Did You Know? August is National Eat Dessert First Month!

…And I’m hosting a theme challenge in honor of it!

So in America, we apparently have something called “National Eat Dessert First” month. These are the 31 blissful days during the year when the sugar on all the grocery store shelves suddenly vanish and national happiness levels skyrocket. Each day in August has a different themed dessert–the month kicks off with national raspberry cream pie day, followed by national ice cream day, and so on and so forth. Are we seeing a completely delicious, delectable idea brewing here? I hope so!

My idea is to muster up as many forces as I can from all around baking and cooking communities to help me accomplish this challenge. The goal: Find at least one participant–either another or myself–to make a recipe featuring each themed dessert day in August. 

Yes, you read that right, and you know what that means–I NEED YOUR HELP!

I will be featuring a different theme recipe every day for the month of August on this blog. Proper credits and links will definitely be set up, and nothing will be used without your permission. But what better way to create a community and cook up a storm while we’re at it? Plus, you’ll have another outlet for readers to learn about your cooking skills every time you’re in the spotlight. Pretty nifty, eh?

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

If you’d like to participate, please fill out the form below and sign up for at least one theme that you’d like to bake or make. Recipes are not necessary (although certainly welcome!), but we all love a good ogle at a food photo and some festive descriptions. Each and every day in August will feature a different recipe with your–and my–confection and/or sweet tooth contributions. There are four ways you can participate after signing up:

1) Upload your photo on your blog and link me by commenting on this post when your assigned date arrives.

2) Upload your photo onto a community like bakebakebake and link me by commenting on this post when your assigned date arrives.

3) Reply to your reminder email (which will be sent out a few days before the date) with your photos/descriptions.

4) Comment on any of my posts and I will send you a reply so we can figure something out individually!

Reminder emails: Since August is a crazy month (I mean, it’s national dessert month–how could it not be crazy?!), I will try my best to help by sending out reminder emails at least a day in advance of your theme date. That way, you’ll remember to make your delicious concoction for us. I don’t even know how anyone could ever FORGET about dessert–if this happens to you, we need to talk (or stop talking, as the case may be)–but I’ll still remind you. Because I’m a nag like that. And because we don’t want to forget. Plus I’m selfish and just like pretty pictures of food, okay? Crazy, crazy people.

So this is the list I found online–it should be pretty accurate, but feel free and point out any glaring changes that need to be made (or if you just feel like tacking on another five desserts to make national dessert day our own…well, I’m going to totally and completely approve of that.) Green dates are still wide open for some dessert fun; orange dates are covered, but feel free and sign up for them anyway if you like! I really don’t know who in their right mind would say no to more dessert photos, and while I’m tempted to make submissions contingent on you sending me a piece of whatever you make, I’ll suspend that idea….for now, anyway.

August 1 – National Raspberry Cream Pie Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, kamaliitaru and rebecky_mo!) 

• August 2 – National Ice Cream Sandwich Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Ala bubblebubba)

• August 3 – National Watermelon Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, rebecky_mo!) 

• August 4 – National Chocolate Chip Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Mavin Maverick!)

• August 5 – National Ice Cream Sundae Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, karasumaa!)

• August 6 – National Root Beer Float Day

• August 7 – National Raspberries & Cream Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, kmazzy!)

• August 8 – National Frozen Custard Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Ala)

• August 9 – National Rice Pudding Day

• August 10 – National S’Mores Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, karasumaa!)

• August 11 – National Raspberry Bombe Day

• August 12 – National Toasted Almond Bar Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Bob!)

(Ala says: And it’s a certain blogger’s birthday *ahrm MINE* so bonus points for anyone who does something birthday-themed :] )

• August 13 – National Trail Mix Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, doubletake!)

• August 14 – National Creamsicle Day

• August 15 – National Lemon Meringue Pie Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Ala)

• August 16 – National Rum Day

• August 17 – National Vanilla Custard Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, rebecky_mo!)

• August 18 – National Ice Cream Pie Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Mavin Maverick!)

• August 19 – National Soft Ice Cream Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Ala)

• August 20 – National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day

• August 21 – National Spumoni Day

• August 22 – National Pecan Torte Day

• August 23 – National Spongecake Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Juchin!)

• August 24 – National Peach Pie Day (Chefs de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Ama and Kueken23!)

• August 25 – National Banana Split Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, karasumaa!)

• August 26 – National Cherry Popsicle Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Bob!)

• August 27 – National Pots de Creme Day

• August 28 – National Cherry Turnover Day

• August 29 – National Lemon Juice Day (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, Bob and hisietari!)

• August 30 – National Marshmallow Toasting Day

• August 31 – National Trail Mix Day (Ala says: Otherwise known as We-Didn’t-Know-What-To-Do-With-Today-So-We’ll-Do-Whatever) (Chef de cuisine du jour: Thanks, doubletake!)

The sign-up form is here :

Feel free to fill out as many and/or as few as you like! You can always send me a message as well with your preferences, and I’ll make an effort to keep the list updated so you can see what other people are doing. You can also re-submit forms to make changes to your preferences.

Please spread the word! I’d love to turn this into a full-fledged collaborative effort to make sure we celebrate national dessert month in style, so if you know anyone who is interested in participating, drag ’em along for the ride! I don’t have any sort of cash or other prizes, but you’ll get your own up-close-and-personal for the day, plus a lot of summer dessert spirit…and maybe a really, really good excuse to make a dessert that you’ve always wanted to make but resisted doing because your significant other keeps raising his or her eyebrows when you start pulling out the bags of flour and sugar, as if to say, Are we going through this again? (Yeah, we’ve all been there, done that.)

Hope to see you around for the best month of the year!! Let’s celebrate it in style–happy reading, and happy eatings!