Best Cocoa Brownies

I don't make very many brownies. But whenever I stop by a coffee shop, I always secretly feel a need to buy one. I never did - just because that's exactly the thing I can bake at home. I just don't.

Then came Valentines day when I had a strong urge to bake brownies. It was a miserable failure. Since then I had been dreaming of gooey-moist-deep-dark-chocolate brownies. And this was it. I went out of my way and bought the fancy Valrhona cocoa powder just for this occasion.



These brownies are almost like a giant square of chocolate truffle. They are so rich and creamy that I - who can eat a pie in one sitting - can only finish a small square at a time.

Here's the recipe: Best Cocoa Brownies (I reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup. The brownies were still plenty sweet for me.)

Raw Chocolate Walnut Ice Cream

I had a dinner party at my apartment last weekend. It was quite challenging with all the food restrictions of my guests. Here's the list:

• Diner #1 does not eat beef.


• Diner #2 does not eat pork.


• Diner #3 is lactose intolerant and cannot eat spicy food.


• Diner #4 eats nothing a.k.a he's vegan and he doesn't eat sugar.


• Diner #5 - #10 eats all the things diners number #1 - #4 do not eat and more. This is a blessing - not restriction.

Here's the menu:

• 2 loaves of no-knead bread


• Homemade hummus


• Petite Basque and Humboldt Fog cheese (two of my favorites)


• Raw beet and apple salad


• Vegan green curry with butternut squash and green beans


• Very very mild chicken massaman curry


• Brown rice


• Sour cream apple pie


• Raw chocolate walnut ice cream

This way everybody can have some appetizer, main food and dessert.



My diner friend #4 suggested that I tried this raw ice cream recipe. It was quite amazing and extremely simple to make. You basically blend raw walnuts with water, liquid sweetener and cocoa powder and some flavoring. Then let the ice cream maker do the work. The only down size is that I couldn't blend the nuts into completely smooth velvety texture. Well, maybe that's not a bad thing. It's textured ice cream. The raw walnuts didn't leave any taste. All you could feel was a nice sweet chocolate nuttiness.

I adapted the recipe a bit to this:

• 2 cups raw walnuts


• 2 cups water


• 1/2 cup Agave nectar


• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 3/4 cup cocoa

Putting the Brown in Brownies

And the chocolate keeps coming!

The article in this month's Bon Appetit is about cocoa, and the merits of using regular cocoa rather than dutch process cocoa, which they say is too dry. This is good old-fashioned Hershey's Cocoa. Fitting, since my last post was about Scharffen Berger, which is owned by Hershey's.

Browned butter is a wonderful thing. It enhances everything it's used in, from cakes to cookies to pasta sauces. It's easy to make, and gives everything a nutty, grown-up flavor.

All of this is leading to the fact that I made the Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts that I mentioned a couple of days ago. And oh boy, are they good. Try them and see - sweet enough for kids, decadent enough for the end of a dinner party.

An added bonus is that the walnuts are from my friend Missy's orchard. You can't get more local/better than that!

Nib-bling

Consider yourself warned. I told you I had chocolate on the brain.

This is my new favorite chocolate bar, by leaps and bounds. I already loved Scharffen Berger's Milk Chocolate bar, but now they have gone and added nibs. They might as well have included a needle with that, because I just want to mainline it forever and ever.

Lest you pooh-pooh milk chocolate in favor of dark, let me assure you that this is no ordinary hollow-Easter-Bunny variety milk chocolate. It's rich, chocolately, smooth and with a hint of caramel. The reason that it's so much better is that the percentage of cocoa is as much as some manufacturers put in their dark chocolate (I learned this on the factory tour a few years ago, and sadly, they no longer give tours). The roasted nibs and crunch and an extra punch of pure cocoa.

It's a little bit hard to find, but fortunately there's a little corner market not far from my house that carries them. Fortunately, or unfortunately - hm, I could use one right about now!

(extra thank you to Jude who put one in my Christmas stocking AND brought one to the movies with us last week. Milk Nibby, popcorn and "Black Swan" - a most excellent combination!)

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Martha Stewart is truly the queen of cookies. I love her. Whenever I need an idea for super indulgent cookies, I go to her site. And I am never disappointed. Last week I needed cookies for a ride up to the Catskill - about 3 hours away from Brooklyn. The driver specifically asked for chocolate and peanut butter. These cookies were perfect.



Except somewhere during the process of halving the recipe, I messed up. For some reasons, I halved everything else except flour and peanut butter. I quartered (used only 1/2 cup of sugar) but that was according to my plan.



The results were these cookies that didn't spread out like the picture on the site. I had to flatten them with a spoon to make them more presentable. But regardless of how they looked, they were crunchy, just sweet enough to pass as cookies, salty and delicious. Every single cookie was consumed within the first half hour of the ride.

Martha Stewart's Cream Filled Chocolate Cookies

I still can't decide whether I like these cookies. They are really extremely sweet. I reduced the amount of sugar in the cookies from 1 1/2 cups to 1 cup and in the filling by half. They were still way too sweet for me. I guess this is why people eat cookies with a glass of milk.



I might try making these cookies again with darker cocoa powder. Maybe they will turn out more bitter to balance out the sweetness. I got a request to make these cookies with organic ingredients and the only organic cocoa powder I could find wasn't so great.



Here's the recipe: Martha Stewart's Cream-Filled Chocolate Cookies. The cookies actually turned out with perfect texture for sandwich cookies. They are not as cakey as other sandwich cookie recipes and not so hard and crunchy as butter cookies. They are crisp at the edges with a bit chewy middle.



The only thing I changed in the recipe (other than reducing the sugar) was substituting vanilla bean for vanilla extract in the filling.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

From the first time I saw this post - Chocolate Bread at DavidLebovitz.com - I promised myself that my life would not be complete without trying to make this bread. Although I kept telling myself time and time again (unsuccessfully) that chocolate isn't my favorite sweet. Maybe it's that irresistibly deep brown color. Or maybe it's the aroma of baked yeast and chocolate I conjured up in my head.



The post gave very detailed account of how the author came up with the recipe and how the recipe goes. But my bread still didn't come out looking as delicious as the pictures. My bread took more than 2 hours to rise - perhaps because I didn't substitute enough instant yeast.



The bread was soft and delicious when warm and fresh. But after a couple of days it became dry and crumbly. Even my chocolate lover friend refused to eat it.

So I did what the recipe author suggested - chocolate bread pudding. How awesome would it be? Chocolate bread with chocolate chips plus even more chocolate chips baked with eggs and milk. Perfect breakfast!



So I crumbled up about half the loaf of bread (about 2 cups). Beat 2 eggs and about 3/4 cup of soy milk and about 2 tablespoons of sugar with a glug of vanilla extract. Added half a cup of more chocolate chip. Mixed everything together. Divided into 2 remekins and 4 silicon muffin cups and baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.



Baking bread pudding in silicon muffin cups was a stroke of genius. It made difficult-to-transport baked goods transportable. I shall name them cupbreadpudding.

Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes, simple drop cookies are the most satisfying and comforting. These cookies were baked and packaged as a birthday present all in under one hour. They have intense chocolate flavor (I used bitter sweet chocolate chips plus cocoa powder) with both chewy and crunchy texture.



I started with King Arthur Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies. I had only 2 ounces of shortening so I figured I would compensate the fat by adding 2 ounces of cocoa powder to the mix and reducing a little bit of flour.



I have been making little tiny cookies so much lately that I love love love these giant cookies. I got 28 cookies from the whole batch. It was awesome. You eat one cookie and you're done (or not.)


Giant cookie

Slab and Tickle

Look what arrived in my mail just in time for Easter - a gift from fellow chocolate-lover and dear friend Olga, who I had seen recently in Chicago, when she had told me about this new chocolate discovery.

Pure Dark has a store in the West Village in New York, and their approach is to offer chocolate with minimum processing and maximum flavor. The "Slab" that I received is rough and heavy, like a slab of marble or stone, not tempered into a mold or neat rectangular shape - this is not a chocolate "bar". The color is dull and not shiny like commercial chocolate. And the taste...mmmm. It's like the difference between diner coffee and a fine roast, with a clean and not sugary aftertaste.

It's surprisingly easy to cut into, much more so than the chocolate you use for baking. Dangerously so. I don't even want to call it "candy", it's so good.

OK, back to being hidden in the drawer, you dark, lovely, evil, delicious thing, you.

Look What the Easter Bunny Laid in My Basket

I realize that the title of this post sounds dirty. Or disgusting. But the important thing is that you are looking at one of the most scrumptious chocolates ever to slip down my gullet. It is from Chocolate Covered, the tiny chocolate emporium on 24th Street in Noe Valley.

I don't know what it is - the gooey caramel, the huge, crunchy walnut, the dark, dark chocolate, the generous sprinkling of coarse salt on the top, or the combination, but it is like a little nugget from heaven. The first time I had one, I was driving and nearly had an accident because I was so enraptured. And by enraptured, I mean moaning and groaning with pleasure. Unfortunately, I was not alone. I cannot apologize enough for my public display of lewdness (or the many near-accidents I am sure I caused), but this chocolate swept me off my feet and left me weak in the knees and begging for more.

(Marilyn Monroe voice): Thanks, Easter Bunny. *wink*

Molasses Chocoate Caramel Candy

My brother asked me to buy him some caramel candies from Jacques Torres. I said: "Why?" Who eats caramel candies anyway? It's just burnt sugar and it sticks to my teeth forever. But because I am a good sister, I got him two huge boxes ($16 for 18 pieces!)

Then I tried one. Then two. Then three. And I couldn't stop. I ended up eating a third of the box...

I guess being forever sticky has its own appeal.

Not wanting to spend almost a dollar a piece for caramel candy, I set out for my own caramel candy recipe to make at home.

Here's my first try: chocolate caramel candy. I picked this one because it didn't require a candy thermometer (which is my mistake number 1.)



I cooked everything according to the recipe except that I didn't know how to check for the right consistency under cool water and ended up burning my index finger. Up to the index-finger-burning point everything was pretty easy.

I was very excited to cut and wrap the candies up. I was dreaming of mailing them to brother to surprise him.



But it was a mess. The brick of caramel doesn't quite harden enough. I guess I should have cooked it a little longer. I muscled through a few wrappings and got about 20 candies before giving up. They were soft sticky candies that tasted more like burnt molasses than chocolate. Not quite the quality I want to airmail to Thailand yet...

Chocolate Cookies

No snow this weekend. Just rain and rain and rain - which I guess a good thing. It washed away all the gray/yellow/green snow from last weekend. It was too much of a mess to leave the house for ingredients but I needed to bake something to bring to a party. So I searched high and low for cookies made with ingredients I already had.


I made my own snow.

And I found this: Dark chocolate cookies from Gourmet.

I did not like 3/4 measurement in the recipe so I changed the ingredient portion a bit.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour


• 1 cup cocoa powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 2 sticks butter


• 1 cup sugar


• 3 large eggs


• 2 teaspoons vanilla


• Confectioner sugar for dusting

Didn't sift cocoa powder so got clumps of it in the cookies...

The cookies were delicious. Crisp on the outside, soft and cakey on the inside with nice chocolate flavor. Next time I might have to flatten them before baking so that they don't come out looking like rocks.


Snowy rock cookies.

Chocolate Souffle

YES! YES! YES! The (silent) scream of triumph. I did it! I did it!. Puffy souffle with staying power!


This time I did everything properly. I followed the recipe exactly. Buttered and sugared the souffle dishes. All the eggs were at room temperatures. The oven was exactly 350 degrees.


One more shot of victory.
I was a little disappointed with how the souffle tasted piping hot from the oven. I thought it tasted like sweet omelette. But once it cooled a little, it became the best chocolate cake ever - with crunchy sugar by the edges, light and melt-in-your-mouth texture and intense chocolate flavor.


After a few minutes, it sank in the middle.


But still looked pretty and tasted even better.

Tiny Square of Heaven

Every now and then, I taste a confection that makes me giddy. My friend Amy brought back these amazing Lavender Fleur de Sel Caramels from Lillie Belle Farms in Oregon, and they are - scratch that, were - amazing. Buttery caramel, just a hint of lavender, dark chocolate and that lovely sea salt. Mmmm. To covet, not to share.

Tofu Chocolate Pudding

This is possibly the most genius use of tofu ever: New York Times Mexican Chocolate Tofu Pudding. It's like something you watch on Food Network Iron Chef where they make dessert out of beef or something.



With such few and simple ingredients, it really works. I'm still amazed. The pudding is creamy and delicious. Chocolate totally over powers any hint of soy/tofu.



I did change the recipe a little because I wasn't in a mood for cinnamon. I added a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and about 2 teaspoons of instant espresso. The only thing I would do differently next time (There will definitely be next time!) is to reduce the amount of sugar to maybe less than 1/2 a cup. I would prefer the pudding to be less sweet.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

I went to Boston and ate its cream pie (which is not actually a pie but a cake -- America is so confusing.) It was at that place that people waited 30 minutes in line just to buy pastries. I wasn't impressed. I thought I could do better. So I tried. I wanted to make the big cream pie but it will be for a party with 25+ people. A cake is too messy to eat. Cupcakes would do.



Not to brag, but I think my cupcakes taste better than the real thang....

I started with Creme Patissiere/Pastry Cream from JoyOfBaking.com. It made creamy, not too sweet and very vanilla scented cream. By itself, it tasted kind of bland but I trusted the people at Joy. So I pushed on. With all those steps and ingredients, the "creme patissiere" was actually pretty easy to manage and whisk out.

While waiting for the pastry cream to cool down, I baked a batch of my favorite vanilla cupcakes - recipe below.


After letting the cupcakes cool, I cut out cone-shaped hole from each cupcake. Filled the hole with about a teaspoon of pastry cream. Removed the 3/4 bottom of the cone and capped the top back on the cupcake.



I doubled this recipe for Satiny Chocolate Glaze. After letting the glaze cool down a bit so that it's not so runny, I spooned about a scant tablespoon on top of each filled cupcakes. The glaze hardened (but not like a rock) after it completely cooled and kept its shape and place on top of the cupcakes.

To quote a comment on my Facebook the day after the party from a friend:
Those were the BEST cupcakes I've had in my life.

Best Vanilla Cupcakes Ever!

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 sticks butter at room temperature


• 2 cups sugar


• 4 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 muffin pans with paper liners.


2. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.


3. With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar at high speed for 2 to 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each addition. Add vanilla extract.


4. Sift a third of flour mixture alternately with a third cup of buttermilk into the wet ingredients. Stir (the lowest mixer setting) until just combined after each alternation. Scrape the bowl if needed.


5. Fill the prepared muffin pans up to 2/3 full as the cake will rise. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. Rotate and switch the pan half way through baking. Let cool in the pans for a minute, then remove and cool on cooling racks. Make 32 cupcakes.

Martha Stewart's Black-bottom Coconut Bars

After all the disastrous gluten-free baking experience, I still needed to bake something to bring to a party. I looked through my del.icio.us and found the perfect candidate: Marthe Stewart's Black-Bottom Coconut Bars. After all, she's the queen of sinful desserts (well, I guess after Paula Deen but I don't want to kill my friends yet.)



I still didn't have all purpose flour and still didn't learn my lesson about substitution and so-called genius moments. I used whole-wheat flour and unsweetened coconut flakes in Martha's recipe. But to my credit, I did increase the amount of sugar even though I knew that Martha liked her sweets really really super sweet.



And it was a success! I love you Martha Stewart. <3 <3 <3



The bottom part wasn't so sweet which perfectly offset the sweet, crunchy and flavorful top part. Plus the whole thing was made from whole wheat flour!

Hmmmm.... Maybe I will try this with gluten-free flour... :P

Gluten-Free Disasters

I needed to bake something to bring to a party but I ran out of flour. Out of necessity, I came up with genius moment. I would bake treats with gluten-free flour! So I looked through my brand new cookbook, Gluten-Free Baking Classics, and found a recipe for brownies.



The recipe calls for 2/3 cup of flour mix which is 2 parts rice flour and 1 part starch. Usually, I would just measure out what I need. But I don't know how to measure 2/9 cup of starch... So I came up with another genius idea. I would mix up more flour mix than I need and use the rest for muffins!



The recipe was for chocolate ricotta muffins. I only had cottage cheese. That's an acceptable substitute, right?

As you can tell from the post title, those genius moments weren't so genius after all. The muffins overflowed and made a mess. Both the muffins and brownies came out gritty and weird. I guess my rice flour is not as finely ground as recommended. Or my baking angel was just not with me...

Eggplant Chocolate Chip Muffins

During the past few weeks, my CSA gave me so many eggplants that I figured it wouldn't hurt trying something new with them. I might need to make eggplant ice cream next if there are more eggplants this week.

These muffins sound weird but they are actually not bad. My friend, Jaka, said if you put enough sugar and butter in anything, they will taste good. It is quite true in this case.



Based on zucchini muffin recipe on Simply Recipes, I pretended that my eggplants are zucchinis, substituted and changed a few things. And I got my weirdly fantastic eggplant muffins. They smell like eggplant but taste like chocolate!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour


• 2 teaspoons baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 2 eggs


• 1 stick of butter - melted


• 3/4 cup Agave nectar


• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract


• 3 cups peeled and chopped eggplants (I used two small eggplants. Even after 25 minutes in the oven the eggplants didn't totally disintegrate. They gave a little veggie crunch to the muffins which I like. If you don't want that crunch, I would recommend process them in a food processor.)


• 1 generous cup of chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin pan. I used silicone muffin cups so I skipped the greasing.


2. In a large bowl, combine all purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda and salt together.


3. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, butter, Agave nectar and vanilla extract.


4. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry ingredients. Stir until just wet. Fold in eggplants and chocolate chips. The ingredients will be very sticky. Don't over mix.


5. Spoon into the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

I have come to believe that wheat makes me itchy which I guess not so bad compared to people that have real wheat allergy. I can still eat bread and all the baked goods. I will just have a few rashes and be very itchy. For the times that I don't want to itch, I should try to eat less wheat. So I bought a few kinds of flour to experiment.



I made these chocolate zucchini muffins but with a third rice flour, a third masa flour (that I have left from making tortillas) and a third chick pea flour.

Looked good, yes?

I wouldn't do this again unless I want chocolate flavored hummus. Chick pea flour has such a strong taste and smell that it took over everything else. I should read more about all these flour before experimenting....