16 posts tagged “chocolate”
No matter who your candidate is, you are bound to disagree with them on one issue or another. One of the biggest discrepancies I have with my candidate, Barack Obama, is that he doesn't really like sweets. I've read that he likes pumpkin pie enough, but he is not much of a dessert guy. I'm not sure how a person can not like sweets. I am also not sure why someone who doesn't like sweets all that much chose to mention pie so many times, but I digress.
Normally, I wouldn't put my political thoughts on my food blog. But, I've also never felt compelled to bake something in honor of a great candidate. It's really exciting to vote for someone because you want to vote for him--not simply because he's not "the other guy." Not that I don't have plenty of things against "the other guy;" one of the biggest being that his first major decision as potential President was choosing a VP candidate who is a real...I'll just stop there. This blog post doesn't need to take a turn into a running list of negative adjectives. ;)
Anyhow, I decided to make some Yes We Can(dy) Mini Cupcakes, based on two kinds of candy/candy bars--Almond Joys and Whoppers. I had an almond joy bread from Peabody bookmarked for an eternity and then conveniently, she made Whopper cupcakes not too long ago, so I was set.
There are so many great food bloggers out there (like Peabody, I'd imagine) who plan out what they will blog. They set days aside to make new things, make sure they have the proper lightning, have plenty of time to take photographs, and so on. These bloggers tend to put much more work into their blog than I do, and it shows. Their blogs look great, clean, professional. I can never be one of those bloggers. I do care about my blog, and love running it. However, I blog about anything new I make (unless I'm too lazy to take pictures of it) that we happen to be eating for dinner. Every once in a while, though, I'll make something specifically for this blog--usually for a food blogging event or something similar. And every time I make something specifically for this blog, the same thing happens--I screw it up or it looks awful. It's a curse.
The almond joy cupcakes came together very easily. The frosting is maybe my new favorite frosting. Easy peasy. And so delicious! Mmm. Anything with coconut has my vote. So I moved onto the Whopper cupcakes. These spread a ton and didn't rise a lot when I baked them. I knew I probably overfilled them, but I didn't think that could be the only problem, and I was right. When I was transcribing the recipe, I put "2 tsp. baking soda" instead of "2 tsp. baking powder." Doh! So these basically turned into one giant mass of chocolate cupcakedom. They still tasted good and the cake was still very moist, but they did not look very pretty. Which meant I needed to cut them into something resembling a cupcake before photographing them. That can be our little secret.
I had also planned on making these early so that for once I could use natural light to take photos. But, that didn't happen either. Hey, you win some, you lose some. I'll take the cupcake loss if I can be sure McCain will take the POTUS loss. :)
Because I want to be sure you see some pretty pictures, I will just go ahead and link Peabody's blog rather than retyping the recipe.
I made the whopper cupcakes as-is, except for that pesky baking soda/powder transcription error. :P
For the almond joy cupcakes, I made the recipe as-is, except I substituted plain yogurt for the buttermilk (since that's what I had in my fridge) and doubled the coconut extract in the cake since I didn't make the glaze. I topped them with creamy milk chocolate frosting from Cook's Illustrated and some flaked coconut.
Creamy Milk Chocolate Frosting
| 1/2 | cup heavy cream |
| pinch table salt | |
| 1 | tablespoon light corn syrup (or dark) |
| 10 | ounces milk chocolate , chopped |
| 1/2 | cup confectioners' sugar |
| 8 | tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), cold, cut into 8 pieces |
Instructions
-
Heat cream, salt, and corn syrup in microwave-safe measuring cup on high until simmering, about 1 minute, or bring to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat. Place chocolate in workbowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. With machine running, gradually add hot cream mixture through feed tube; process 1 minute after cream has been added. Stop machine; add confectioners´ sugar to workbowl and process to combine, about 30 seconds. With machine running, add butter through feed tube one piece at a time; process until incorporated and smooth, about 20 seconds longer. Transfer frosting to medium bowl and cool at room temperature, stirring frequently, until thick and spreadable, about 1 hour.
Do you ever take a bite out of a really sweet, really chocolatey, really decadent dessert and then only eat a few bites because it's "too rich?" I don't.
Those two words do not go together in my vocabulary. Desserts can never, ever be too rich for me. Sometimes when I'm eating the same thing as a person who proclaims it "too rich" I agree with him or her...you know, just so I don't look like a cow. But secretly I am thinking that I could easily polish it off. That maybe I could even finish my portion and the portion of the person who has proclaimed this "too rich."
So, due to my propensity for loving sweets and things that aren't terribly good for me a little too much, for this installment of Eat to the Beat I decided to go with Rufus Wainwright's "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" which is really all about wanting things that are bad for you...and maybe overindulging in them, too. I absolutely love Rufus Wainwright and in fact, almost picked this song for EttB #1, but saved it for this time around. If you want to participate in Eat to the Beat, the event that pairs music and food, please check out the details here. The deadline is June 30.
You can listen to "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" below, but here is a snippet of the lyrics.
Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger, a little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me
If I should buy jellybeans
I have to eat them all in just one sitting
Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter, a little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me
You will be happy to know that these cupcakes do not contain nicotine or ashes. But, given the mention of chocolate milk, I decided to make a milk cake with chocolate milk instead of regular milk. Talk about a little bit sweeter and fatter. And then I used chocolate milk in the chocolate frosting. And THEN, I topped these with sugary jelly beans. Too rich? No, no, no. You should have your cupcakes and your chocolate milk, too!
I could have handled the same amount of sugar the original cake recipe called for, despite the swap of chocolate milk for regular. But for the sake of "normal" people, I reduced the amount of sugar in the cupcakes (and use less sugar than I normally would in the frosting).
And while we are on the subject of rock and food, everyone should check out Cooking with Rockstars, which features videos by some great singers making/talking about some great food. Rufus is actually included, too.
Chocolate Milk Cupcakes (hold the cigarettes)
Makes 12 cupcakes
adapted from Nigella Lawson
1-1/4 cup flour
3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2/3 cup chocolate milk
1 Tbsp. butter
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
3 eggs
2/3 cup superfine sugar (just pulse granulated a few times in your food processor if you don't have superfine)
Preheat the oven to 325 and grease a muffin tin.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Warm the milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat or in the microwave, just until the butter melts. Stir in the vanilla.
In another bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until light and fluffy and then beat in the milk mixture. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture with a spatula. Pour the batter into your muffin cups and bake about 14 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Chocolate Frosting
I didn't really measure ingredients for this, so this is my best guess. the thing about frosting is that you can always add things to it as you are mixing to make it taste better, give it a different consistency, etc. I actually ended up using too much milk in this so it was a little runny, but I already had a little too much frosting so I didn't feel like wasting more sugar. :)
6 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1.5 cups powdered sugar
chocolate milk (probably around 1/4 cup, but maybe less)
Stir the cocoa powder into the melted butter and then add the vanilla. Alternately add the powdered sugar and a tablespoon or so of the milk at a time until you reach your desired consistency.
Tom: Whoa, this actually looks like a Boston Cream Pie
Me: What do you mean? That's what it is.
Tom: I know, but remember the German Chocolate Cake? This thing looks real. Just like the picture on my container of Yoplait!
I'm sure I sound like a broken record here, but I am so NOT a baker. Just the process of it--the precise measuring, the science, the rules--is too much for me. And then you have to worry about all the possible problems--overmixing, overbaking, underbaking, bad baking soda, sunken cakes, deep fried aardvarks. Fuggetaboutit! Not to mention that no matter how little or much I bake, I always manage to get about 2 lbs. of flour all over the kitchen and myself, in Lucille Ball-like fashion.
But, because I sometimes like to torture myself, I continue to make attempts at becoming a better baker. You may remember the fiasco that was Tom's birthday cake (err..trifle) last year. Yeah, that didn't turn out so well. So this year I wanted to actually make a proper cake for my husband's birthday.
German chocolate cake on my hit list, I looked around some favorite recipe sights to see if another type of cake caught my eye. When I came across the Cook's Illustrated recipe for Boston cream pie, I knew it had to be the one. Tom likes yellow cake with chocolate frosting, so this was pretty similar. And, I'm not going to lie--I personally love Boston cream pie. And I was going to be eating some of it too, afterall.
But this cake instilled fear in me, just as the German chocolate cake had. This one required pastry cream. I've never made pastry cream before and I do have a bit of a fear of all things involving egg tempering and the like. It took me a while to perfect avgolemono and pastry cream is even scarier because you actually cook the eggs on the stovetop slowly. And as we know, I have an unlevel stovetop that has two settings for the burners: insanely high and so-low-the-flame-will-go-out-6-times-while-you're cooking. And then there's the cake itself. First of all a sponge cake requires precise folding of all ingredients, soft (not overmixed!) peaks of egg whites and the like. Oh and then you have to actually get it out of the oven at the right time and invert it onto a plate and then a rack without half of it staying in the pan.
When I finished making the pastry cream and it was a perfect consistency, tasted great, and looked even better, I did an internal dance of joy. When I properly folded the sponge cake batter, took the cakes out of the oven before they were overbaked and got BOTH of them out of the pan in one piece, I did an external dance of joy.
Seriously, I am so proud of myself. Some of you seasoned bakers probably feel sorry for me for being so excited over pastry cream and sponge cakes but this is a big step for me!
The cake turned out perfect. I never bothered to make sure we have rum because we always do. Of course when I went to get the bottle from the bar, all we had was 151 and I didn't really feel like using that in the custard, so I just used extra vanilla. I also used a more straightforward ganache rather than the CI version (which uses vanilla and corn syrup). Other than that, I stayed true to the recipe and this cake was delicious!
These pictures didn't turn out as great as I would like, which is sad because I wish it looked as good as it tasted! Also the chocolate ganache that swoops down into the cake when you are slicing it doesn't photograph quite as well as the perfect piece Cook's Illustrated managed to get with the help of their food stylists and photoshopping. But puh-lease! I was able to make pastry cream, sponge cakes (and not just any sponge cakes...the kind that actually came out of the pan in one piece), ganache and put it all together to make a delicious layer cake. Finally.
Boston Cream Pie
adapted from Cook's Illustrated
Sponge Cakes
1/2 cup cake flour
1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
5 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar, divided
Pastry Cream
2 cups milk
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. table salt
1/4 cup corn starch, sifted
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter (optional)
Ganache
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Make the pastry cream first. Heat milk in a small sauce pan until hot but not simmering. Whisk yolks, sugar, and salt in another large saucepan until mixture is thick and lemon colored, 3-4 minutes. Add cornstarch and whisk to combine.
Slowly whisk in hot milk. Cook mixture of medium-low heat, whisking constantly and scraping pan sides and bottoms as you stir, until mixture becomes thick and pudding-like consistency, about 10 minutes. Off the heat stir in the vanilla and butter (if using). Pour the pastry cream into a clean bowl and immediately place plastic wrap so that it is touching the top of the cream, so a skin doesn't form. Let the mixture cool at room temperature for a bit before moving it to the fridge to cool completely, a few hours (or overnight).
Then make the cakes. Adjust oven rack in the lower-right position and preheat the oven to 350. Cut out two pieces of parchment paper to fit over the bottoms of the pans (8 or 9" round cake pans). Grease & place a parchment round in each pan.
Sift together flours, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. Heat the milk and butter in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter melts. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. Cover and keep warm.
Separate 3 of the eggs, placing the whites in one bowl and the yolks in another (put either or both in your mixing bowl, if you are using a stand mixer). Place the remaining two eggs in the same bowl as the yolks. Beat the 3 whites on high speed until foamy. Gradually add in 6 Tbsp. of sugar, continuing to beat whites to soft, moist peaks. Do not overbeat.
Beat the egg yolks and 2 eggs along with the remaining 6 Tbsp. sugar on medium-high until eggs are very thick and pale in color, about 5 minutes (will take longer if hand mixing). Add beaten eggs to whites.
Sprinkle the flour mixture over the beaten eggs and whites. Fold very gently 12 times with a large rubber spatula. Make a well in one side of the batter and pour milk mixture into bowl. Continue folding until batter shows no trace of flour and whites and eggs are evenly mixed, about 8 more times.
Immediately pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 16 minutes for 9" pans and about 20 minutes for 8" pans. Immediately run a knife around the perimeter of the cakes to loosen. Invert the cakes onto a large plate. Peel off the wax paper, and then invert them onto a cooling rack (next time I will just invert them right onto the cooling rack; no reason to risk breaking them twice!).
Finally, make your ganache. Place your chopped chocolate in a bowl. Bring the butter and cream to a boil in a saucepan. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and let it sit for 3 or 4 minutes. Stir until smooth. Let it sit another minute or two to become more pourable.
Ready to assemble the cake? Place some parchment or wax paper strips on a large plate or stand (something easy to pull out from under the cake). Place one of the cakes on the plate. Top with the pastry cream and spread the cream to the edge of the cake in an even layer. Place the second cake on top of the cream. Pour the ganache right in the center of the cake, and let it ooze around the cake and down the sides. Smooth with an offset spatula (which, of course, I don't have) or something else that will allow you to get an even layer of the ganache.
Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.
A few weeks ago, I discovered Blake Makes, a food blog run by Blake over in New Orleans. In addition to the great recipes and food photography, Blake and his wife, Bridget, also give a little back to the foodie blogosphere. First, Blake gave away jars of his very own peanut butter dulce de leche (don't you lick your lips just reading those words?). I wasn't lucky enough to get some of that, but I did score some Sucre' chocolates that he was nice enough to give away last week. And the week after that, he gave away still more chocolate, from TCHO. So, if you haven't yet discovered Blake Makes, I suggest you head on over there for your chance to not only see some delicious stuff, but to also possibly win some delicious stuff.
I got my package from Sucre last week and was so excited to find this pretty little box under all the popcorn packaging and even a temperature control packet (which, by the way, I thought was a package of hot chocolate when I looked at it really quickly. Haha).
And here's the inside. The ornaments of a few of the pieces got a ltitle roughed up, but no biggie. It sill looked SO pretty and good. If you want a description of the pieces, you can check out this picture from Blake.
I wanted to eat a little bit of each piece before blogging about it, which meant splitting a lot of these with my husband. This wasn't easy. This is not like that junky box of chocolates you get at Valentine's Day where, after biting into an unknown chocolate, you decide the filling is awful and you end up throwing it away or putting the other half in the box for your husband to possibly eat. Nope, these were all super delicious. And what I really liked about these is that, as delicious, high-end, good quality chocolate they didn't just focus on dark chocolate. I like any kind of chocolate but I think when people hear "good chocolate" they automatically assume dark. And I am a lover of all the chocolates, especially white (even though it's not technically chocolate).
Our favorite, by far, was the blange. It was a white chocolate ganache finished with a bit of banana and rum. It was so creamy, so smooth, so good. Like eating a white chocolate flavored pad of butter :) I also loved the meuniere, a brown butter and toasted almond infused chocolate ganache a lot. But they were all so so good. I definitely have my eye on the New Orleans Collection at the Sucre sight and might have to order it soon.
Tom and I aren't really big on Valentine's Day. When we were dating, our anniversary fell 5 days after Valentine's Day so we celebrated that instead. But, to be honest, I think we would feel the same way if our anniversary was in June.
Our very romantic, exciting Valentine's Day consisted of me throwing some beef stew into the crockpot before work this morning and defrosting and reheating some biscuits from my freezer. Oh, and did I mention that we ate in front of the television? Yep, we are real romantics.
Still, this morning I thought to myself that I should at least make a dessert of some sort. I had all the usual baking staples at home, and I had some leftover chocolate bars from Christmas that never got used. I figured I could make a chocolate cake or some brownies. I started flipping through my copy of Nigella Lawson's Feast and came across her chocolate raspberry heart cake. I am not really one for hearts, in all honesty, but something about this cake was just entirely too cute. As a bonus, the only thing I was really missing from the recipe was some heavy cream.
That said, I did change the recipe quite a bit. For starters, I halved the recipe and baked it in a square baking dish before cutting out heart shapes with my cookie cutter. I also changed her filling up (I can't believe Nigella, of all people, goddess of all things too-rich and, well, too much in general, didn't add sugar or some framboise to her cream!) and the ganache, too. Oh, and I added some berry sauce. OK so basically I kept the recipe for the cake. I did find this link to her original recipe, if you want to check it out. I have to say I wasn't looking for a healthy dessert by any means, but this one actually isn't THAT bad. The entire recipe only has half a tablespoon of butter and each cake only ends up with 1 tablespoon of heavy cream in the center. It's a basic hot milk cake that is chocolate flavored. The ganache is a pretty small portion, too. So, you don't have to feel that guilty eating it (nevermind the fact that I also ate the scraps...you know, the parts of the cake that didn't make it into hearts).
Individual Chocolate Raspberry Heart Cakes
Makes 4
Inspired by Nigella Lawson
Cake
1/3 cup milk
1/2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 Tbsp. vanilla
1.5 eggs (I beat an egg and then throw half out to achieve "half" an egg)
1/2 cup superfine sugar (if you don't have this, process some granulated sugar in your food processor until it is finer)
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. all purpose flour
1.5 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
Raspberry Cream
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 Tbsp. Framboise
1/2 cup raspberries
Chocolate Ganache
2 oz. dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
3 Tbsp. heavy cream
raspberries, for garnish
Raspberry Sauce
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup rasperries, fresh or frozen & thawed (I used a triple berry mixture I had in the freezer of blueberries, raspberries & blackberries)
To make the cake:
Preheat the oven to 325 and grease an 8" square baking dish with cooking oil or butter.
Heat the milk and the butter in a small saucepan over low heat or in the microwave, just until the butter is melted. Stir the vanilla into the hot mixture. Mix the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.
Beat the eggs and sugar until very light and frothy. Beat in the milk mixture until incorporated. Mix in (I just use a rubber spatula for this part) the flour mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl until everything is combined.
Pour the mixture into the baking dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes on a cooling rack, in the baking dish. Then, invert the cake onto some parchment paper that you have placed on top of the cooling rack. Cool completely.
To make the raspberry cream:
Crush the raspberries slightly with a fork, or pulse just once or twice in your food processor to break them up a bit.
In a separate bowl, start beating the cream. When it starts to thicken, add the sugar and Framboise. Continue beating until soft peaks form. Carefully fold in the crushed raspberries (and their juices) so as not to deflate the cream.
To make the ganache:
In a double boiler (or a stainless steel bowl on top of a smaller pot of simmering water), melt the chocolate and the cream together. When almost completely melted together, remove the bowl from the heat and whisk the mixture a few times until glossy.
To make the raspberry sauce:
Make a simple syrup by bringing the water to a boil in a small saucepan, and then stirring in the sugar to dissolve. Add the berries and the simple syrup mixture to a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth.
To assemble the cakes:
Using a 3" or 3.5" cookie cutter, cut the cake into 4 hearts (or whatever shape you want). Slice through each heart horizontally to form two parts. Add 1/4 of the raspberry cream to the bottom heart and then sandwich with the top heart. Spread 1/4 of the ganache over the top of the individual cake and top with raspberries for garnish. Repeat with the other 3 cakes. Drizzle with raspberry sauce.
In short, yes. Yes, it does.
I have mentioned before that to make savory dishes better, you add bacon. To make sweet things better, you add Nutella. It turns out, you can add bacon to sweet things and it makes those better, too.
I find myself ogling the Vosges website from time to time. I work just a few blocks from one of their boutiques, but I don't go in there terribly often because I usually try to stay away from too many sweets and I always spend a fortune in there. A couple months ago, I saw they had 2 newer bars--Mo's bacon bar (applewood smoked bacon, alder wood smoked sea salt and deep milk chocolate) and d'Oliva (dried kalamata olives, Venezuelan white chocolate). The first sounded great; the second, not so much.
I finally made my way over to Vosges recently and picked up the bacon bar. Oh, and because I spent a fortune in there (what did I tell you?) I also got a free 4-box of truffles. One of the free truffles? The olio d'oliva, which is the same as above with the addition of first press extra virgin olive oil. I have to say that generally, all of the exotic/strange ingredients Vosges adds to chocolate are just in the background. But I was not too big on the olio d'oliva as it really did taste like olive oil to me. Not something I am crazy about in a chocolate truffle :) Tom didn't seem to notice the extra virgin olive oil quite as strongly as I, though. The bacon bar, on the other hand, we both really enjoyed. No, it doesn't taste like chocolate covered Bacos. The bacon bits (and if you look closely at one of these pics you may be able to see them) and the smoked salt just give the chocolate a little salty, cured kick to it. You may not even realize you are eating bacon...but that's the great thing about Vosges. They take ingredients you might never think about adding to chocolate and it tastes great. It helps that their chocolate is great, to begin with.
And if you are adventurous to try another chocolate-bacon combo at home, check these bacon chocolate chip cookies with maple cinnamon glaze out. They look divine.
I never imagined I'd say this, but I think I might be sick of chocolate. Well, more appropriately, I think I am sick from chocolate. Somewhere between the peppermint bark, my trip to Vosges, the nibbling on my coworker's pretzel/chocolate bites, the licking of bowls of melted chocolate and the abundance of Hershey kisses, caramel toffee, and white chocolate chips in my house (and tummy), I thought it would be a good idea to sample the truffles I made tonight. Oy. They were good, but I think they put me over the top. I am in a major cocoa-coma. Hopefully I snap out of it. You know, in time to eat more chocolate.
So, back to my holiday tins. The other chocolate part of them (and thankfully, the tins only have two chocolate components so that tomorrow I may write a post about how I am sick on confectioner's sugar and/or honey and walnuts) is truffles. This is actually the first time I've made truffles. They are really easy, though they can be somewhat time consuming if you make a lot, which thankfully, I didn't.
I perused our liquor cabinet to see what we had available and the Bailey's stared back at me. I was going to make one larger batch of all Bailey's truffles, but decided to just make a half batch and flavor the other half with raspberry liqueur and jam.
Irish Cream Truffles
makes about 20 truffles
1/4 lb. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 lb. semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp. Bailey's
crushed chocolate coated espresso or coffee beans, for rolling
Put the chopped chocolate in a stainless steel bowl and set aside.
In a small saucepan, heat the butter and heavy cream to just boiling and then turn off. Pour the mixture through a sieve onto the chopped chocolate. Gently whisk together the chocolate and cream mixture until the chocolate is melted. Stir in the Bailey's. Refrigerate the mixture for an hour or longer, until firm.
Using a small cookie scoop, make equal sized truffles. Roll them in your hands, to make them round. Roll into the crushed chocolate covered coffee beans.
Chocolate Raspberry Truffles
makes about 20 truffles
1/2 lb. dark chocolate, chopped
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp. (I'd probably use 3 next time) raspberry liqueur, like framboise
3 Tbsp. seedless raspberry jam
dutch-processed or unsweetened cocoa powder, for rolling
Put the chopped chocolate in a stainless steel bowl and set aside.
In a small saucepan, heat the butter and heavy cream to just boiling and then turn off. Pour the mixture through a sieve onto the chopped chocolate. Gently whisk together the chocolate and cream mixture until the chocolate is melted. Stir in the Framboise and seedless jam. Refrigerate the mixture for an hour or longer, until firm.
Using a small cookie scoop, make equal sized truffles. Roll them in your hands, to make them round. Roll into the cocoa powder.
This year, I decided to give some tins filled with sweets out to a few people for the holidays. I don't normally do this because I am not big on baking, and most of our friends have moved out of the city and/or travel around the holidays. But, I got bit with a little baking bug, and I opted to make a few manageable things without going overboard.
Peppermint bark is one of those things that most people like and it's so easy to make. As a plus, it can be made in advance of all the baked goods, which helps you keep on schedule! The two chocolate components of my goodie tins are bark and truffles: two things that can be made a little early and hold up well in the fridge and in tins (or during shipping).
If you like things mintier, add a splash of mint extract to the white chocolate layer. I am more of a chocolate gal than a mint gal myself, so I prefer not to do that; not to mention the fact that I don't often bake and therefore have no mint extract in my cabinet.
Peppermint Bark
1 lb. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate (I use a combination), coarsely chopped
1 lb. white chocolate, coarsely chopped
6 oz. crushed peppermints or candy canes
Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.
In a double boiler (or, in my kitchen, a large bowl over a not-as-large pot with an inch or so of just simmering water), heat the chocolate until it's melted and smooth. Pour the chocolate onto the baking sheet and spread the mixture evenly with a spatula or offset spreader. Let the chocolate set, on the counter or in the fridge, until it's firm.
Melt the white chocolate in the double boiler. Allow to cool slightly before pouring over the firm bittersweet chocolate layer. Spread evenly, and then sprinkle with the crushed peppermints (if you want, mix the peppermints in with the white chocolate instead). Set the bark in the fridge and break into pieces when cooled and firm.
Phew, that was a mouthful.
Every once in a while, even I get the baking bug. I tend to stick to muffins/cupcakes and cookies because those are a little harder for me to screw up than cakes and pastries. The other day, I randomly got a craving for some sort of cranberry cookie. I bought some white chocolate, cranberries and pecans and figured I'd make some cookies, bars or blondies with those ingredients. We ended up going out Friday night so I didn't end up making the cookies. Since I had today off, I figured I would find a recipe and get moving.
I adapted (and halved) a recipe from Quaker Oats for oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chunk cookies. These turned out great and were soft and chewy. I think I prefer a flatter, slightly crisp cookie though, so next time I make these I might just use the recipe for the Quaker Oats vanishing oatmeal raisin cookies and make the adjustments that way.
I was thinking mine were chewier/rounder because I used bigger spoonfulls (a cookie scoop instead of a teaspoon) but considering I got 3 more cookies than I was supposed to get, that doesn't seem right. It's hard to tell whether these are supposed to be flatter since the picture on the QO site seems to be some sort of pie and I am not a good enough baker to know what kinds of recipes yield big chewy cookies vs. what kind yield flatter crisper ones, haha. (an update: talk about not being a good baker. I realized the day after I made these that I was paying no attention and used bread flour instead of AP. ::smacks forehead:: I'm sure the higher gluten level prevented them from spreading as much).
Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
adapted from Quaker Oats
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup white chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 375.
In medium bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg, mixing well. In separate bowl, combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture in 3 additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries, pecans and white chocolate chunks. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 10-12 minutes or until done.
Yields 18.
I am a sucker for new products. Truth be told, I have no idea if this product is actually new, but it's new to me. The product I speak of is Ficoco: a spread made from, well, figs and cocoa, of course. Apparently it's distributed by FoodMatch and is from Croatia (or so google tells me).
On my walk home from work today, I decided to duck into Whole Foods. I was really just looking to see if they had canned tomatillos (and they did--score!). I don't go to WF often because, well, I don't make $250K a year, it's equidistant to the more frugal Trader Joe's. But every time I do, I go in for one thing and come out with 6. Today was no different (King Arthur's bread flour and cherry preserves...) and I would up with Ficoco.
With Tom being out tonight, I was on my own for dinner. I decided on breakfast for dinner and broke in the Ficoco by spreading it on some toast. I think I'm in love. The cocoa is such a nice complement to the figs. It gives it a deeper almost liqueur-y like taste. If you like similar dried fruits like prunes, dates, raisins, etc., you will like Ficoco.
This would be great on crepes, scones, thumbprint or linzer cookies. If you are into fruit with your meat (sadly, I have not yet gone to that dark side), it would be good with pork, I imagine. And, it's only 60 calories and 0g fat per tablespoon (take that, Nutella).
Now, forgive the terrible picture of my dinner. I wasn't planning on actually taking a picture of eggs and toast (let alone on really hideous hand-me-down dishes), but I decided I would rave about the Ficoco. Like I said, I just had this with toast, on the side of some eggs scrambled with salami, cheese & spinach. If you are wondering why I chose to scramble my eggs instead of make an omelet, this is generally not a conscious decision as I cannot make a good omelet to save my life. Actually, I am not particularly good at flipping anything...if it needs to stay in one piece.
