Chocolate

Chocolate Almond Waffles with Raspberry Sauce

10. February 2014 · 100 comments · Categories: Breakfast, Brunch, cooking, Dessert, food, life, recipes · Tags: Chocolate, raspberry, waffle

I’m not always the easiest person to live with.

I know you all probably find that very hard to believe ;)

Although Nate often purposefully annoys me (though he’ll deny it), he also does a lot of sweet things on a regular basis. He’s extremely thoughtful and emotionally expressive. He will randomly buy me little “tasty treats” if he sees a dessert or something that he thinks I might like. He definitely knows the way to my heart!

While I do cook dinner for Nate weekly, I think that it’s not so special anymore since I do it all the time. To mix things up and show him that I appreciate him, I decided to make him a special breakfast.

These waffles are chocolatey, but they’re not overly sweet. They’re totally appropriate for breakfast as opposed to dessert. The tart and sweet raspberry sauce is the perfect accompaniment and both have a subtle hint of almond flavor.

This is the perfect breakfast to surprise your special someone with on Valentine’s Day!

In other news, LC and my painting of her made it onto a buzzfeed list (she’s #10)! That sadly is probably the coolest thing that has ever happened, and probably every will happen, to me (and her).

Chocolate Almond Waffles with Raspberry Sauce

2014-02-10 10:27:40

A not too sweet chocolate waffle with a sweet and tart raspberry sauce that's perfect for a special breakfast!

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Waffles

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup almond paste
2 1/4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Raspberry Sauce

2 cups frozen raspberries, thawed
2 Tbsp almond paste
2-3 Tbsp water.

Waffles

Preheat oven to 300.
Mix first 5 ingredients into large bowl.
In a small food processor or blender, blend sugar and almond paste. Add to flour mixture.
Heat chocolate and butter in a small microwave-safe dish in the microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring in between, until completely melted.
Pour chocolate into medium bowl. Whisk in eggs, then milk, and almond extract. Gradually whisk milk mixture into dry ingredients.
Following manufacturer's instructions, make waffles with batter (waffles will be somewhat soft when removed from pan).
Place finished waffles on baking sheet in oven as you make the rest to keep them hot and crispy.

Raspberry Sauce

Blend raspberries and 1 Tbsp water in a food processor. Strain raspberry mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, running a spoon back and forth over inside of sieve until all that's left in the sieve is seeds. Frequently scrape bottom of sieve, where strained pulp is coming out, into the bowl. Discard seeds.
Add raspberry puree back into food processor. Add almond paste and 1-2 Tbsp water and blend until sauce is to your liking. Serve over waffles.

By Adapted from Bon Appetit

Adapted from Bon Appetit

https://elephanteats.com/

Chocolate Apricot Torte Ice Cream

29. July 2013 · 92 comments · Categories: Dessert, food, Ice cream, recipes · Tags: apricot, Chocolate, ice cream

I think I mentioned this when I posted the Butterscotch Ice Cream recipe, but we got an ice cream machine as a wedding gift.

It has been both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s been awesome to make homemade ice cream in all kinds of flavors. But then we have to eat all of this ice cream, and I imagine it’s contributed to my gaining some weight. I think every bite of ice cream I’ve taken has been worth it though.

The best part of having the ice cream machine has been coming up with different flavors ideas. Up until this point I haven’t experimented much because I figured I needed to just get the hang of making ice cream first. I wanted to understand the proportions of milk/cream/sugar, etc. I think I’ve got it down pat now, though!

I’ve had this idea swirling around in my head to make an ice cream version of one of the most delicious desserts ever- Apricot Chocolate Torte. If you haven’t made this recipe before, you absolutely must. It’s my family’s go-to recipe for Passover because the original recipe contains so little flour that it easily converts with a flour substitute (for those who don’t know, wheat flour is forbidden during Passover).

Anyway, I happen to love chocolate and fruit. Chocolate covered apricots are one of my favorite things- I even had them on our wedding dessert buffet! So for this ice cream, I imagined a rich chocolate ice cream base, with a fruity apricot swirl and chunks of the amazing crust from the torte.

The ice cream ended up being everything I imagined. Nate said it was really good but he’d rather not have chunks of fruit in his ice cream. Oh well, more for me ;)

On another note, what do you guys think of this new recipe format? Better? Worse? I’d love the feedback.

Apricot Chocolate Torte Ice Cream

2013-07-28 17:53:14

Rich chocolate ice cream with a chunky apricot swirl and bits of walnut chocolate crust.

Yields: about 1 quart

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Chocolate Base

2 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch salt
3 Tbsp corn starch
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Apricot Swirl

6 oz. dried apricots, chopped
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
1.5 Tbsp flour
Juice of 1/2 lemon

"Crust"

3/4 oz. chocolate chips
1/2 cup whole walnuts
2 Tbsp old fashioned oats
pinch salt
1 Tbsp cold butter (i actually used oil in mine because I was afraid butter would be too hard when frozen, but the oil crust was too soft, so I think butter like the original crust it's based on would be better)
1 Tbsp cold water
2 Tbsp brown sugar

Chocolate Base

In a sauce pan over medium heat, stir together 1.5 cups whole milk, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Heat until the milk start to steam, but before it starts to boil.
In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 1/2 cup of whole milk and the cornstarch. Stir until no lumps remain.
Add the cornstarch mixture to the heated milk and chocolate mixture and bring to a low boil. Boil until thickened. The mixture will look the consistency of chocolate pudding. Remove from flame.
In a small sauce pan, heat 1 cup of heavy cream. Once boiling, remove from heat and pour over the chocolate chips. Let sit for 1 minute, then stir the cream and chocolate mixture until incorporated.
Stir the cream and chocolate mixture into the cooling chocolate ice cream base. Place in a bowl, covered with plastic wrap or a lid, and put in the fridge until cool.

Apricot Swirl

Combine all ingredients in heavy saucepan. Bring slowly to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently and mashing any large pieces of apricot until mixture resembles thin jam, about 10-15 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

Chocolate "Crust"

Place chocolate in bowl of food processor and chop roughly. Add nut and chop coarsely. Add oats, sugar and salt then blend. Add butter and process to blend. Add water and pulse until mixture is crumbly. Keep in fridge til ready to use.

Assembly

Once base is cool, follow the manufacturers instructions on the ice cream maker to churn ice cream. Once the mixture has chilled and thickened in the ice cream maker, add the apricot swirl and crust in your favorite way- Some people prefer to layer ice cream and mix-ins in their freezer-safe container and swirl with a knife. Otherwise blend half of apricot into ice cream, then transfer the ice cream into a freezer safe container and fold in the remaining apricot and the crust crumbles.
Cover and freeze until solid.

https://elephanteats.com/

Toffee Blondies!

28. March 2013 · 36 comments · Categories: Baking, Dessert, food, life, recipes · Tags: blondie, Chocolate, toffee

Nate’s mom came to visit us last weekend and we did quite a bit of walking. We headed over to the New York Historical Society, because they were having a John J. Audubon exhibit.

I don’t know if you guys remember, but our wedding was at one of Audubon’s houses (his first one in the U.S., actually). Amongst his many many bird drawings, it was fun to see a painting of the place where we got married (painted by Thomas Birch). It looked a little different back then, but it’s cool to think about how old it is!

I didn’t realize that his drawings were all mixed media- mostly water color with some pen and ink, charcoal and others. They were really detailed and really impressive!

I realize you guys probably are more interested in what I’ve been cooking up than our weekend plans, so I’ll get to it. I found this recipe when I was looking for baked goods I could send to Nate in California that would hold up well in the mail. I also was looking for a way to use the toffee baking bits I had leftover from Christmas cookie baking. My aunt was kind enough to buy me several bags since she knows how hard it is to find them in nyc! She got me both regular and chocolate covered Heath toffee bits.

The recipe calls for the plain ones and that’s what I used the first time I made this, but I tried the chocolate covered Heath bits this time for a change, and the bars came out equally delicious :)

I actually didn’t even make these. We had our good friends Erica and Patrick over to dinner and Erica offered to help while I was making dinner (homemade spaghetti with my pasta machine!). So I gave her the recipe and she did a great job making them! We all really enjoyed these for dessert :)

I didn’t change anything about the recipe from Just a Taste’s blog other than adding chocolate covered toffee bits rather than plain toffee, so you can find the recipe here to get it.

Red Wine Chocolate Cake

06. March 2013 · 64 comments · Categories: Baking, Cake, cooking, Dessert, food, recipes, Uncategorized · Tags: Chocolate, red wine

More WINE!!!

Haha, hopefully you’re not sick of red wine recipes yet, because I have one more for you.

As you know I had a bottle of red wine I opened for a recipe that seems to have lasted forever, since i’m not a drinker. I knew at some point I’d make a red wine chocolate cake, but the recipes online weren’t anything special.

Red Wine Chocolate Cake ~ ElephantEats.com

Then, I was scrolling through Shutterbean’s recipes and came across this amazing-looking chocolate bundt cake. It happened to call for a liquid, water, which I figured I could easily substitute for some wine! I also replaced some of the heavy cream in the glaze with wine…and greek yogurt for the sour cream because that’s all I had. Sometimes you just have to work with what you have!

So the moral of this story is, always use wine when a recipe calls for water ;) Jk. Although its really not a bad rule to follow.

I was anxious to take a pic and eat this, so I didn’t give the glaze a chance to thicken to a good consistency. If you want to have it oozing down the sides of the cake, you should put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. I didn’t have time for that so I cut a slice and just poured the thinner version of the sauce over it…equally tasty but not as pretty.

Note that this cake definitely has a distinct wine taste, but I think that’s what makes it so unique and tasty. The cake itself is moist but still a little crumbly and the glaze…well I ate that by the spoonful ;) The alcohol content in the cake bakes off, and the glaze only has 1/4 cup so I’m pretty sure it’s fine to serve this to kids.

Whether you have some red wine sitting around, or you just want an excuse to open the bottle so you can drink the rest yourself, this recipe is for you!

Red Wine Chocolate Cake

adapted from Bi Rite Market’s Eat Good Food Cookbook via Shutterbean

Print this recipe!

Makes 1 bundt cake- serves 10

For the cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup red wine
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs
1/2 cup greek yogurt (or sour cream)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the glaze:
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

Make the cake:

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 10- or 12-cup Bundt pan and set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the butter, cocoa powder, salt, and wine and put over medium heat. Cook, stirring, just until melted and combined. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Put the flour, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl and whisk to blend. Add half of the melted-butter mixture and whisk until completely blended (it will be very thick). Add the remaining butter mixture and whisk. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking each to blend completely before adding the next. Whisk in the yogurt and vanilla until smooth.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then invert onto a rack. Let cool completely before making the glaze.

Make the glaze:

Put the chopped chocolate and corn syrup in a medium bowl and set aside.

Combine the heavy cream, wine and sugar in a small saucepan and put over medium heat. Stir constantly until hot and the sugar is dissolved. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate for 30 min or until the glaze is thick enough to ooze down sides of the cake.

Chocolate Brownie Cookies, and a Valentine’s Day Sweets Roundup

13. February 2013 · 36 comments · Categories: Baking, cooking, Dessert, food, recipes · Tags: Chocolate, cookie, valentine's day

I teased you on Sunday with promises of another Valentine’s Day treat. This one, lucky for you, is of the chocolate variety!

Sometimes you just decide that you need freshly baked cookies NOW. Don’t tell me you never had thoughts like that. It’s happened to me on several occasions, but unfortunately most cookie recipes call for room temperature butter, which foils all hope for spontaneity.

These Chocolate Brownie Cookies though, like brownies, use melted butter! So you have no excuse not to make them this very second, no advanced preparation needed…except maybe making sure you have enough room in your tummy to eat a few fresh out of the oven.

I actually made these cookies months ago for Nate’s friend’s birthday. I have a million yummy chocolate cookie recipes (and I’m sure you do too), but this one was pretty darn tasty and you should consider adding it to your repertoire.

They call for nuts, but Nate thinks that nuts ruin all baked goods, and so I left them out. Personally, I think they’d add a nice crunch.

The key is to take these out of the oven when they seem too soft to be done. If you cook them too long, they will be dry. Trust me on this one :(

If you do happen to overcook them slightly, make sure you serve them warm-15 seconds in the microwave will moisten them right up. In fact, they’re always best served warm regardless.

And in case you need some other Valentine’s Day inspiration, here are a few of my faves:

Red Velvet Cake with Raspberry Mousse and Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting– I made this for my first Valentine’s Day with Nate!

Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake

Rich and Thick Hot Chocolate

Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake

Dark Chocolate-Cherry Ganache Bars

Cider Poached Pears– a delicious, lighter dessert

Chocolate-peanut butter pb cup cookies

Butterscotch Rum Banana Spiced Blondies

Chocolate Pecan-Pie Bars

Brownie Cookies

From Oxmoor House

Print this recipe

makes 2.5 dozen

1/2 cup butter
4 (1-oz.) unsweetened chocolate baking squares, chopped
3 cups semisweet chocolate morsels, divided
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chopped pecans, toasted (optional)

Combine butter, unsweetened chocolate, and 1 1/2 cups chocolate morsels in a large heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter and chocolate melt; cool.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer. Gradually add flour mixture to egg mixture, beating well. Add chocolate mixture; beat well. Stir in remaining 1 1/2 cups chocolate morsels and pecans (if using).

Drop dough by 2 tablespoonfuls 1 inch apart onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350° for 10 minutes- they will look slightly underdone, do NOT over bake!

Cool slightly on baking sheets; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Chocolate Almond Waffles with Raspberry Sauce

Chocolate Apricot Torte Ice Cream

Toffee Blondies!

Red Wine Chocolate Cake

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