I'm still up and just finished storing the wonderful leftovers so I thought I'd post photos. It was a joy to host June's dessert exchange and to welcome first timers Cookiemonster, jygach and justjoan. We had a truly delightful array of sweets - from justjoan's incredibly rich and flavorful yet still light chocolate cream pie to jygach's just sweet and tart enough blueberry lime tart to eli's incredibly rich and gooey chocolate, carmel, banana cake wonder.
In preparation for the overindulgence ahead, I prepared a very light dinner of a salad with baby lettuces, parsley, two mints and lemon vinaigrette. I was going to pan roast asparagus with brown butter and parmesan, but it was too hot during the day to turn on the oven so I improvised with an "asparagus bar," offering asparagus from the market with a choice of accompaniments - truffle oil, olive oil, lemon, parmigiano reggiano, pine nuts and La Quercia prosciutto. Some home baked pane siciliano and we were set. I didn't get pictures before we dug in, but here are some shots half way through dinner:


And here we have the fabulous dessert spread. I think everything tasted just as good as it looked. I had fun making a retro church bake sale recipe from Jane and Michael Stern - cola cake with broiled peanut butter frosting which is below left larger pan:

Clockwise from top left - Cookiemonster's caramel panna cotta, Pielady's chocolate mint cheesecake, justjoans chocolate cream pie, eli's chocolate salted caramel banana cake

Jygach's blueberry lime tart, Cinny'sMom's hidden berry cream chees torte, aschie30's rhubarb roulade, foodie1's mini cinni buns

Looking forward to next month and the delicious possibilities with summer fruits.