An Adoption and a Giveaway

One of the things I love about bloggers is the mutual support we give each other. We also often give this support to new bloggers. I like to find a new blogger and comment on their posts, encourage them, add them to my blogroll, and generally watch them become established. I do this to 'pay forward' the support that I received when my blog was new. This is one thing I haven't had the time to do in the past few months, and I miss it.

I love the idea of community. In the bloggy world, we make our own community—we find bloggers who have similar interests, and we simply visit them and chat a little. We get to know each other, we email, maybe we visit in real life. That's how we make community in the real world as well! 

Orange Chocolate Cake

Well. THAT was a rather long weekend, wasn't it? I've been AWOL, and I'm sorry. I had an enormous project that came to me and I've been absolutely swamped by it. I haven't even had time to cook!

Well, that's not precisely true. I did have time to make a cake for our neighborhood barbecue on Sunday. I had promised to bring a dessert and when I saw this recipe I knew it was going to be the one. I changed it, of course.

Chocolate Pound Cake

When I was growing up, there were some special desserts that my grandmother made. EVERYONE'S grandmother made them. One of them was chocolate pound cake. This is one of those recipes that is closely guarded and only given to the younger generation when they marry, as a part of their trousseau. It's an incredibly lovely cake, with a texture like silk and a deeply chocolate flavor. It was often served alone, unfrosted, with perhaps some fruit. When it wasn't served plain, it was frosted with a fudge frosting that was basically fudge spread over the cake before it hardened. It's one of my fondest memories.

CHOCOLATE VALENTINES

Calling all Chocolate Lovers! Is there a day that’s more appropriate to celebrate with chocolate than Valentines day? I don’t think so.

To honor the ultimate chocolate holiday, I’ve gathered a group of bloggers who are all making something with chocolate today. Belgian chocolate, of course! I hope you’ll cruise around and visit them. I know they've all made something wonderful from their chocolate. Unless, of course, they've just eaten it and not told me...hmmmm, maybe you'd better go check. I'll wait.

The Chocolateers are:

2 Stews

A Southern Grace

A Spoonful of Thyme

Cooking Stuff

Hungry Dog

Junglefrog Cooking

Kitchen Butterfly

La Table de Nana

Nightowlchef

Normandy Life

Once in a Blue Moon

The Gypsy Chef

I’ve made something chocolate as well. You knew I would. I made a Chocolate Prune Cardamom cake. I found this recipe on Pastry Studio, where I also found the Cardamom Upside-down Cake. As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew that I’d have to make it. Chocolate and cardamom--is anything better than that? Yes, actually. It turns out that you can improve on chocolate and cardamom.

This recipe has prunes in it. Now wait. Don’t scrunch up your face like that. Have I ever led you astray? Remember the fish with anchovies in the bread crumbs? Wasn’t that good? Stop wrinkling your nose, then. Let’s just call them dried plums. Better? Ok, then. These dried plums are soaked in Earl Grey tea to give them a lovely flavor of bergamot. In the cake they add a moist sweetness that makes people ask what’s in there.

This recipe also uses canola oil, (or colza or rapeseed oil, depending on where you live), which was a surprise. It added an interesting flavor to the other interesting flavors. Although I never would have thought to use it, I really liked it in this.

The combination of chocolate, cardamom, dried plums, earl grey tea, and canola/colza/rapeseed oil was gorgeous. In fact, this cake exceeded my veryvery high expectations for it. It was amazing. This is real company food. The glaze was perfect--it reflected the flowers I put on it like a chocolate mirror. We served this with a small scoop of vanilla gelato, and that’s all it needed.

In truth, I changed this recipe very little. It was written for an 8-inch cake pan, and I only had a 24 cm one, which is about 9.45 inches. If I remember my high school geometry correctly, the area of a circle is pi x radius squared*, which means that...lemesee...carry the one...divided by...(counting on toes)... my 24 cm pan holds about 39.53% more than an 8 inch one. See? And you thought you didn’t need geometry. Sister Mary Francis would be proud of me now.

So I increased everything by 50%. I tried to use 1.3953 eggs, but it was easier just to use one egg and one egg yolk. Oh. Sister Mary Francis is now disappointed in me. Again. I’m sure this is going on my permanent record. Again. Sigh.

Where was I? Oh, yes. So I increased everything by 50%. Except the cardamom. I doubled that. And the cocoa too, because I always increase the chocolate content of whatever I bake. Oh, and the lemon zest too, because who can zest 3/4 of a lemon?

Because I made more batter than the 1.3953% that I needed, I had some left over (exactly 10.47%. See Sister?) So I made some cupcakes with the extra. 3.643 cupcakes, to be exact. No, actually it was four. (Too late. I’ve got detention for making that fraction up. Again.)

Are you still here? Then you deserve a reward. And you shall have it! Here’s the recipe for this amazing cake. If you have an 8-inch cake pan, the recipe is here. If you have a 9.45 inch pan or even a 9 inch pan you probably want my version. Sister Mary Francis says it’s ok to make cupcakes with the leftover batter. But you’ll have to send her one or it’ll go on YOUR permanent record too.

Chocolate Prune Cardamom Cake

from Pastry Studio

30 prunes

3 Earl Grey tea bags

Boiling water to steep tea (about 1 cup)

210 g / 1 1/2 cups cake flour

3 Tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

175 ml / 3/4 cup canola/colza/rapeseed oil

315 g / 1 1/4 cups + 2 Tablespoons sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

zest of 1 lemon

175 ml / 3/4 cup plain yogurt

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Chocolate cardamom glaze

1 cup heavy cream

1 Teaspoon corn syrup

8 cardamom pods

220 g / 8 oz dark chocolate

• Boil the water and steep the tea. You’ll want it strong for this.
• Chop the prunes fine--about the size of raisins. When the tea is done, remove the tea bags and put the prunes into a bowl with the tea. Leave them in the tea for about 1/2 hour, or until they’re softened but not mushy. You want them to hold their shape.
• Meanwhile, preheat oven to 160 C / 350 F. Cut a circle of parchment or baking paper to fit the bottom of your pan. Lightly oil the pan, put the paper in it and oil the paper too.
• Sift together the flour, cocoa, cardamom, baking soda and salt. Drain the prunes well.
• Whisk together the oil, sugar, egg and yolk until smooth and well blended. Add lemon zest, yogurt an vanilla. Slowly sift in the dry ingredients, stirring until well blended.
• Fold in the drained prunes. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes. Run a thin bladed knife around the edge of the cake and turn it out on a wire rack. Peel the paper off the cake and let it cool completely.

I made cupcakes with the extra batter. I baked them for about 20 minutes, AFTER the cake had come out of the oven. It didn’t seem to hurt the batter to sit for 45 minutes waiting.

Make the Glaze:

• Chop the chocolate into very small pieces and place in a medium bowl.
• Bring the cream and corn syrup to a simmer. Crush the cardamom pods with a mortar and pestle and add to the cream. Take off the heat, cover and let steep for about 1/2 hour.
• When the cake is completely cool, place it on a 9 inch/24 cm cardboard round or removable tart pan bottom. Put it back on the cooling rack and put a baking sheet lined with parchment paper under it.
• Strain the cardamom out of the cream and reheat until just simmering. Watch it carefully--you don’t want it to boil because then it will develop a skin that you’ll just have to get rid of. When the cream is just starting to steam, pour it over the chopped chocolate and let it sit for about 3 minutes. Then stir slowly and gently, starting in the middle until thoroughly combined and then working outward in concentric circles until the mixture comes together. It will. Have faith.
• Pour the glaze quickly in the center of the cake and around the edges. Let it run off. If necessary, tap the baking sheet on your work surface to encourage the glaze to run down the sides of the cake. Just as it begins to dry, run a small spatula around the underside of the cardboard round to smooth the bottom edge and prevent ‘feet’ from forming. Let the glaze firm up before serving.

Serves 12 if you’re being elegant or 8 if you’re feeling piggish. Or if you’re all alone, nobody will know how many it would have served.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for buttermilk. I don’t have that, so I used plain yogurt.
• I don’t have vanilla extract, so I used 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla powder.
• The original recipe called for bittersweet chocolate. I used a very dark (74%) chocolate.
• I used Lyle’s Golden Syrup instead of corn syrup.
• I didn’t have a cardboard to put under the cake, and my tart pan bottom is larger than the cake (no comments on large bottoms, please). I put it on a plate and glazed it there. I wished later that I had taken the time to cut a piece of cardboard the size of the cake pan so that I could have let the excess glaze run off the cake. It would have been more attractive than the ‘feet’ that I ended up with. This is such a beautiful cake that it’s worth the extra step.
• I had glaze left over. I used it on the cupcakes, natch.
• I had found some edible yellow pansies the day before I made this cake, so I put them on the top to decorate it.

* Did you notice that I did NOT make any cracks about pi R squared and cakes R round? Oh, darn. I guess I did... I know, Sister, I know. Again.

Cookie Towers: Chocolate Pepper Cookies

Today I have the Christmas Factory in full swing. This year, I’m making cards and cookies. We’re giving our neighbors cookie towers, with two or three different kinds of cookies. Don’t tell them!

The light cookies here are the Italian Almond Cookies I posted in August, and the dark ones are chocolate pepper cookies. I found this recipe in an old Martha Stewart Christmas book from 1989. I changed it a little, of course. What I love about this recipe is that it’s not too sweet, but still intensely chocolate. On the heels of chocolate week, what’s better than that?

In addition to Christmas presents, these cookies make perfect ice cream sandwiches. Fill them with some veryvery good vanilla gelato and you’ll be transported back to childhood, but with a more sophisticated, adult flavor.

In this recipe you’ll find ground black pepper. Yep, black pepper. But wait, it gets worse. You’ll also find cayenne pepper. Yep. Cayenne. These two peppers enhance the deep chocolate flavor of this cookie. Trust me on this. It really makes a difference. For the black pepper, I grind it from my pepper mill and then grind it more in a mortar and pestle. You want it really really fine.

There’s a lot of cocoa in this. I probably don’t have to say that it should be the best that you can find. My cookies are really as black as they look in these photos!

Chocolate Pepper Cookies

adapted from Martha Stewart’s Christmas

350 g / 1 1/2 cups softened butter

450 g / 1 3/4 cups sugar

2 large eggs

525 g / 3 cups all purpose flour

200 g / 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp freshly, finely ground black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground cinnamon

• Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt and spices.

• Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

• Add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture, mixing it well. Shape into a flat rectangle and refrigerate for at least an hour.

• Preheat oven to 160 C / 350 F.

• Working with 1/4 of the dough at a time (leaving the rest in the refrigerator), roll very thin and cut into the shapes you want. Transfer to baking sheets lined with baking parchment or silicone mats. Martha says that you can re-roll the dough once more. I re-rolled it until it was used up, but I didn't add much more flour while I was rolling (see note, below)

• Bake 10 - 12 minutes or until crisp. (Here’s my favorite part of this recipe) Don’t let them darken. (SNORT! Could they BE any darker??) Transfer carefully to racks to cool.

NOTES:

• In order to roll this dough out uniformly thin, I used the same trick I use for the almond cookies: I put two long bamboo skewers on either side of the dough and roll the dough between them.
• This dough gets a little sticky as you work with it, and you don’t want to add too much more flour as you’re rolling it. Not only because adding more flour as you work the dough will make the cookies tough; but also because the white flour will show against the dark cookie! To solve this problem, I rolled the dough between two sheets of cling film which I had lightly floured (to get the flour to stick you have to roll the dough once to transfer a little of the butter from the dough to the cling film). From time to time you have to pull the cling film up from the dough, add a tiny bit of flour to the cling film, turn it over and do the same thing to the other side. When the cookies are cut, you can simply lift the cling film and peel them off like stickers. Voila!

Chocolate Week Continued: Behind the Scenes

This is a continuation of Chocolate week, which began with a giveaway and continued with a visit to a chocolate shop here. Today we’re going to go behind the scenes in that chocolate shop--La Maison Saive.

When you walk into this chocolate shop, you are immediately struck by the wonderful smell of chocolate. Next is the friendly smile of whoever’s working in the shop that day. Most often it’s Florence, Christophe’s wife. If it’s very busy, it may be his mother. If it’s not busy at all, it may be Christophe who comes from the atelier to help you choose your chocolates.

From the shop you can get a glimpse of the atelier. The part closest to you looks like a kitchen you might see in anyone’s house. Oven, cooktop, sink, fridge. And because it’s a very busy season right now, lots of notes and orders on the cabinets!

But if you walk back there you see immediately that it’s not a normal kitchen. You see this, which stands about 4 1/2 feet tall.

Then you see this, and you know you're in the right place:

This is called a cuve, and Christophe has nine of them. Each one holds from 25 to 40 litres of melted chocolate. There are dark, milk, and white cuves, as well as cuves for sugar-free chocolate. The cuves serve to temper the chocolate and to keep it at the right temperature for working. They provide a vat of chocolate for dipping and a ‘fountain’ for covering things with chocolate. It’s here that a lot of the work of making the pralines takes place.

Before anything can be made, though, the chocolate has to be tempered. If it’s not tempered, it won’t be shiny, and there’s a risk that the cocoa butter will leach out, making the chocolate grey. It may also look greasy or dull. Eww. As long as we’re on this subject, I’ve learned that you should NEVER put chocolate in the fridge, especially if it’s softened by being in a warm place. If you do that, you’ll get chocolate that’s dull and grey. That’s because the cocoa butter starts to separate from the chocolate when it’s warm, and cooling it down just solidifies that white cocoa butter, making the chocolate look nasty. It’s still edible, but not very pretty.

Ok, back to the story. To temper the chocolate, they fill the cuve with chocolate and melt it slowly. They bring it up to a temperature of 42 degrees C (107.6 F). Then they take it out of the cuve and pour it onto the adjacent work surface, where they cool it down. Then they put it back into the cuve and bring it to 32 degrees C (89.6 F). At that point they can work with for 4-5 hours before they have to do it all again.

To make a molded chocolate, they begin with these molds. Christophe estimates that he has around 1500 of them, in different shapes. Each one holds 21 normal pralines. To form the shell you see here that will be filled with a flavored ganache or a cream, the mold is put under the fountain part of the cuve, filled up with chocolate, and then emptied.

Here you see Christophe filling a mold for hollow tennis ball shapes. The large spatula in his hand is for scraping the top and the sides of the mold after it’s filled and emptied. In the background you can see a tray of truffles he was working on before he stopped to fill this mold for me.

Here you see him emptying the mold back into the cuve. Before the mold is emptied, it’s put on that little shelf you see attached to the cuve, and shaken gently to dislodge any air bubbles that may have gotten into the chocolate before it hardens. After it’s emptied, there’s a shell of chocolate that has hardened inside the mold, which is left to cool completely. For large hollow items, they may make two or three layers of chocolate shell before they put them together.

For pralines, it's the same process. The shells might be filled with a flavored ganache, a caramel, or cream filling. In every case the process is the same. The filling is made in the kitchen area, put into large pastry bags, and each shell is filled by hand. The molds are set aside to cool.

When they’re completely cool, they’re run under the fountain again to seal them, the mold is scraped again, and then set aside to cool. The finished chocolates are then turned out like ice cubes. They’re ready to eat!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth a million words. To see some short videos of the process I described above, go to Christophe’s website HERE. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s in French--the videos have no sound, and will make this process very clear. To see them, click on the link, wait till the word “Bienvenue” shows up, and click on that. Then at the top click on the piece of chocolate that says “Nos Coulisses”. This will take you to a page with several videos:

Préparation fourrage--making a ganache. This is the basis for many of the fillings and also for the truffles. Basically, it’s a mixture of cream and chocolate and whatever flavors he wants to use.

Fourrage--Filling the molds with the ganache. Behind, a cuve that’s cleaned and shut down. I can’t help but admire the work here with a pastry bag.

Finition--Closing the molded chocolates--you can see the finishing of the molded shapes as well as the cups which are dipped one-by-one into the cuve.

Démoulage--Unmolding the chocolates, which are then stored in a cool store room next to the shop until they’re needed to replace the stock that has been sold.

Massepain--Marzipan cutting. In this video you see Jonathan, the former apprentice. When I asked Sophie, the current apprentice, what was the hardest part of her job, she said working with the marzipan. It has to be kneaded by hand, and it’s apparently very hard to do.

Dressage--Making truffles, later to be dipped in chocolate in the cuve. Another chance to admire his pastry bag work. After the truffles have been left to dry, they’re threaded four at a time onto a fork, dipped into the cuve chocolate, and pushed off the fork into either cocoa or powdered sugar. (dipping truffles) The white spots you see here and on Sophie’s hands are the powdered sugar that these truffles will be rolled in after they get their chocolate shell.

Enrobage--Covering things with chocolate. Here, orange peel. Also marzipan and (sometimes) pâte de fruit.

The day I was taking photos, Sophie was putting candied orange peel into this machine, which has a long conveyer belt at the other end. Christophe was waiting at the other end to put them into a box to send to the shop at the front. They cooled and hardened as they moved down the line. I couldn’t help thinking of that wonderful scene with Lucille Ball in the chocolate factory.

So now you know how artisanale chocolates are made. When I think of the work that goes into each one, I am amazed that they are so affordable!

Chocolate Week Continued: The Chocolate Shop

Chocolate. When you talk about Belgium, most people think of chocolate. They don’t think that Brussels is the capital of Europe, they don’t think that the new President of the EU is Belgian. They think chocolate. They don’t think that Belgium has the oldest spa and the oldest casino in Europe. They don’t think about the Formula 1 circuit. Nope, it’s chocolate. They don’t think about fries, which were invented here. They don’t think about the bazillion different beers brewed here. Nope, nope, nope--they think chocolate. Me too!

Chocolate is an important part of life in Belgium. Belgians have said for years that chocolate was good for you. Now we know that it's true: chocolate lowers cholesterol and keeps us happy. Chocolate is serious business here. Every year, the grand chocolate houses create new chocolates. When the crown Prince and Princess have another child, chocolates are created to celebrate. Needless to say, buying a box of chocolates is a very different experience here than in the US.

First, you have to know that there are different ‘grades’ of Belgian chocolate. The international industrial chocolate brands are what has brought Belgian Chocolates their reputation, and they’re an important part of the chocolate story here. But Belgians rarely buy them. Then there are the smaller industrial brands, generally available all over Belgium and perhaps in neighboring countries, but not overseas. Those are, in my opinion, a step above the international industrials. But they’re still industrial grade chocolates. That is to say, they’re made by machines.

The chocolates prized by Belgians are those that are made by hand, the artisanale chocolates. With some notable exceptions, these are only available in the region where they’re made, often only available in one shop. In one town. Everybody has his or her favorite chocolatier, and I’m no exception.

This is our favorite chocolate shop, La Maison Saive.

It was opened 11 years ago by Christophe Saive, who’s the maitre chocolatier. Christophe is always smiling, always in a good mood. (I probably would be too if I worked around chocolate all the time). When you go into his shop--or any artisanale chocolate shop in Belgium--you’re confronted by a wide range of chocolates, or pralines. (in Belgium, a praline is a filled chocolate--it has nothing to do with the pecan confections that you can buy in New Orleans.)

In Christophe's shop you’ll see more than 80 different kinds of pralines, made with dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, sugar-free chocolate, single-source chocolate. You’ll also see chocolate bars, chocolate spread, cocoa, liqueur filled chocolates, chocolate covered cherries and orange peel, pâtes de fruit, marzipan, marrons glacées. The choice is staggering. What you won’t see is boxes filled with chocolates. Nope. Each and every one is created at the time you buy it.

You choose the box size and form, and then choose what you want to go in it. The vendeuse then puts on a white cotton glove and carefully places each chocolate in the box. When the box is full, it’s closed up and finished with a bow. Each box. Every box. Made personally to your specifications.

Christophe makes around 8 TONS of chocolate each year. Ninety percent of that is pralines, which weigh between 10 and 15 grams each. That’s more than (lemesee....carry the two....divided by....) 575,000 individual chocolates. Each one made by hand. In the workshop (atelier) Christophe works with Sophie, his apprentice. In the front of the shop there’s Florence, his wife. In the busy seasons (like now) his parents help out--his dad in the atelier and his mom in the shop while Florence packs the Christmas orders for corporate customers. It’s a real family business.

Like the big chocolate houses, Christophe creates a new praline each year. In the past, he’s introduced us to pralines with lavender, rose, licorice, allspice, as well as some surprising ones: beer, cumin, tomato (it IS a fruit!), balsamic vinegar, and (oh, yes!) cardamom. Cardamom was my favorite until this year. This year, Christophe brought us truffled truffles. Oh, my.

Continuing chocolate week, in my next post I’ll show you how these chocolates are made. Meanwhile, don’t forget the double truffle giveaway --there’s still time to enter!

Double Truffle: Kicking off Chocolate Week and a giveaway

I love truffles. Both kinds: the dark, rich, chocolate kind and the earthy, aromatic, mushroom kind.

The first time I had mushroom truffles was in Italy. They were freshly grated over pasta dressed only with peppery green olive oil. Oh, my. That was a revelation. Even though they cost a lot, I buy them. It only takes a tiny bit to flavor a whole dish with their indescribable flavor.

Then there’s the chocolate kind--for me, always dark chocolate, rarely adulterated with other flavors. But it has to be a good chocolate-fruity, dark, complex. I admit it. I'm a chocolate snob. Hey, I live in Belgium!

Truffles in either form, then, are treasured at our house. When I heard that our favorite chocolatier was planning to make truffle-flavored truffles, I was cautiously thrilled. Thrilled, because two of my favorite flavors were going to be united in one place; cautious because sometimes my favorite things don’t like each other much (remember the orange-cardamom tarte tatin?)

Yesterday I got to try my first truffled truffle. Oh. Yess. First you taste the rich dark fruity chocolate, followed by the deeper, mysterious earth flavor of the truffle. Just enough of it--any more and it wouldn’t work. It’s a marriage made in heaven, I think.

No, that’s not right. They’re really awful. You wouldn’t like them. I’ll have to eat yours. Just because I like you.

If you don’t believe me, though, and would like to try them for yourself, leave a comment on this post between now and December 20. Overcome with seasonal spirit, I’m going to give away a box of truffled truffles. If there are more than 50 comments, I’ll give away two boxes. (NOTE: I will ship these wherever you live. Please don't let my living in Belgium stop you from entering the contest.)

During the next week or so, I’ll be visiting our chocolatier at his workshop and taking photos of how he makes his chocolates. So stay tuned for Chocolate lessons!