Let me start by trying to describe my unholy, unhealthy obsession with custards. I love custards. I love them with a passion equal only to pork, and we have already discussed my love of the pig. Whenever I pick up a dessert menu, the first thing I look for is a custard. I have no idea what it is about them – there are certainly desserts that taste as good and in some ways better – but the combination of the taste and the texture just really work for me. Zabaglione, crème brulee, flan, you just can’t go wrong.

I could get into the history of it – custard has been around since the Middle Ages (which, by the way, happens to be the coolest period of time in history) and possibly longer – but the truth of it is, panna cotta isn’t really a custard. At least, not technically. It has more in common with Jell-O in terms of chemical structure, and there’s not a drop of egg involved. But, when made right, it has a texture and flavor to rival any crème anglaise.

I chose to balance mine – a vanilla panna cotta – with a dense, rich bittersweet flourless chocolate cake, baked in a sheet pan and cut into triangles with a child’s shapesorter block, because I’m MacGuyver in the kitchen, guys. To cut down the richness and add a hint of tart, I had Paris Hilton serve it.

….

Just kidding. I whipped together a sauce with the juice of two blood oranges. Recipes below!

Vanilla Panna Cotta

from Mark Bittman

You will need:
3 cups cream, or 1 1/2 cups cream and 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 package (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar

Pour 1 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over, let sit for five minutes. After, cook over low heat, stirring, until gelatin dissolves completely. (I had to turn my heat up a little thanks to an electric range and altitude, and it took me a while to get it to dissolve completely.)

Add the rest of the cream and the sugar to your gelatin mixture and heat gently, just until the sugar dissolves. Add the vanilla and stir to combine. Pour mixture into 4 large or 6 small custard cups and chill until set, about 4 hours. If you want you can serve right in the cup, or you can unmold as I did. Use a knife and dip the container in hot water for a few seconds to help release.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

adapted from A Mingling of Tastes

You will need:

2/3 c plus 2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
9 oz quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, and the flavor was just exactly where I wanted it to be. Bittersweet can have an edge to it that I, as a chocolate lover, really enjoy but my husband, who is a milk chocolate fan, doesn’t so much. This meets nicely in the middle.

Preheat the oven to 350 F and line an edged baking sheet with buttered parchment paper.  In a large bowl, combine the sugar, cocoa and salt. In a separate bowl or container, whisk the vanilla with the eggs and then add to the sugar mixture, stirring to combine.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the chocolate and, stirring constantly, melt completely. Remove from heat and add to sugar mixture, whisking until combined – it should be thick and pretty smooth.

Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into corners. You want it to be as even a thickness as you can. Bake for about 25 minutes – the top will be crusty, like a brownie, and the inside will be dense and thick. I let mine cool overnight before cutting and recommend the same to you. (the original, delicious sounding recipe at the source is a thicker, traditional cake baked in a 9” springform, if you aren’t interested in cutting out shapes.)

Blood Orange Sauce

Fruit sauces are  really easy to make. I happened to have blood oranges on hand – exactly two, in fact, so I made a blood orange sauce. It consists of bringing 2 Tbsp of sugar and the juice of two oranges to a boil and simmer until it reaches your desired thickness.

So, one day when I was shopping at my mothership, the restaurant supply store, I saw this candy mold and knew that filled chocolates would be in my future. I only just now bought it and last night I made a test batch – because I have to learn to temper the chocolate, too, and I was made to understand there is a learning curve there – and this is the result. Guittard bittersweet couverture on the outside, San Francisco Chocolate Co milk chocolate ganache on the inside with a few drops of orange oil. The coating has the gloss and snap I was looking for which means my tempering was a success (at least on the top, I think I let it get too cool when I was doing the feet) but my ganache didn’t set up quite the way I would have liked, it was a bit too soft so when you bite into them, the shell snaps as it should but the ganache won’t support it so it just sort of squishes out.  Gonna have to use less cream next time.  Anyway, I am not proficient enough for a full report so I’ll just say I love the way these look and taste and I am looking forward to trying all sorts of variations.

Warren, my husband, really likes Reese’s Cups. He will stick a bag of the miniatures in the freezer and only have one or two at a time, so it lasts him about a hundred years. I have no idea how he can do this, as I would eat one or two every 12 minutes or so, give or take a few seconds. So anyway, with the economy being as it is and some adjustments to our budget and another baby on the way, we opted not to do any Valentine’s Day presents this year, and instead of paying the babysitter and going to dinner and a movie, we ordered a pizza and watched a movie we already had instead.

Unfortunately, I am unable to not give presents of some sort on holidays. It’s necessary that I find some way to show my appreciation or else SOMETHING TERRIBLE WILL HAPPEN, I am sure of it. So, I thought, I have a cup candy mold from making Cupcake Bites (a post yet to be written), I have a toddler so there’s bound to be peanut butter, what on earth should I do? I know, I’ll make peanut butter cups! Genius, I tell you, sheer genius.

Guys, this turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. I looked at a few online recipes, decided none of them really worked for me and I might as well improvise, so I did and I call it a success. My success, let me share it with you.

• Ingredients:
• 1/2 bag milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter, plus 2 tablespoons
• 2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
• 1 sheet graham crackers, crushed fine

• Tools:
• A cup candy mold OR
• Paper baking cups OR
• Cupcake liners
• Microwave-safe bowl
• Spoon
• Ziploc sandwich bag

Four ingredients! That’s it! Awesome, I know. Anyway, moving on, I mentioned three potential methods just in case you don’t have a candy mold and don’t want to buy one, and though I made one batch for Warren the day before Valentine’s, I only made twelve so I had quite a bit of the peanut butter mixture left over. Thus, for the purposes of this sharing time, I made another batch today using all three methods. I have to say, the candy mold set me back a whopping $1.50 at a local craft store (Roberts, for you Utahns) and it was significantly easier to use and the end results look much cleaner from it, so if you even think you might enjoy these and make them again it would be worth it to try to locate one of your own. Let’s get started, shall we?

The measurements listed here will net you the following amounts:

• 12 miniature cups (candy mold)
• 10-12 cups (mini muffin cups)
• 6-8 cups (cupcake liners)

First, pour about 1/4 of the bag into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Add one tablespoon of peanut butter and stir to melt and combine. Microwave for another 15 seconds to achieve a slightly runny texture if needed.

Once your chocolate is melted and combined, spoon into molds (cups, etc), roughly 3/4 teaspoon per cup. If it doesn’t look like enough, add more. This will be the sides and the foundation of your cup so too much chocolate is better than not enough.

Once all your cups have chocolate in them, use the back of your spoon to squish it up the sides of the cup, all the way to the top if you’re using a candy mold, about halfway to the top if you’re using mini cups, and about 1/3 of the way up on a regular cupcake liner. Swirl the remaining chocolate around the bottom if any parts look too thin.

If you’re using a mold, chuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes or so or until chocolate is solid. If you’re using paper cups, put them on a plate, tray or baking sheet first or you’ll make an unholy mess in your freezer. While that’s going on, let’s mix your peanut butter filling. Since I already had some made, I didn’t take any pictures, but grab a bowl and put your 1/2 cup of peanut butter in there. To be perfectly honest, I have issues with putting things like peanut butter in measuring cups, so I used the back of a large spoon and just threw what looked to be around 1/2 cup* in there. I really don’t think you need to be too exacting with this.  Once your peanut butter is in the bowl, add your 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (or powdered sugar if that’s what you know it as) and your graham crackers. I should note I estimated the amount of sugar, too, since I just sprinkled in what looked to be around 1/4 cup*. I also added a pinch of kosher salt, just because I was trying to get something close to Reese’s and they have that faintly salty tang to balance out the sweetness. The graham crackers serve little to not purpose beyond textural -?” again, trying to copy those Reese’s cups. Stir to combine thoroughly, and then check the flavor/texture to see if it’s to your liking. If it is, throw it all in a ziploc sandwich bag and cut off a tip of one corner. Mine was around the size of a dime and worked like a charm. This is an easy, mess-free way of piping your filling into the cups. If you want to be fancy you could use a piping bag and tips but why bother? This way you just throw it away when you’re done.

(*I made a double batch)

By now your cups should be sufficiently chilled for filling. Remove them from the freezer, grab your ziploc and go to town.

You’re probably looking at about 1/2 tablespoon of filling per cup, but if you think that looks like too much, err on the side of caution. Don’t worry if it forms a peak, you’ll squish it down after you’ve got them all filled. This looks vaguely unappealing, doesn’t it? But it’s delicious, I swear, despite looking just a little bit like baby poop.

When your filling is all piped in, grab a spoon and smooth the peaks down, forming as flat a surface as possible. It’s totally fine if there’s a dip in the center, the idea is just to make sure there’s room for more chocolate on the top. If you happen to be like me and have a toddler in your household, no doubt you’ve got one or two plastic baby spoons hanging around. Those are so great for getting the chocolate on the sides of the cup and again for squishing down the peanut butter, they’re just the right size. But a regular spoon will do the job, too. Precision is not mandatory here.

Here’s where we repeat step one. I used the same bowl as before because, well, I’m lazy. Chuck another 1/4 of the bag of chocolate chips in the microwave for 60 seconds, add a tablespoon of peanut butter, stir to combine, give it another 15 if it isn’t runny enough. (an interesting sidenote, because of the oils in the peanut butter, it assists in smoothing and thinning the chocolate for coating. it also tastes amazing.) Now you’re going to spoon at least a teaspoon into each cup, adding more if you think it won’t cover. Err on the side of caution here – you can always add more chocolate if it needs it after you’ve done the smoothing, it’s significantly more difficult to try to remove it if you add too much.  Go ahead and smooth out your chocolate once you’ve added it all, and don’t worry if it’s not perfect. You can’t be expected to compete with a machine whose sole function is to stamp out chocolates. I suppose you could use a ruler or a pastry scraper on the candy molds to make them flat but I don’t actually own either of those things, so mine look homemade. I cry about it at night, I really do.

Now they go back in the freezer for another 15 minutes at the very least. I actually store mine in the freezer because, well, they’re just better when they’re cold, and the chocolate doesn’t melt as fast. Speaking of melting chocolate, we’re doing something of a shortcut here. Chocolate chips are tempered when you buy them, and they can go out of temper if you get them too hot, which won’t allow them to set and you’ll just have a mess of peanut butter and chocolate. When you’re microwaving, you want your chips to hold their shape but melt when stirred. This will keep your chocolate in temper and everyone is happy.  So anyway, once your cups have chilled sufficiently, bite into one and enjoy. You may notice that mine appears to not be filled with peanut butter, and you would get points for being observant. I ran out of peanut butter on the last big cup and threw some marshmallow creme in there instead. I suspect that with a little butter, a little honey and some toasted coconut, that would be something very tasty reminiscent of a Mallo Cup. Mmm. Mallo Cups.

And now this heavily pregnant woman is going to bed. Happy belated Valentine’s Day!

First, let me just say that if I had to list my top 10 favorite desserts, brownies would not be on it. It’s not that I dislike them, it’s that I’m so ambivalent. It’s a bit like chocolate cake for me, it’s just not something that excites me in any way. But my husband is a big brownie fan, and if I don’t make things he likes I will end up eating all of it and that is just a bad situation for everyone. So I have learned to tolerate the brownie in all of its forms, and I keep trying new recipes thinking hey, this may be the brownie to change my mind. It may be the enlightening brownie, the epiphany brownie, if you will.

Internet, this may be the epiphany brownie. If you harbor no hatred for marshmallow, pecans, sugar, chocolate or butter, you really, really need to try this brownie. The government might lie to you, but I certainly won’t.

First, get your ingredients together:

For the brownies:

6oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/3 c. cocoa powder (dutch processed, like most of you will probably already have in your cupboards)

1/2 tsp salt

3 c. sugar

5 large eggs

3/4 c pecans (honestly, I used a half cup because that was what was in the package, and they were just fine – also, this is totally optional, it will not affect the chemistry of the brownie if you hate nuts, just makes it less of a mississippi mud brownie and more of a…brownie.)

For the topping:

3/4 c. marshmallow creme/fluff/whatever they call it where you are

1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips

2 tsp. vegetable oil

(for what it’s worth, I think you could use milk chocolate chips here and be just fine, and I’m also convinced a single teaspoon of oil would thin out the chocolate enough for drizzling, too. not only that, but if you hate marshmallows I think this would be a great place for a good rich buttercream (made with butter, not shortening!) spread very thin.)

First things first, let’s get that chocolate chopped. If you have the bars like I bought, terrific, grab a knife and make it look like this:

You might think, maybe I could chop mine in a more uniform fashion? Yes, you probably could. I’m not good at uniform chopping and I freely admit that I chopped mine with a dull knife on a wobbly board and a toddler underfoot, which are not the best conditions for concentration. But it’s all getting melted anyway, the idea behind chopping is that it allows the chocolate to melt at a steady pace, and as you can see, it’s chopped! Let’s move on.

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 325 degrees, with the rack set on the middle position. Grab a 13 x 9” baking dish and line it with aluminum foil with a little hanging over (so you can lift it out later) and spray with cooking spray.

Here is where the recipe calls for a double boiler setup to melt your chocolate and butter, like this:

And it works, but there are a few things I don’t like about this particular method. One, while my $5.99 Ikea double boiler insert here works like a charm in the right size pan, this pan is a bit large for it and so I had condensation not only along the the sides of the outside of the boiler, but it was building up on the inside as well. Condensation + melting chocolate – DANGER WILL ROBINSON, the two are just not meant to go together.

(breaking here for a second to say if you are unfamiliar with what exactly a double boiler is, it’s a small amount of water, half an inch in this case, in a pan set to a slight,steady simmer with another heatproof vessel ((a stainless steel bowl will work just as well if you have one)) set over it – but not touching the water – to allow for a dry, steady heat for melting delicate things like chocolate or heating dairy without scorching)

An episode of Good Eats that involved tempering chocolate had Alton melting chocolate with a heating pad sandwiched between two bowls. This is an ingenious idea and I may very well try it when I have two heatproof nesting bowls, but another alternative is the tried and true, ultra gourmet microwave method. Microwaving is the easiest of all of them, but it’s also a great way to burn your chocolate so make sure you take it slow and steady. I might even suggest melting the butter first and then stirring the chocolate in, maintaining the stirring until your chocolate is completely melted.

At any rate, your goal here is for your chocolate to look like this:

Smooth and glossy, but do yourself a favor and resist the urge to taste it. Unless you have a mirror nearby and you are watching your face while you do, because it’d be worth the expression. Unsweetened chocolate is just not delicious at all. If you choose the double boiler method, it should take you about 5-7 minutes total.

Take it off the heat and let it cool a bit while you combine the flour, cocoa and salt in a separate bowl. Feel free to whisk it if you’d like, I knew I’d be whisking the eggs and sugar shortly so I opted to just stir it around until it looked like this:

Once that’s done, in another bowl, whisk together your sugar and eggs. If I may make a suggestion? Add the 5 eggs in first and whisk to combine, add the sugar and then give it a thorough whisking. I put the sugar in first and made it unnecessarily hard on myself, so if you’re a masochist feel free to do it that way. I don’t think it matters so long as they are combined. Once it looks pretty uniform, whisk in your melted chocolate until again, thoroughly combined.

Now we get to add the flour. If you happen to have a bionic arm lying around, here’s a good time to put it to use. You’ll want to add the flour mixture in increments – I found three to be good and easy to keep track of. It is really, really important to make sure all of it is incorporated, so I recommend folding it in first, then stirring to combine, checking the bottom and sides to make sure no
streaks of flour are around. Repeat until you’ve got a thick, delicious batter and your arm leaves your body in protest. Fold in your pecans if you’ve chosen to use them and spread the whole mess into your prepared baking pan as evenly as you can.

Chuck it into the oven and bake until a toothpick comes out with a few wet crumbs. The recipe says about 35 minutes, in my oven it took 45, so you’ll want to start checking at 30 minutes and keep on in 5 or 10 minute intervals. The texture is intended to be dense, fudgy and moist, so overbaking is not your friend here. Set your pan on a wire rack to cool and get to work on the fun part:

Mmm. I can’t lie, I have a close-up of this on my hard drive in high res just because it was so fun to do and so pretty to look at. Here’s how you accomplish a similar result. Spoon the marshmallow cream over the brownies while they are still hot and let it sit for a few minutes to soften up and become spreadable. While that’s happening, you can go ahead and microwave the chocolate chips and the oil for about 30-40 seconds, stirring after to melt. If you have an offset spatula (best. thing. ever.) use it to spread the marshmallow cream evenly across the brownies. If you don’t, use a knife or spatula to do the same thing. Once you’ve got it looking the way you want it to, spoon up some of your melted chocolate and sling it back and forth over the top in whatever pattern pleases you most. Decorating is not my forte and so I have no advice for you other than that I started by drizzling off the end of the spoon and switched to a rapid slinging motion shortly after just because I liked the looks of it better. So it really is entirely up to you.

Let your incredible-looking masterpiece epiphany brownies cool, at the very least for 2 hours, then lift them out of the pan using the foil. Cut into squares and serve. (the recipe recommends 2” squares and I think that’s a reasonable guideline.) Makes about 18-24 brownies depending on how large you cut your squares.

Bon appetit!

Man, just looking at the picture makes me need to make them again, immediately.

These were posted over at the Livejournal community bakebakebake and since I didn’t want to make just any old cookie, I wanted to try them myself. They are, indeed, outrageous. I slightly modified the recipe and so I’ll share with you what I did.

Ingredients

Makes 2 dozen

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks *

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat chopped chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl in 20-second increments, stirring between each, until almost melted; do not overheat. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in melted chocolate.Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.
3. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheets.* Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes; with a thin metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool completely.

* – I used 1/2 package semisweet chunks and 1/2 package white chocolate chunks to alleviate some of that chocolatey-ness. I mean, 20oz of semisweet is a LOT of the same chocolate flavor. These would also probably be incredible with peanut butter chips.

**- here again is where I adjusted slightly. I always seem to have trouble with my cookies going flat and rather than waste some pretty pricey ingredients on flat, unappealing looking cookies, I took a note from Alton Brown’s “The Chewy” cookie and chilled the dough, and then rather than dropping teaspoons, I made balls instead, cooking only 6 at a time. They cooked up as you see in the photo above so I’m saying my strategy is a successful one. Take that, cookies! I win again!

This was an interesting experience for me – brownies made with chocolate pieces instead of cocoa powder. I used bittersweet discs from Guittard and it took me one or two brownies to really get used to the flavor. If you’ve only had box or store-bought, these are an entirely different experience.

I made another batch a few days ago with the intent of giving them to a friend, but something went horribly, horribly awry in the baking so the center just would not cook. I also used semi-sweet chocolate this time, as my husband commented that they could be sweeter, and the flavor was quite nice.