hurricane muffins

I bought some water. I filled up the bathtub. I made sure the flashlights had batteries. And I baked some muffins.

I figured that Hurricane Irene would, at the least, bring some power outages or knock out cable and internet. To my surprise, none of that happened. I didn't imagine any dire circumstances, but I did imagine that we could be caught in a situation where we were stuck at home for a couple days with nothing to do but watch the cats sleep. So, foremost in my mind was making sure that we had plenty of junk food to tide us over.

It does seem that the prevailing food theme of Hurricane Weekend was comfort food. As the rain started rolling in and we were hit with a massive craving for Doritos, J-Cat volunteered to head out in the rain to get a bag, but did not anticipate that he would have to hit 4 different bodegas to find them, and then only in snack size bags. Whoever wanted Doritos next would find none within a 5 block radius of our place. (And I actually have confirmation that a friend in the neighborhood was forced to settle for Bravos, the horror! Sorry, Tom.)

Having secured our crunchy snacks, we were now fully equipped for the weekend - a massive pot of pasta and bolognese, a rice cooker full of rice, a bunch of hard boiled eggs, and these Chocolate Chip Muffins. Recipe after the jump:



CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 cup half and half (or whole milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners, or grease the cups.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, half and half, and vanilla extract. In a another large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, then stir in the chocolate chips. Fold the wet ingredients and the butter into the dry ingredients, mixing just enough to combine. Do not overmix or you will have tough muffins.

Use an ice cream scoop to fill the muffins cups evenly. Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove the pan to a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes, then remove the muffins from the tin and allow to cool further on the rack.

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this is not a recipe

The nerve of me, going weeks without posting, then finally returning with this non-recipe of a recipe, this epitome of culinary laziness. And one that seems dreadfully off season considering the frigid weather we have been doomed with of late.



But, you see, I am so seduced by these types of recipes, these classics of American kitchen convenience. Growing up with two immigrant parents who raised us on a predominantly Chinese diet, these foods are the exotic, the unknown, and are the joy to discover as I've grown up and moved away from that home. It was not until just a couple of years ago that I had ever even heard of monkey bread, or tater tot casserole, or chess pie. I remember the revelation of rhubarb when I first tasted a pie sent to my friend by his mother while we were at camp in Michigan. Even those American classics that my parents attempted to adopt into our menu - meatloaf, spaghetti, burgers - were always tweaked with Asian flavors. Not to say the tweaks weren't great, they invariably were. I grew up loving my mother's meatloaf, and have always been deeply disappointed with any truly American meatloaf I've come across. The first time I tasted broccoli cooked by a friend's mother, I understood why most children hated what had always been my favorite vegetable. But these American classics have always appealed to me, and especially those that came into being during the push towards convenience food.



The ice box cake is a double whammy of an American classic. Just the name alone, "ice box cake", has the quaintness of the past. How far back into our history do you have to go to find people who called it an ice box? Though the real origin of ice box cake dates back at least to the 1930's, the cake that most Americans know and love is a 1950's revival of the classic. My first introduction to the ice box cake was as recently as a year or two ago and was the version popularized by Nabisco, on their packages of chocolate wafers. I've never even tasted a Nabisco chocolate wafer, apparently they are not so easy to find in stores these days, but I understand they taste like a thin oreo without the cream. The cake is no-bake, perfect for hot summer weather, and I was stunned when I learned how simple it was to make. Make up a bunch of whipped cream, maybe sweeten it a touch and a dash of vanilla. Make layers of chocolate wafers and alternate with whipped cream. Stick it in the fridge for a few hours. Voila. Cake.



If you think about it for a moment, you realize that it is silly and lazy, but genius all the same. How could it not be good? My favorite cakes are iced with whipped cream anyway. The cream softens the wafers until they are basically the texture of cake. And the best part, what I consider the ultimate 1950's coup of convenience recipes, is when you slice the cake and reveal fantastic zebra stripes, that look so much fancier than it has any right to look.

And the bittersweet side of the story this time is that I never did find Nabisco wafers, and instead used the Swedish Anna cookies, which come in such a great variety of flavors that I look forward to making plenty of ice box cakes come summer. Why is not finding Nabisco wafers bittersweet? Well, because for the past four years, I've worked at the Chelsea Market, the building that once housed the original National Biscuit Company factory, Nabisco. And as I walked out of the factory for the last time on Friday, bidding farewell to a hugely significant chapter of my life and anxious about a new adventure, a new step, and new world at my doorstep, I wondered how many of those blasted wafers were made within those walls back in the day and how ridiculous it is that I can't find them in any store in NYC.

Non-recipe after the jump:

CHOCOLATE ICE BOX CAKE

4 cups heavy whipping cream
4 tbsp confectioners sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 9-ounce boxes of Nabisco chocolate wafers, or 3 5.25-ounce boxes of Anna chocolate wafer cookies

Whip the whipped cream, sugar and vanilla extract to soft peaks. On a large serving plate, lay down 7 wafer cookies in a circle, placing an 8th in the middle. Spread the cookies with 3/4 cup of the whipped cream. Repeat the layers of cookies and whipped cream until the cake is as tall as you like. Finish with a layer of whipped cream. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or overnight. I crushed up all of the broken cookie pieces and sprinkled them on top for decoration, shaved chocolate is also a nice garnish. Any garnish should be added just before serving.

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break the butter rules

If you ask me to describe myself in a nutshell, I will answer with one simple fact: I put salt in all my sweets. I think this is actually a profound statement that speaks to just about all aspects of my personality. And I don't mean that little pinch of salt that every baking recipe calls for, claiming it enhances the sweetness of the sweet. If it calls for a pinch, I throw in two or three, and I'll still top that cookie with some flaky sea salt for good measure. So it only makes sense that I would be inextricably drawn to a recipe for cookies that actually calls for salted butter. And not just run-of-the-mill salted butter, but beautiful French butter with fleur de sel. I used a brand called Pamplie, an old brand made in a region of France called Deux-Sevres, which is apparently known for its fine dairy products.

I took the recipe one step further by sprinkling some more flaky sea salt atop the cookie. I imagine that might push it over the salty edge for some people, but for me it was perfection. It's all about balance - sweet needs salty, chewy needs crunchy. I try to live by the wisdom of the salted butter chocolate chip cookie. Recipe after the jump:



SALTED BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Adapted from the recipe by David Lebovitz

4 ounces salted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed dark or light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt or kosher salt
1 cup coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate
1 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
flaky sea salt for sprinkling

In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to beat the butter with the sugars until smooth and creamy. Beat in the egg and the vanilla.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Add the flour mixture into the beaten butter until well combined, then mix in the chopped chocolate (including any chocolate dust) and the chopped nuts.

Cover the dough and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, preferably 24.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with Silpat or parchment paper. Use a small ice cream scoop to make rounds about 1.5 inches in diameter. Place the mounds evenly spaced apart on the baking sheets, and press down the tops to flatten them so they are no longer domed and the dough is even. Sprinkle each cookie lightly with flaky sea salt.

Bake the cookies for ten minutes, rotating the baking sheets midway during baking, until the cookies look about set, but are not browned.

Remove from the oven and quickly tap the top of each with a spatula, then return to the oven for two more minutes, until the tops of the cookies are light golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool on a rack.

Storage: The cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to five days in an airtight container. The dough can be refrigerated for up to one week or frozen for one or two months.

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ice cream garden

I don't know how it is that I had never made mint chocolate chip ice cream. It is easily my all-time favorite ice cream flavor. And now that I have made it and realize how much fresh mint blows away any store-bought mint extract-based green stuff, I may have to continually make this every few days.



Because J and I finished the whole quart in two days. QUART. In TWO DAYS. I'm not proud of that, but it was just so freaking good. Creamy and extra cool, with this added fresh grassy flavor that only real herbs could bring. I added the bittersweet chocolate in a straciatella style, by melting it, drizzling ribbons onto the softly frozen ice cream, and breaking up the chocolate by hand. This results in super crackly thin bits of chocolate, incredibly well distributed.



And look, it's actually green! Recipe after the jump:

MINT CHOCOLATE CHIP ICE CREAM
Adapted from the recipe by David Leibovitz

For the mint ice cream:

3 cups half and half, divided
3/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 cups packed fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks

For the chocolate chips:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1. In a medium saucepan, warm the sugar with 2 cups of the half and half, salt, and mint.

2. Once the mixture is hot and steaming, remove from heat, cover, and let stand for an hour to infuse the mint flavor.

3. Remove the mint with a strainer, then squeeze out as much liquid from the mint leaves as possible. Discard the mint.

4. Pour the remaining half and half into a large bowl and set the strainer over the top.

5. Rewarm the infused milk. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then slowly add some of warmed milk to the eggs to temper, whisking constantly. Add the warmed egg mixture back into the pot of milk.

6. Cook the custard, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. If using an instant read thermometer, it should read around 170ºF.

7. Immediately strain the mixture into the cream, then stir the mixture over an ice bath until cool.

8. Refrigerate the mixture thoroughly, preferably overnight, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

While the mixture is freezing, melt the chocolate in a small bowl over a pot of simmering water, or in a microwave oven on low power, stirring until smooth. Place a storage container in the freezer.

9. When the ice cream in the machine is ready, scribble some of the chocolate into the container, then add a layer of the just-churned ice cream to the container. Scribble melted chocolate over the top of the ice cream, then quickly stir it in, breaking up the chocolate into irregular pieces. Continue layering the ice cream, scribbling more chocolate and stirring as you go.

When finished, cover and freeze until firm.

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ante up: a new kind of chip

I never really spent time contemplating the chocolate chip cookie. I have my moments when I enjoy them - hot and melty right out of the oven, or Chips Ahoy soaked through with milk, or the giant deli ones with chips stuck all over the top - but they were never on the top of my cookie list. Despite my relative disinterest in the classic treat, I was definitely intrigued upon reading this article (a while ago) in the New York Times about the quest for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie. Even though I'm not a die-hard chocolate chip cookie fan, that article made my mouth water.



Well, as luck would have it, the very shop that the recipe in this article is based on - the very chocolate they recommend - is right downstairs from my office. The new Jacques Torres Shop in Chelsea Market is a dangerous thing, because even though I've always said I'm not a huge chocolate lover, if there is one way to make me want to eat chocolate it would be to open the best chocolate shop in town literally under my nose. The recipe calls for their dark chocolate wafers; flat round disks of chocolate about the diameter of a silver dollar. In place of the classic chip, these wafers melt to create amazing thin chocolate strata all throughout the cookie. You get a bit of melty chocolate in every bite, rather than a disproportionate hunk.

And then, the pièce de résistance, the salt. The salt not only within the batter itself, but the flaky sea salt sprinkled on top of the cookies. The salt that makes the chocolate taste chocolatier, the cookie taste cookier. Salt on desserts, one of my favorite things. Find the recipe HERE.

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emergency cookies: white chocolate cherry chunkers

Oh my. What a week I've had. Such a week that I can't even remember when I made these cookies or how I had the energy or time. But it's a good thing I did, because it turns out that J-Cat is practically surviving on them. On Saturday night, my manchild of a boyfriend broke his upper arm skateboarding and now is pretty much unable to do anything. Between multiple visits to the hospital and the realization that I have to do quite a lot to help him (imagine all the things you can't do with only one arm) and a severe lack of sleep, I'm wondering if perhaps I baked these cookies in the middle of the night. Luckily, these hearty white chocolate cherry chunk cookies are full of oats and relatively low on sugar, so when I go to work and leave the gimp alone at home all day, he can easily eat these rather than try to get something off of a shelf or whatever.



The recipe comes from the new book The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread, with some minor modifications from me to reduce the sugar (I always do that, as I actually don't like really sweet desserts), and increase the fiber. I also made smaller cookies than the recipe suggests, so I have adjusted the cooking time to account for it. Amy's Bread is an incredible bakery that constantly strives to thwart all of my attempts to lose weight. It's right downstairs from my office. It's magical. Recipe after the jump:



WHITE CHOCOLATE CHERRY CHUNKERS
Adapted from The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread
(Makes 36 small or 12 large cookies)

1 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup dried tart cherries
3/4 cup white chocolate chunks or chips
1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar

1. Position one rack in the top third of the oven, one rack in the bottom third of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line the cookie sheets with baking parchment.

2. In a bowl, add the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt and whisk together. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla. In another large bowl, add the cherries and white chocolate and toss gently to combine.

3. In another bowl, using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. Gradually add the egg mixture until everything is well combined.

4. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in stages. Mix only until everything is well combined, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. There should not be any pockets of dry flour left in the dough. Add the cherries and chocolate and mix again on low speed until everything is evenly distributed. If you're using a mixer that has beaters instead of a paddle, you may want to fold these last ingredients in by hand with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula.

5. Using a large soup spoon, a metal ice cream scoop, or your clean hands moistened with water, scoop out small balls of dough and place on lined baking sheet. Press down lightly to flatten them to a thickness of about 1 inch. They will spread a lot during baking. Bake the cookies for about 14 minutes, rotating the cookies halfway through the baking time. They should be golden brown and baked all the way to the center. They should be soft, but be careful not to underbake them or they'll be doughy and will fall apart easily.

6. Let cookies cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then move them to a rack and cool completely before serving.

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five ingredients or less: baci di dama

Is it just me, or is there something menacing about the cookies in this picture?



That all seem to be staring at me, daring me to eat them, a disapproving glare headed in my direction. They certainly don't look as sweet as they actually are. These Baci di Dama - or Lady's Kisses - are Italian shortbread-style sandwich cookies from Piemonte that I saw on Molto Mario a couple of weeks ago. They are exceedingly simple to make; they look a lot more complicated than they are. A whiz in the food processor is all it takes to make the basic cookie, leaving you with a bowl full of what appears to be grainy sand:



I was a little wary that this extremely dry mixture would never form solid cookies, but a good press into a round measuring spoon made a perfect cookie shape:



And the quick bake further solidified matters, though the result was a bit harder to the tooth than I would have liked. I may throw an egg yolk in there next time:



Some melted bittersweet chocolate brought two cookies together as one kiss, and the quiet cookie judgment began:



I think he's a little unhappy with me. Recipe after the jump:

BACI DI DAMA

1/2 cup thinly sliced almonds
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat. Combine the almonds, sugar, flour and butter in a food processor and pulse until uniform. The mixture will be dry and sandy. Using a round 1 tbsp measuring spoon, press the mixture into the spoon to make a half round. Place the formed cookies on the baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes until just starting to brown lightly. Remove and allow to cool completely.

When the cookies are cool, melt the chocolate in a double boiler or the microwave. Spoon a small amount of chocolate onto the flat side of a cookie and spread a thin layer evenly. Sandwich the flat side of a second cookie to the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to set before serving.

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stuff breakfast

Chocolate for breakfast, can you really get away with it? I say, if it's sandwiched between two healthy slices of bread, why not? It's also 70% cocoa, it's not like I was sugar loading. It was just a simple way to make French toast a little more fun, when the only bread in the house was this whole grain thin sliced Health Nut bread. Turns out, that Health Nut bread was kind of awesome for french toast because the nuts worked perfectly with the melty chocolate center, and the bread itself has a touch of sweetness. Since chocolate alone is a little hardcore for me, I also stuffed it with ricotta cheese. The result was pretty yummy, and not nearly as sweet as I worried it might be. Recipe after the jump:



CHOCOLATE STUFFED FRENCH TOAST
(Serves 2 hungry people)
6 slices bread of your choice (I used Arnold Health Nut bread because it's what I had, and I actually do recommend it for its sweet nuttiness. At least you're getting fiber...)
3 large eggs
splash of milk
1-2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp part skim ricotta cheese
12 tsp bittersweet chocolate, cut into small chunks or chips
butter or nonstick spray for pan frying

Cut the crusts off of the bread and spread with 1 tbsp of ricotta cheese, sprinkle with about 2 tsp of chocolate, then top with another slice of bread and press lightly to seal the edges. Repeat with remaining bread slices to make three sandwiches. In a large shallow dish, whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat and spray with nonstick spray or butter. Soak each sandwich in the egg mixture for a couple of minutes per side until saturated. Pan fry for about 3-4 minutes per side until golden brown. Serve sliced in half on the diagonal and topped with powdered sugar, with maple syrup on the side. This would also be great topped with fresh sliced strawberries.

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chocolate love

Valentine's Day always seems to be about chocolate. I'm actually not a big chocolate freak, and as a result I don't have much experience cooking with chocolate. But I do know that since I really don't eat it very much, I think it's worth it to eat truly great chocolate when I do. Hence, Scarffen Berger, considered one of the best baking chocolates in the world.



It's clear as soon as you look at this chocolate that it is great quality. The shine, the color, the aroma are all really gorgeous. Any old chocolate doesn't do much for me, but when I have some great chocolate in my hands, I start to understand the passion.



Dessert last night were these Mini Orange Chocolate Chunk Cakes, from a recipe by Ina Garten that I saw on her show ages ago. These are simply chocolate chip buttermilk cakes infused with an orange syrup and topped with chocolate ganache. I did make a couple of key adjustments. First, though I used semisweet chips for the actual cake, I decided to make the ganache with 70% bittersweet chocolate. I had made these once before and found the sweetness overwhelming, so this was my compromise. I also split the cakes in half. The main reason for this was because I couldn't get them out of the pan whole. But the happy accident was that I was able to pour the orange syrup onto both halves and it infused the cakes much more than they would have otherwise.



I reassembled the cakes before topping them with the ganache, but when we were eating them realized that it would have been smarter to stick the two halves back together with the ganache. I also didn't do a great job melting the chocolate for the ganache; there was just a bit of crystallization, it probably could have used a bit more cream, and I think I was a little impatient. The end result was still pretty delicious and decadent, and it was a fitting chocolatey end to our Valentine's dinner. Recipe after the jump:



Mini Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake
Adapted from a recipe by Ina Garten

1/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1/8 cup grated orange zest (2 large oranges)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus 1 tablespoon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3 ounces buttermilk at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup good semisweet chocolate chips

For the syrup:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

For the ganache:
4 ounces good bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 6 individual serving baking molds, such as the flexible non stick 100 percent silicone molds. (I only had cupcake tins, so I adjusted the cooking time accordingly)

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, then the orange zest.

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, combine the orange juice, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately in thirds to the creamed butter, beginning and ending with the flour. Toss the chocolate chunks with 1 tablespoon flour and add to the batter. Pour into the pans, smooth the tops, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the molds on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the syrup. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, cook the sugar with the orange juice until the sugar dissolves. Remove the cake from the pans, put them on a rack over a tray, and spoon the orange syrup over the cakes. Allow the cakes to cool completely.

For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of the cakes.

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chocolate cream pie

A classic and a favorite of mine -- chocolate cream pie. I'm actually not a big chocolate freak, but if you top it with a pile of whipped cream I'm much more interested. This pie seemed more cream than chocolate in the end, and I'm not complaining, but that probably goes against most other people's tastes.



I had to laugh at myself when I substituted some of the flour in the pie crust for whole wheat flour. Who was I kidding? Did this really make it any less bad for me? But strangely enough, in the end it was an interesting choice. The resulting crumbly texture put this crust somewhere between a classic pie crust and a cookie crust, either of which would go fine in a chocolate cream pie. I guess it was best of both worlds, with some extra fiber thrown in.



The only downside to this pie is that you have to do a lot of waiting. The pie crust dough needs to rest before rolling out and being baked, and the chocolate filling needs to cool and set for a while before adding the topping and serving. It's a little torturous.



But definitely all worth it in the end. Recipe after the jump:

CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE

Ingredients
Pie Crust
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
4 tbsp unsalted butter, chilled
4 tbsp shortening, chilled
3 tbsp ice water

Filling
3/4 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped
3 egg yolks
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping
1 cup chilled heavy cream
1 tbsp confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation
1. To make the crust, combine flour, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter, quickly cut in the butter and shortening until the mixture resembles tiny split peas. Do not use hands to mix, as the heat from your hands will melt the butter and result in too dense a crust. Add the ice water and combine with a fork. Gather dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and allow to rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
2. To make the filling, combine sugar, flour, milk, and chocolate in a 2 quart saucepan or a double boiler. Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until mixture begins to bubble. Continue stirring for 2 minutes. Mix a small amount of the hot mixture into the egg yolks to temper, beating rapidly to avoid cooking the yolks. Stir the warm yolk mixture into the remainder of the chocolate mixture, and cook for an additional 90 seconds. Remove from heat, and stir in butter and vanilla. Set aside to cool while you roll out the pie crust.
3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll dough into a 12-inch circle. Line the pie plate, flute the edges and dock the bottom and sides with a fork. Lay a piece of parchment paper in the crust and fill with pie weights or dry beans. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-18 minutes until lightly browned, removing the weights for the last 5 minutes of baking. Allow to cool before filling.
4. Pour filling into pie shell and chill until set, about 2 hours. Shortly before serving, combine the topping ingredients and whip with an electric mixer to stiff peaks. Spread the whipped topping evenly over the chilled chocolate pie, and finish with shaved dark chocolate.

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chocolate eruption

I'm not hugely crazy about chocolate. Sometimes I think this makes me insane. Most everyone else I know, especially women, are obsessed with chocolate and must have some everyday. For me, I definitely love a really great chocolate dessert, and I do have the occasional craving, but maybe 8 times out of 10, I'll choose a dessert that isn't chocolatey, and I don't think cheap chocolate is generally worth it. J-Cat is the same as me, we're big into the pies and tarts and pastries, not so much chocolate cake. So I guess that's why I haven't done a whole lot with chocolate in my time, and my double boiler often sits unnoticed in the cupboard. But for some reason the other day I had a desire to play with chocolate, so I went searching for a cake recipe. The one that caught my eye was this Chocolate Lava Cake at CacaoWeb. When I do have a chocolate dessert, I like it hot and moist, and oozing is definitely a plus. Sounds sooooo dirty...



The strange thing about my relative indifference to chocolate is that when I look at melted chocolate, I can't imagine anything being more luscious and delicious looking. That may be due to the humongous hunk of butter that you melt it with. This recipe called for either semi or bittersweet chocolate. I went for a 72% cacao chocolate, which is bittersweet, because for me, the darker the better. I used the Sunset Chocolate Pistoles by E. Guittard, which are wafer-shaped and thus easy to melt without having to hack up with a knife and make a huge mess.


This is an artisan single-origin chocolate, meaning the cocoa comes from one specific region of the world. This gives them a quality not unlike a wine from a single vineyard; there are distinctive notes to the flavor. Hey, if I'm going to mess around with chocolate, I want some good chocolate!

CHOCOLATE LAVA CAKE
Yield: 10 servings

INGREDIENTS
10 oz semi or bittersweet chocolate (preferably 70 % cocoa)
4/5 cup unsalted butter
8 eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

PREPARATION: 1. Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
2. Grease 10 large muffin tins or cups; paper muffin bake cups can also be used.
3. Break the chocolate into small pieces and melt it with butter over hot water.

4. Beat the eggs with sugar and mix with flour.
5. Slowly fold in the melted butter and chocolate.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for only 8-12 minutes; the outer part should be cooked and the inner part liquid.

The result was quite good, although the next time around I will probably reduce the sugar to 1 cup, as I still thought this was a tad too sweet. I was also clumsy with cooking times. My first pan baked a little too short, my second a little too long. Tonight I am going to try to bake the remainder of the first pan further, I wonder if that will not only firm a little bit more of the cake up, but will make it taste fresh and warm. I served these with fresh whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

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