Aww, That’s So Sweet!

Chances are, if you purr these words this upcoming Valentine’s Day – or, if they’re directed to you – chocolate is involved.  Not just any variety, either, but chocolate made by the couverture method, a highly-refined Belgian technique reserved for the very finest cacao available.  With a price tag to match, too.  Though for you,…

Another Chocolate, Herr Mozart?

Just in time for Mozart’s birthday, coming up Wednesday (it was the 26th of January, if you’re reading this in archive), here’s an Austrian confection, Mozartkugeln (“Mozart Truffles”).  While the composer was famously fond of sweets, Salzburg chocolatier Paul Fürst didn’t invent Mozartkugeln until a century or so after Wolfgang passed to the eternal in…

Warning: Causes Blackouts

Now that you know, are you ready for all this chocolate?  Be advised, it’s relentless.  Start with a velvety chocolate cake, fully as rich and moist as is any devil’s food cake you’ve tried.  Top that with a creamy chocolate pudding, cooked on the stovetop, then chilled to concentrate its cocoa goodness. Mercy?  Not likely;…

Do Reindeer Bark?

No, but they do eat bark.  Surely not nearly as satisfying, though, as is peppermint bark, a holiday specialty combining chocolate and crushed mints.  Superb, and improved even more when incorporated in a cheesecake using crushed Oreos as a crust and topped with more peppermint bark and a dollop of crème de menthe-infused whipped cream.…

Brownies for a Princess

By legend, when an Austrian princess was staying at the Italian resort isle of Capri back in the 1800s, she started longing for the dense chocolate cake of her native Vienna, Sachertorte.  Not knowing how to make the Viennese delicacy, the resort’s Italian chefs prepared a more familiar local almond cake, added cocoa and hoped…

Lots of Cream, Though

Think of today’s dish as being a chocolatey dessert mocha, light on the coffee (quite light, actually), with copious servings of cream.  Best of all, it’s crowned with a generous dollop of Bailey’s Irish Cream-laden topping.  A double dose of cream thus completes this, reinforcing the smooth chocolate dreaminess found throughout. Formally speaking, this is…

World’s Longest Street

It must be, to make it all the way from Madrid to Mexico City.  Churros are gloriously of that street, offered at roadside stands throughout the Spanish-speaking world (and in a few fortunate outposts beyond), delighting pedestrians with crunchy bursts of sweetness.  To those unfamiliar, think of a cinnamon donut, except crisper and lighter.  Absolutely…

Here It Comes

The first traces of green appear, breathing, “promise of merry sunshine,” both outdoors and in.  While the landscape begins to stir, the sweet refreshment is matched within the kitchen walls too, with the latest attempt, Mint Chocolate Bars. Though Fine Cooking provides details in its December 2017/January 2018 issue, and the dessert is intended to…

Yeah, Real Mature

What can you do, though?  Today’s treat, Revel Bars, earns its name, as one bite brings childhood flooding back.  Adult cares and worries melt away in sweet, chewy smoothness.  Age is irrelevant as happy memories become present reality. An exaggeration, surely?  Not for anyone who’s tried one of these.  When Cook’s Country featured Revel Bars…

Cupcakes, Two Ways…

Actually, while the cupcakes themselves come in two varieties, Chocolate and Vanilla, both welcome the public the same way, with a rich dulce de leche cream frosting sprinkled with chocolate shavings and caramel bits.  There should be a deeper meaning in all of this, but that’s a discussion best left to the philosophers. We’re here for…