Posts Tagged ‘chocolate’

I’ve picked up snowboarding now that I live so close to the mountains. Being a beginner means a lot of falling and unfortunately I took a particularly bad fall the most embarrassing way possible…

I hurt myself falling off of the chairlift.

With 3 out of 4 tendons of my rotator cuff injured, I was given the bad news of not snowboarding again until I healed up.

This disappointing information required a hefty dose of chocolate. I chose Robert’s Brownies My Way by Alice Medrich
because she uses the phrase “densely creamy and intensely bittersweet”. I didn’t find them intensely bittersweet, but these brownies are lightly sweetened and they are fudgy to a point where you think they haven’t been baked long enough. As long as the toothpick comes out mostly clean, you’re in the clear.

Recipe here.

This is one heck of a cookie. It’s an intense chocolate, crisp exterior and when your teeth sink down into it, it turns into a rich fudge. Magical.

I made these during my true Nervous Chef days when I was setting off the smoke alarms. Somehow I didn’t screw these up. Surprising, as meringues have been failing me as of late.

You need good chocolate (aim for something you would eat on its own, quality matters here), sugar, pecans and egg whites. Everything comes together quickly, so when the oven is done preheating your cookies are ready to go in.

Most of my cookies look a little more rough than the ones I’ve seen on the web. I’m not sure the reason why. Maybe not enough mixing?

These are from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet, but you can also find them in Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies.

Melting Chocolate Meringues (makes about 30 2-inch cookies) From Bittersweet

Ingredients:
4 1/2 ounces 70% chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large egg whites (1/4 cup), room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, I think toasted hazelnuts would work well too)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Melt chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. I make a make-shift double boiler by placing the bowl on top of a saucepan filled with simmering water. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and vanilla. When soft peaks form, slowly add the sugar until you get stiff peaks. Be careful not to beat too long or they’ll be dry.
4. Mix up the chocolate and nuts into the egg whites and fold with a rubber spatula until the colour is uniform.
5. Drop tablespoons of batter 1 inch apart onto the cookie sheet.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cookies should look dry and have a bit of give to them when pressed on. They’ll still be gooey inside. Cool completely.

My niece can’t eat eggs or dairy, but that doesn’t stop me from baking up something tasty for her. She’s a chocolate fiend and judging by the pictures, she enjoyed every bite.

Recipe here.

I’ve been craving chocolate like crazy for the last while. I’ve been anxious lately and the anxiousness has been channeled into making chocolatey baked goods. I first made a self-saucing chocolate pudding which didn’t have the chocolate punch I was going for, so I turned to the book on chocolate, Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet.

The book goes into great detail about chocolate including the cocoa percentages, this site gives a good explanation. I believe cocoa percentages should be mandatory for all recipes now as there are so many different kinds of chocolate floating around. We’re not just dealing with Baker’s chocolate anymore. Using the same amount of butter and sugar for a chocolate that is 80% cocoa will yield much different results from one that is 50-60%. What I really like about this book is that she gives substitutions if you don’t have a certain percentage available. So if you have a 70% chocolate when you only need a 50%, she’ll give directions on how to work with it.

The level of difficulty varies. I would say it could be used by a beginner as this was the book that really got me into baking. This book is also suitable for the more advanced and I’ve grown with this book. The first recipe I made were bittersweet decadence cookies — powerful cookies that will make your knees weak. When my sister requested a chocolate cake for her baby shower, I turned to this book. It was my first complicated multiple layer cake complete with a ganache glaze. While it didn’t look quite as elegant as the picture in the book, it got rave reviews. I did like the extra ego boost when I overheard someone say “This is the best cake I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”

With my chocolate craving, I was looking for something deep and chocolately, something that could satisfy with a few bites. Enter classic cocoa brownies.

I’ve never been able to get a smooth consistency when mixing the batter. It’s supposed to smooth, but mine always ends up looking like this:

Grainy and gross.

But they always end up turning out like the picture up at the top. These brownies actually lasted for awhile in our household because a little goes a long way.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn more about chocolate. If you’re a fan of the cocoa bean, I suggest you pick this up.

Recipe for brownies here

I like desserts that are for two so then I don’t have an excess of sweets lying around the place. I made these chocolate fondant puddings from Donna Hay’s No Time to Cook. The ingredients list is short and really highlights the chocolate so it’s good to use a chocolate you prefer eating.

You mix the ingredients in a food processor and then spoon it into ramekins because the batter is very thick. Don’t try and use a blender like I did!

Bake until slightly set. It won’t be as runny as a lava cake. I always end up over baking mine so mine turned out more fudgey than gooey:

It’s a very rich cake! You could probably serve 4 with this, so I’ll be re-working this recipe and post the results next time.

I thought maybe if I started making tarts, they wouldn’t look as ugly as my pies. The pre-formed tart shape keeps everything looking the way it’s supposed to and look less like a kitchen accident.

It seems that I can’t show up to a family event empty handed anymore as my relatives anticipate what I’m bringing. It’s my aunt’s 60th birthday so I tried to make something sophisticated. I also wanted something easy with few ingredients involved. This recipe claims sophistication and all I had to buy was some heavy cream and I was all set. Done.

The crust is a sweet tart dough and you can just press it into the pan. This saves me from trying to roll out mis-shapened circles. You pat it into the tart, put foil on it (no weights needed) and bake. Once that’s cool it’s time for the filling.

Do you have chocolate, heavy cream, and butter? That’s the entire list of ingredients for the filling. So make sure that chocolate you’re using is something you’d eat plain. I used 70% Lindt chocolate and I have a feeling this may be too bitter for the kiddies at the party.

To complete the tart, all you have to do is pour the ganache:

Refrigerate for 30 minutes and you’re done. Simple.

The ganache makes it a very rich tart so all you need is a thin slice of it, otherwise it’s too overwhelming. This would also work well as mini tarts. This tart is more adult than kid friendly with the bittersweet, but you can make this with a lower percentage. I think 60% cocoa content would appeal to a wider audience. In the book Dorie says the ganache will taste the same as the chocolate. This was confirmed when my brother in law asked if I had just melted chocolate and poured it right into the tart shell. So use a chocolate you like!

Recipe here.

Coffee cake is somewhat of a misnomer. Most of the time it doesn’t actually contain coffee, it’s just a treat you can have with coffee. One thing is for sure, coffee cake is delicious. It’s got some substance to it and it can easily pass as something you can have for breakfast.

This recipe is a snap to make, but with all coffee cakes you are most likely spooning the batter out and not “pouring” it as many recipes state. It is such a thick batter that it needs a bit more help to come out of the bowl than just gravity. It’s also a pain in the butt to try and get the batter to go all the way to the edges of the pan. I’ve given up on this.

This is a Heavenly Cakes recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum. It’s supposed to be baked in a small bundt pan. I only have the large size so that’s why it looks kind of squat in the picture. It’s still just as tasty! I think next time I make the recipe I’ll double it so it’ll fill the whole pan. The cake went pretty quick anyway.

Recipe here

I am overwhelmed with cake right now. We still have leftover cake that I won from a week ago, we just finished off a sour cream coffee cake (delicious btw, I didn’t manage to take a picture), and now a big chunk of chocolatey chocolate cake sits in my freezer. I offered to make a cake for my future brother-in-law’s birthday:

This is the Chocolate Spike Cake from The Cake Bible. I can’t believe I struggled in creating spikes, something that I thought would be easy. I need a lot more practice, so I’ve been offering to make cakes for all sorts of occasions. I’m hoping one day I’ll have a cake that I can be proud of — taste and design.

This is a really chocolatey cake.  It’s not the most intense cake I’ve had, but it’s very dense and I’d rate it an “8″ on the chocometer.  The milk chocolate buttercream is like eating a melted chocolate bar.  There is over a pound of chocolate and almost a pound of butter in the buttercream.  This is one of those cakes you don’t want to eat once a week…or even more than a couple of times a year.  It’s an excellent cake though.  Those who aren’t hard core into chocolate you will definitely want to use a lighter filling and frosting.  Maybe a whipped ganache…or some sort of raspberry puree.

The serving portions, unless you are a HUGE chocolate fan, in my opinion are off from the suggested serving.  I can say this cake serves 16-20 people and not 12.  I baked the cake in an 8″ pan and a quarter of the cake was gone for 6 people.  A small slice is definitely recommended.

Chocolate fudge cake recipe here. I couldn’t find the milk chocolate buttercream recipe, but you can make it by melting a pound (!) of milk chocolate, half a pound of dark chocolate. Let the chocolate cool and beat it into a cup and a half of softened butter that’s been beaten. If your butter is too soft to frost, you can throw it into the fridge for a few minutes to let it harden up.

I have only made a cake when there was an event going on that involves a crowd of people. Making an entire cake for just two people doesn’t make sense. Although with a bunch of neighbours to consume the edibles, I can break this rule from time to time.

It was my neighbour’s birthday and when birthdays roll around I get an itch to make a cake. I made a devil’s food cake with whipped chocolate ganache for the filling and a ganache to glaze the cake. As usual, I was short on time so while I was getting ready I made Movie Man pour the glaze and decorate it (i.e. write happy birthday). Although to be honest, even if I had the time to do it, I’d still make him write out the greeting. He has the nicer writing (guess who is writing wedding thank you cards?). I didn’t have time to trim the cake so the glaze on the sides are a bit wonky. I’m okay with not having perfect cakes, I’m not a professional cake decorator. Cake making does make me want to take cake decorating lessons.