Chocolate Recipes
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[Absolute Chocolate Tartlets]
I could have met my friends Marie-Laure and Laurence at a Chocoholics Anonymous meeting, so when they came over for dinner last night, I decided I would treat them to Absolute Chocolate Tartlets.
The recipe comes from one of my cookbooks, called Je Veux du Chocolat! ("I want chocolate!") by Trish Deseine - another much cherished present from Maxence. In the book,...
Aerial Chocolate Cake, Ganache Glaze
[Aerial Chocolate Cake, Ganache Glaze]
This cake recipe comes from Trish Deseine's book Je Veux du Chocolat! -- much-liked and oft-mentioned around here, as I'm sure you've noticed. I am not spontaneously drawn to that kind of light-textured chocolate cake, having chosen instead to walk the path of dense, fudgy, melt-in-your-mouth cakes, but sometimes the occasion calls for a cake just like thi...
Announcing WBW13: Like Wine For Chocolate
I have the pleasure to announce that I will be hosting the 13th edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, scheduled for September 7. Being the chocolate lover that I am, the theme I have set is Like Wine for Chocolate*: for this edition I would like you to look for a wine that will pair beautifully with an intensely flavored chocolate cake. Sweet or dry, red, white, rosé or polka-dotted -- your choic...
Aunt Amélie's Smooth Chocolate Cake
[Aunt Amélie's Smooth Chocolate Cake]
None of my aunts are named Amélie, I thought I should make that clear from the start. And if I am to explain the origin of this recipe, I will need to rewind the tape back to early January, when French food writer Thierry Roussillon asked if I would answer a few questions for one of the interviews gourmandes he publishes on his blog.
A few days after I d...
Among the many blogs I read enthusiastically is one called Coco&Me: its author, Tamami, sells homemade cakes and chocolates at Broadway Market in East London on Saturdays, and she describes her blog as "the diary of a market stall holder."
Beautifully illustrated with photos of her displays and confections, it is full of the sort of details I crave when I read about someone's life and craft: t...
A little over three years ago, over a dinner of shabu-shabu, I mentioned to Maxence that I was considering starting a food blog. "I think you should go for it," he said. "But it's going to take up a lot of my time, and I worry that I might tire of it after the honeymoon phase," I replied. "I think you should go for it," he said. A few days later, after a few evenings spent playing around with bl...
You know how sometimes, you introduce two of your friends, and later find out they've clicked so well that they call and see each other without you? Now, as I understand (and this I gather from reading women's magazines, so take it with a grain of Maldon salt), some people hate that: it makes them feel left out, or perhaps sligthly cheated. But I've never been of a jealous nature, and on the con...
Today is the third edition of the collaborative food blogging event "Is My Blog Burning?". The first edition, hosted by Alberto, was all about soup. The second edition, hosted by yours truly, had a tartine theme.
Today's event is hosted by the lovely Singaporean foodie Renée, and the theme is Cake Walk. As Renée explains, a cake walk is a sort of lottery organized at local fun fairs, in whic...
Chocolate Almond Bettelman Bread Pudding
If you've ever bought or baked fresh brioche, surely you've noted the subtle shift, occurring sometime during day two or three, when said brioche turns from something you can't keep your hands off of, to something you feel you should be eating because it's there.
When that initial magic is gone, the toaster can help revive it to a certain extent, especially if you top it with thin slivers of sa...
Chocolate and Cacao Nib Cookies
[Chocolate and Cacao Nib Cookies]
Soft and cakey and thrice chocolate-flavored -- from the velvet of melted chocolate, the strength of cocoa powder, and the aromatic crunch of cacao nibs -- these bite-size cookies should fit into either one of these Valentine's Day scenarios:
1. You tend to throw yourself rhapsodically into the whole gift-and-card-and-flower-giving thing: it's fun, it's red, a...
Chocolate and Candied Chestnuts Coffee Cake
[Chocolate and Candied Chestnuts Coffee Cake]
I wanted to bake a cake for our new year's eve party - what's a party without a cake? -- and this is what I made. The recipe for this cake is originally a Sour Cream Coffee Cake from Bon Appétit (circa 1993), which my mother and I tinkered with a little while ago, lowering the sugar content, subbing yogurt for sour cream and converting the measurem...
Chocolate and Candied Ginger Tartlets
Joyeuse St-Valentin!
Head over to NPR's website for a special Valentine's Day commentary and the Chocolate and Candied Ginger Tartlet recipe I created for the occasion!
NPR (National Public Radio) is a nonprofit producer and distributor of radio shows that serves over 750 independant radio stations in the US. In particular, their shows are broadcast on KQED, which was my radio of choice while ...
Chocolate and Orange Palm Leaf Cookies
[Chocolate and Orange Palm Leaf Cookies]
If you browse through the row of cookbooks lined up on top of our fridge, you might notice one, called "Moi, je cuisine solo ou duo" by Brigitte Namour. The title roughly means "I cook for one or two", and this book is filled to the brim with quick and ingenious recipes, scaled for a couple of servings. Originally, I had bought it as a gift for my dear f...
Chocolate and Pistachio Surprise Cake
[Chocolate and Pistachio Surprise Cake]
Last week was my sister's birthday. I didn't come as much of a surprise, really, because I have quite the analytical mind, and a careful observation has led me to the conclusion that this phenomenon happens every 8th of December, year in, year out. At least it always has. Of course, just because the sun has risen every morning for as long as we can rememb...
Chocolate Cake with Caramelized Hazelnuts
[Chocolate Cake with Caramelized Hazelnuts]
Last Sunday afternoon, my sister Céline and I organized a "Goûter de Cousins" at my place. We invited those of our cousins who live in Paris, which amounts to about a dozen. Most of them we only see once a year at family holiday parties - some a little more, some way less - and we thought it would be nice to start a little tradition of same-generati...
[This is the republication of a post originally featured in October of 2004.]
On Saturday night, we had the pleasure of attending the fourth edition of the Paris Potluck, hosted by Alisa and her husband Jean-Yves. This time around, Alisa had suggested that we follow a theme : no more random assortment of everyone's current food obessions! And as she (and I and pretty much everyone else) had bee...
On Saturday night, we had the pleasure of attending the fourth edition of the Paris Potluck, hosted by Alisa and her husband Jean-Yves. This time around, Alisa had suggested that we follow a theme : no more random assortment of everyone's current food obessions! And as she (and I and pretty much everyone else) had been suffering from terrible Mexican food cravings since moving to Paris, her them...
I've always enjoyed the food sections of American newspapers, these pull-out pages that appear in the regular edition on a given day of the week (usually Wednesday) to cover local food and drink news, with recipes. Not all of them have the same standards or budget, and I am told the good ones are an endangered species, but between the Seattle Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronic...
Chocolate Coconut Muffins (Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free)
{Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free}
In preparation for a recent article in ELLE à table, the French cooking magazine in which I write a column, I did some research on the range of ingredients that are derived from the coconut palm.
Beyond the pulp of the fruit (the white flesh that is consumed fresh or dried), its water (the clear liquid inside) and its milk (the liquid you get from pressing or steepin...
[Chocolate Dipped Apricots]
What would you do with melted chocolate leftover from making orangettes and florentins? Throw it out? You have got to be kidding.
No. The wise thing to do was rummage through my kitchen cabinets for something that would be nice and dippable. And I thus unearthed, oh joy, the large bag of dried apricots I had bought for my Apricot Sticky Toffee Pudding. These littl...
It is a little-known fact that Bayonne was the first chocolate-making city in France. In the 17th century, a wave of Jewish immigrants settled there, fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese inquisition and bringing the savoir-faire as a prized possession in their luggage. Local artisans quickly learned how to make the magic happen with those mysterious beans from the New World, and developped the pro...
An estimated 62% of my cooking begins with me lying in bed, thinking about some ingredient that needs using, and not being able to sleep because my mind is awhir, trying to devise rewarding ways to do so.
These closed-eye sessions usually yield satisfactory results and, every once in a while, a plain fantastic one. I am counting this ice cream among the latter.
The challenge was this: I had a ...
Chocolate Jelly with Pineapple and Violet
[Chocolate Jelly with Pineapple and Violet]
This is the dessert I served to close my recent spring lamb dinner: it was a few days before Easter so chocolate was definitely in order, but since lamb shoulder is a rather rich cut (though I must note that French lambs seem to be much leaner than their American cousins; French Lambs Don't Get Fat), I wanted to chase it with a weightless dessert.
In...
[Cake marbré au chocolat]
I grew up eating a store-bought chocolate marble cake called Savane. Created in the sixties by a French manufacturer that was acquired by an American company shortly thereafter, it came as a whole loaf cake in an ocher and brown box. The bottom of the loaf was wrapped in a paper liner that you peeled off as you sliced your way through the cake, the crumb was fluffy as...
[Chocolate Orange Bread]
I bought this loaf of bread at the BoulangEpicier the other day. I've mentioned that store before, and it continues to be a favorite of mine : whenever I'm in the area I make sure to stop there, to buy some bread or grab one of their pricy but mind-blowing sandwiches.
I have also adroitly albeit heavily hinted at my neighbor Patricia, who works close by, that it was r...
[Chocolate Pear Chocolate Tart]
As you know, I have a passion for chocolate. In restaurants, I am never intimidated by the decadent sounding all-chocolate desserts, and I can usually be relied upon to pick that. I have also tried my hand at that kind of desserts, and loved every minute of it, from the imagining to the making to the savoring to the methodical plate scraping. But chocolate can al...
Rue des Martyrs, which shoots up from the 9th into the 18th arrondissement, is one of those typical Paris market streets that seems to defy business logic by offering no fewer than seven bread bakeries, some of them but a block from one another.
Because I live in the neighborhood, I've had the opportunity to sample the goods from (almost*) all of them, and I've been particularly impressed with ...
This year for Christmas, I made chocolate bites of two kinds to give to my family, and bought small confectioner's crystal bags at a professional store to put them in. I also wanted to make little tags to tie around the bags. I bought delicate ivory paper, beautiful green leaves made of very fine thread, and some silver yarn. I cut out rectangles of paper, wrote "Chocolate & Zucchini" with color...
Chocolate Vanilla Petit Pot, Caramel Petit Beurre Ribbon
[Chocolate Vanilla Petit Pot, Caramel Petit Beurre Ribbon]
This is the dessert I served to end Saturday night's dinner. The idea came to me during the same bus ride through Paris that brought us the goat cheese mousse. I don't know what was in the air that day, but ideas just kept bubbling up, a swarm of dishes taking shape and morphing in my mind, which I kept writing down furiously. Stepping ...
Chocolate, Apricot, and Ginger Loaf Cake
On Sunday afternoon, we had a few friends over for the goûter. In attendance were : Marie-Laure and Ludo, with whom we had had brunch earlier in the day ; my friend Sophie, who used to work at my company ; Stéphane and Caro, who are friends from college ; and our neighbors Stéphan and Patricia. To feed this crowd, I wanted to make something chocolate. I know, I know, I surprise myself too, so...
Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Marbles
[Billes de noisette au chocolat]
As a small gift to celebrate the holiday season, I give you this recipe drawn from my cookbook. It appears in the mignardise chapter, in which I give recipes for sweet bites to serve at the end of a meal -- in place of, or in addition to dessert, with coffee or tea.
For these particular treats-on-a-stick, you'll make your own hazelnut marzipan (wait, come back!...
[Coconut Chocolate Cake]
I have known Marie-Laure for nineteen years. This represents more than two thirds of our lives, and our friendship has accompanied us through primary school, junior high, high school, university, a year in Brazil for her, two years in California for me, and a variety of jobs, relationships, and haircuts, without us ever growing apart.
She lived a few doors down from m...
[Coconut Chocolate Cake]
It was Maxence's birthday last week, and one of the things we did to mark the occasion -- in addition to one glorious meal at Les Ambassadeurs -- was to invite friends to join us and celebrate at a small cocktail bar that recently opened in our neighborhood, on an improbable little street we'd hardly ever noticed before. Maybe it didn't even exist.
The bar is trendy ye...
When we have friends over for Sunday brunch, the bulk of the meal is conveniently store-bought from the small shops around us. A generous cheese platter, a few items from the charcuterie (such as sliced bone-in ham, terrines, and sometimes eggs in aspic for a bit of harmless proselytizing), ample supplies of fresh baguette (usually a mix of plain and multigrain), and a selection of croissants an...
[Chocolate Pillow from Lyon]
Like many French kids, I practically learned how to read with bande dessinées, the Belgian/French take on comic books, and a large chunk of my general culture comes directly from them. Although I had too many favorites to name just one, the classic Astérix was certainly among them. It is one of those incredibly multi-layered bande dessinées that you can read at a...
So. Batch #1 in my brand new ice cream machine was dedicated to Maxence, in gratitude for such an exciting, perfectly tailored, and all-around thoughtful gift.
But when the time came to make batch #2 -- that is, the next day, as soon as the bowl had had time to refreeze -- I decided I had paid my dues, and I could now make my favorite, which, you may be un-surprised to learn, is the dark chocol...
Barbie dolls didn't do much for me when I was little, but I had a passion for plush animals. Each of them had a name and a set of personality traits (often refined by my father, who would improvise bedtime shows for my sister and me, with voices and everything), and they felt more alive than I think grownups can really remember. A direct consequence of this was that, even though I had preference...
[Fig + Chocolate]
Perhaps you remember the fig ice cream I wrote about earlier in the fall. Wanting to bolster the spirit of my fresh figs -- the last of the season -- I set out to buy dried figs, only to be told that my organic shop was all out, and still waiting for the new crop to be delivered. Aha! This made complete sense -- fresh figs need a little time to dry, yes? -- but the seasonality...
Last year was my first time making food gifts for the holidays. My chocolate truffles and my mendiants were such fun to make and were so well received, that I was determined to repeat the experience this year. For a few weeks before Christmas I toyed with various ideas (all carefully written down for future reference, I hope I have long years of food gift giving ahead of me), and these florentin...
I am not very good at falling asleep. Once I manage to drift off I sleep soundly till morning -- which is a blessing, no doubt -- but it can take a while before I achieve that state of blissful nothingness. However much I try to relax before bedtime, my mind is reluctant to let go of the day's activities, and seems to take the head-hits-pillow event as a signal to start whirring up again, and br...
[Spreadable Gianduja]
It's all in the packaging, is it not? Because really, if you look at it from an objective stance, this is quite simply, well, Nutella. For about six times the price of regular industrial Nutella, as purchased by yours truly, in a moment of sheer giving-in-to-temptation, at the beauty/home store Résonances.
Ah, yes. But. It is in a tube you see, a nice, toothpaste-like, g...
Ginger and Almond Chocolate Clusters
Lately I've had an insuppressible urge to declutter. I would chalk it up to the advent of spring if it hadn't been so stubbornly cold, and if I didn't find myself in that state of I-can't-bear-to-live-with-this-stuff-for-a-minute-longer several times a year.
Actually, one of my resolutions for 2010 is to take on at least one decluttering project every weekend. It can be something quick, like so...
In Which Two Kilos Of Chocolate Enter Her Kitchen
At the end of Chocolate & Zucchini's birthday party last week, after all the guests had left in a whirlwind of kisses and effusive thanks and well wishes, the dust settled and it was just Nicolas, Maxence and me, collapsing into chairs, exhausted but beaming.
Nicolas, who hadn't eaten all night from all that cooking, brought out a loaf of bread and a small round of demi-sec goat cheese, bought ...
Like Mas Amiel For Chocolate (WBW13)
Some might think that when I set the theme for this 13th edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, I already had a clever pairing in mind, all prepared and tested and ready to go. But no. The idea for this little challenge just popped in my head when I was trying to think of a wine tasting theme without pretending to know more about it than I really do, and to really replicate the way I usually go ab...
Like Wine for Chocolate: Ze Round-Up!
As I write these lines, we have 52 56 contributions to this 13th edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday! I'm delighted that so many of you took part in the game and had fun playing. I won't lie to you, it does give me a little thrill to know that 52 56 of us -- and that's not even counting the friends and family we embarked on the adventure -- conducted this chocolate/wine tasting experiment, just a...
Melt-in-Your-Mouth Chocolate Cake
Yesterday we had a small party at my office to celebrate my company's fifth anniversary, and our pendaison de crémaillère, which is French for a housewarming party. Une crémaillère is a trammel, i.e. the metal adjustable hook that was used to hang pots in the fireplace in the days of yore, and the hanging (pendaison) of this essential piece of equipment in a new house was as good an occasion...
I have always loved the idea of giving out food gifts. As with any handmade present, it seems a very personal way to show you care, and that you love the person enough to spend a few hours making something nice for them. Last year, I didn't plan for it early enough to make it happen : Christmas is always a busy period, and we had just moved into our apartment a month before. But this year, I tho...
I spent a few days in New York City in early December to promote* my latest book project, and I happened to stay at a hotel that was very near the Chelsea Market.
I had very little free time in my schedule, but the proximity allowed me to do a little personal shopping (books, utensils, magazines), buy a few things to improvise breakfast in my room** and, moments before I was to catch a ride bac...
[Pink Praline Chocolate Cake]
Pralines can be a confusing thing, considering that the same pretty word (It would make a cool name for a little girl, no? Or would this ruin her life you think?) is used for different confections.
The original praline is made by cooking almonds in melted sugar: the mixture is left to cool then reheated several times, forming an irregular crust of crispy chewy car...
I first heard about Rene Redzepi's Copenhagen restaurant Noma when I attended the 2008 edition of the Omnivore Food Festival in Deauville, a gastronomic event during which high-profile chefs from France and beyond are invited to cook live on stage.
He has since received many more accolades as the herald of a refreshing and talented new wave of Scandinavian chefs. His forager's approach seems to...
Rose and Chocolate Marshmallows
[Rose and Chocolate Marshmallows]
Guimauve is the stuff clouds are made of. It has the soft and cottony flavor of childhood, and resistance is futile when I spot the pretty pastel cubes in pastry shops.
Rarely am I disappointed, but I do have to mention this one recent time when I bought an assortment from Pain de Sucre and got mostly weirdo flavors nobody in their right mind would want in th...
In addition to the florentins, my little food gift packages for the holidays included orangettes, those little strips of candied orange peel dipped in dark chocolate.
I called these shortcut orangettes because I made them with candied orange rind I had bought at Ali Baba's Cave for Bakers. I could have called them Cheater's Orangettes too, but I thought it somewhat disparaging. You could candy...
Spiced Chocolate Peanut Butter
Considering my love of good-for-you nut butters and my passion for the unabashedly trashy peanut butter cup, it was only a matter of time before I attempted to coalesce the two and make a peanut butter cup spread of some sort.
I thought I would simply use unsweetened cocoa powder to flavor an otherwise classic homemade peanut butter, but when I opened the tin in which I keep my cocoa powder, a ...
Last time I was in London, my primary objective may have been to snuggle up with my nephew, but I still brought a list of food places I wanted to check out, for, you know, research purposes. One of them was Ottolenghi, a deli that offers a daily selection of colorful dishes -- with an emphasis on fresh produce -- and dazzling pastries.
I had received a review copy of their seductive cookbook a ...
Super Simple Nutella Ice Cream
My sister's husband has a passion for Nutella. When Ferrero put out a 40th-anniversary Nutella jar* of woolly mammoth** proportions, Christian bought one and actually spooned his way through it. Not in one sitting, admittedly, but still.
I love my brother-in-law dearly, so when he and my sister came to dinner a few weeks ago, I thought I'd treat them to Nutella ice cream for dessert. I consider...
Un Week-end à Marseille (Part I)
I had long wanted to visit Marseille, so I was very happy for the occasion to spend a week-end there recently with Maxence.
Marseille is a port city in Provence, and it is in fact the second biggest city in France. My grandmother lived there for a couple of years during World War II, and we have a few family pictures from that period. I remember one in particular, black and white with frilled ...
Wholesome Banana Chocolate Breakfast Bars
When Heidi posted about her friend Nikki's healthful cookies a couple of months ago, my curiosity was piqued, and the recipe firmly affixed to my mind's corkboard*.
And as soon as I had a few browning bananas on hand -- some might accuse me of letting them overripen on purpose, but that's just libel and they'll be hearing from my attorney -- I knew just how to put them to use.
I made a few mod...
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