bake until the apples are fork tender. Some people remove a strip of peel from the top circumference of the apple so it doesn't split open while baking. I don't.

They can be baked in a microwave or a regular oven. Be sure to cover tightly with the appropriate material for each. In the regular oven it takes about 30 - 40 minutes depending on the quality and type of apples used.

I've used many different liquids ranging from apple juice or orange juice to coffee or cola. You can also use different spices. I've even made savory baked apples using Italian herbs, onions and chicken stock.

Ah, the smell of baked apples reminds me of christmas. My mother used to make baked apples around that time. She filled the apples with raisin and nuts and
poured vanilla sauce on top. So good, and healthy too!!

"baked" apples are a hamburger specialities.

He'd core them, fill them with granola/muesli, wrap them up, nuke 'em and then top them with either vanilla ice cream or plain yogurt. They were yum.