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  • Tag: chocolate

    • flourless chocolate

      Posted at 9:16 pm by jasminedesirees, on April 8, 2014

      I’ve been lusting after this Tartine flourless chocolate cake since I first moved to California, almost 3 years ago. When I bought myself the Tartine cookbook for Christmas this year, the only reason I got it was so that I could make myself this cake for my birthday.

      Since I was traveling for almost 2 weeks around my birthday, I didn’t get the chance, but luckily I had four friends with birthdays in the same week and we had a huge joint party for them last weekend, so I was able to make it after all.

      It was definitely a bit of work, it’s a souffle cake so it took ages to beat all of the eggs, and I was basically camped out in front of the oven making sure it didn’t stay in too long since apparently over-baking for even one minute immediately renders it inedible, but it came out great, and it was moist and delicious.

      The cake itself is chocolatey and delightful, and then you cover it with a chocolate ganache to make it even more tantalizing. I also added some edible glitter since I still have a ton left over from my wedding cupcakes, and it’s so lovely.

      I pretty much put it on everything. If you’ve never made glittery fettucine alfredo you’re really missing an opportunity for wonderfulness and joy.

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      Posted in chocolate, recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, cake, chocolate, chocolate ganache, flourless chocolate cake, recipes, tartine
    • tartine

      Posted at 10:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on January 23, 2014

      Every year for Christmas my grandpa gives all of us grandkids some money to buy whatever we’d like. I usually save most of it, and buy myself something that I’ve been wanting, or a few things if they are small.

      Last year I bought myself a new camera, but there wasn’t anything big that I wanted this year, so I bought myself a couple of things I’d had my eye on for awhile,  including this gorgeous cookbook from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.

      It came in the mail two days ago, and I’ve pretty much been carrying it with me and drooling over it ever since. The pastries and cakes are so beautiful they are edible works of art, and the pictures are so lovely that I want to frame them and hang them in my kitchen. Or not, because I don’t think mine will look the same and I wouldn’t want anybody to be able to compare.

      I will absolutely be making their flourless chocolate souffle cake for my birthday this year, but I’ll probably have to make two in case anyone else decides they would like dessert as well.

      They also have a bread cookbook that a friend of mine has, and when I read through it I basically wanted to renounce my entire life so far and move to an Italian monastery on top of a mountain (which I’m assuming is where they learned to make bread?) and do nothing but bake glorious crusty loaves.

      I guess the moral of that story is, I like carbs. You can buy both Tartine and Tartine Bread on Amazon.

      Posted in books, chocolate, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged baking, chocolate, recipes, tartine
    • macarons

      Posted at 12:57 am by jasminedesirees, on January 10, 2014

      Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone in the world is obsessed with macarons? I’ve been hearing about these dainty little cookies and seeing pictures of them for years, but I’d never tried one until I received a box for my birthday last year.

      I had heard a lot about them though, that they are very difficult to make, and as a baker, I’d always wanted to try so I could showcase my skillz (with a z). I decided to give it a try. I found this recipe from CHOW, gathered all the ingredients (almond flour better be secretly made of gold because it is super expensive) and set to work.

      It was kind of a long process, just in that it’s a lot of waiting to do things, but other than that it wasn’t bad. I can see how it would be hard to get all of the cookies to the exact uniform roundness, but I have to say mine were pretty good for a first timer (NBD).

      They may have been a teensy bit crooked but they were delicious, although truthfully I bet you could put chocolate ganache in between two pieces of cardboard and it would still be pretty good.

      The next thing on my baking to do list is chocolate souffle, I’ve wanted to make that for as long as I can remember, which I realized this morning was probably a strange thing for a kid to think about? But then I thought about it a little more and had a flashback to watching Beauty and the Beast with all of the dancing pies and souffles, and my life made a little more sense.

      I wonder how many other things in my life I’ve wanted to do solely because of childhood influence by a beloved cartoon character? I realized a few years ago that the likely reason for my choosing Journalism as a university major was because of my undying obsession with April (and her saucy yellow jumpsuit) from the Ninja Turtles.

       

      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, macarons, recipes
    • brittle

      Posted at 12:50 am by jasminedesirees, on November 26, 2013

      My love for pomegranate is both legendary all encompassing, during pomegranate season you can find me eating one almost every day. I was recently the recipient of a gift of the best kind, a box full of huge, juicy pomegranates.

      After gorging myself every day for a week, I still had a few left and decided to do an experiment combining my two favourite things. I melted two bars of good dark chocolate, and stirred in half the seeds from a pomegranate.

      I spread the mixture onto wax paper, then sprinkled the remaining seeds on top, and threw it in the fridge for about an hour, and at the end I had pomegranate chocolate brittle.

      It was delicious, ridiculously easy, and it looks beautiful with the bright red seeds against the dark chocolate. I’d like to try it again with milk chocolate, since pomegranates can be a bit tart and the extra sweetness might be a good contrast.

       
      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, brittle, chocolate, pomegranate, recipes
    • chocolat

      Posted at 11:21 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 13, 2013

      Probably since the first time I watched Chocolat I’ve harboured a secret belief that I was the main character in a previous life and that given the right set of circumstances,  the inate talent that I possessed would emerge and all my dreams of being a master chocolatier, dating Johnny Depp, and wearing my hair in a sassy bob would come true.

      Nobody likes chocolate more than I do, and I firmly believe that (I am eating some even as I write this), but a couple of weeks ago I signed up for a chocolate making class with Rachel Dunn chocolates in Concord, and let me tell you, if anyone likes chocolate more than I do, it is Rachel.

      Rachel has been making chocolate since she was 17, her chocolates are world famous, and she owns her own company that does nothing but make chocolate every single day. They say if you want to be successful in business, you need to do what you’re passionate about, and Rachel is passionate about chocolate.

      She stood up in front of the class and introduced herself, and you could tell that she was thrilled, absolutely elated, to be sharing the art of chocolate making with a new group of people.

      She could barely contain herself as she lamented the lost art of candy making, shared every single thing she knew about chocolate and candy making, and expressed the fervent belief that we would leave the workshop and share what we had learned with all of our friends and family. She truly loves chocolate, and wants other people to get the same joy from it that she does.

      The class itself was great, it was 2 hours long and we made about 15 different kinds of candy, including truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries, English toffee, peanut butter cups, and a ganache tart.

      It was really fun and informative, and the candy we made was delicious. The best part is that she sends everyone home with recipes for all of the things we made in class, so you can make them at home for your friends and family. Or eat them all yourself when your husband is gone to Mexico for a week. There is no judgement here.

      World famous candied applies
      I may have gotten slightly carried away with the peanut butter in my peanut butter cups
      I am practically a professional strawberry tuxedo applier. That’s probably a real job.
      Posted in chocolate, food | 0 Comments | Tagged candy, chocolate, food, learning, Rachel Dunne, recipes
    • gluten free

      Posted at 10:26 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 30, 2013

      There was a bake sale at my work last week to raise money for the AIDS walk. I am pretty much always open to any excuse to bake, and it was for a good cause, so I signed up to make cookies.

      I thought about making peanut butter temptations or fiddle diddles, but I felt like making something new, and I was feeling very lazy so I knew it had to be easy. I found this recipe and decided to try it out, even though I’m not gluten free.

      These were super good. They were pretty simple, peanut butter, sugar, chocolate chips, what’s not to like? And they were really delicious. The cooking time was off for me, I had to leave them in almost twice as long as it said to, but I just watched them pretty carefully and they came out great.

      One of my co-workers is gluten free and she loved them, and everyone else that tried them thought they were delicious, and didn’t even know they were gluten free. I will definitely be making these again.
       

      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged chocolate, cookies, gluten free, peanut butter, recipe
    • chocolate chip zucchini

      Posted at 5:37 pm by jasminedesirees, on July 15, 2013

      My mom has been making me chocolate chip zucchini cake since I was little. Some people call it bread, but let’s be honest, it’s cake. It’s chocolatey and most, and super delicious, but it’s like 50% zucchini, so you can pretend it’s good for you, and eat the whole thing.

      These pictures aren’t great, I was making it late at night for my husband’s grandpa’s birthday the next day, plus it was during that ridiculous heat wave where even the thought of turning on the oven made you want to burst into tears, but I still made it. That’s how good this cake is.

      I used this recipe, and some fresh zucchini from the farmer’s market. This is actually really quick and easy to make, especially if you have a food processor to grate the zucchini for you.



      Posted in chocolate, recipes | 0 Comments | Tagged baking, chocolate, chocolate chip zucchini bread, recipes
    • fiddle diddles.

      Posted at 6:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on December 5, 2012

      It was such a miserable weekend that I needed a hefty dose of chocolatey goodness just to make it through, so I decided to make some Fiddle Diddles.

      I used this recipe, and these cookies are so fudgey, chewy and yummy that I’ve been eating these pretty much to the exclusion of everything else since Saturday.

      Here are some of the best food quotes ever to get you through the rest of the day.

      Posted in chocolate, food, recipes | 1 Comment | Tagged chocolate, fiddle diddles, haystacks, macaroons, recipes
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