Our Two Traditional Fourth of July Desserts

For the Fourth of July, dessert is always a throwback to an earlier time.

One dessert is a throwback to an earlier time in our family's history.

The other is throwback to an earlier time in the world and the BryonySeries but relatively new in our family's history.

The first, ice cream pie, was invented by me nearly thirty years ago (should have patented it) when I was aimlessly walking up and down the aisles of a supermarket looking for ideas for a Father's Day dessert for my first husband.

He was a newly diagnosed diabetic, loved sweets, and now couldn't have them without getting very sick.

I wound up buying a chocolate crumb pie crust (six grams of carbohydrates per serving) and filling it with sugar-free caramel ice cream, and then topping with with ground pecans before refreezing.

He liked it, and it became a staple dessert for him throughout the years were were married. The kids, of course, wanted some, too, so we started making different variations, if only to keep them from sneaking slices of the sugar-free variety.

At some point, it became our traditional Fourth of July dessert, which Rebekah faithfully makes every year.

This year, she ground up chocolate sandwich cookies for the crust, filled it with a raspberry chocolate ice cream, and then grated unsweetened dark chocolate for the topping.

The second dessert is Independence Day cake, which Timothy and Rebekah modified from a 19th Century description of the cake, a treat Bryony Marseilles couldn't wait to try on the Fourth of July, 1892, in the fifth installment of Before the Blood.

Munsonville Inn would also sell a frosted loaf, popular in Thornton, known as Independence Cake, and Bryony longed to try this food from a land so far away.

More than once, she and Susan read the advertisement in the window, boasting it was "flavored with wine and brandy," as well as "rich with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and citron," and "heavily speckled with currants and raisins."

By the time I finished editing the book, I wanted to try Independence Cake, too. So, thanks to these adult kids, I did.

And now, Independence Cake is part of our Fourth of July celebrations, too.