Coconut & Maple Macaroons

Macaroons are the hottest thing in high-end pastry and chocolate shops right now … but when you think “macaroon,” you’re probably thinking of something different. Although classic French macaroons consist of chocolate cream sandwiched between two disks of almond meringue, when the concept was translated to the American dessert lexicon, the recipe changed. Drastically.

Each kind of macaroon has its own charm, and both are irrefutably delightful. The French ganache-and-meringue version is crunchy and creamy at the same time; the American version is based on coconut and is charmingly chewy. Odds are that each will strike your fancy at a different time. When you want to make a quick and easy dessert, for example, you’ll probably have a hankering for the American macaroon. It requires zero heating of any kind and can be made in about two minutes. The French version is considerably more involved. While “project”-style desserts are ideal if you have some time on your hands and curiosity in your nature, sometimes a make-it-in-fewer-than-five-minutes dessert is exactly what you’re looking for.

Coconut & Maple Macaroons
Makes 12 macaroons. Recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.

1/2 cup + 1 T. unsweetened coconut flakes
3 T. unsweetened cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting
2 T. maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Sprinkle some cocoa powder on a large plate and have another empty clean plate nearby. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, mixing well. Use your fingertips to roughly pinch the mixture into 12 equal balls, then roll each ball into a smooth ball on the dry, clean palms of your hands. (Your fingertips will be sticky from having mixed everything together.) Place the macaroons on the clean plate as you go. Wash and dry your hands thoroughly — the idea is to ensure that the macaroons stick to themselves rather than your hands — and then roll each macaroon in the cocoa powder to finish. Alternatively, roll in almond flour or finely ground pistachios or any other finely ground nut.

Macaroons can be refrigerated for up to a week. They’ll dry out slightly and actually improve in texture upon standing. (Although I like them freshly made, too.)

Enjoy!

Orange Segments Topped with Crème Fraîche & Cocoa Nibs

Having just returned from a fascinating — and tasty! — culinary conference in NYC, real food has been very much on my mind. (Although, to be honest, real food is always on my mind. Chalk it up to one of the occupational hazards of being a recipe developer/food writer. In terms of “hazards,” it’s got to be one of the most pleasant.) By “real food,” I’m talking minimally processed foods: grains that are whole, oils that are unrefined, sweeteners that still retain their nutrients, animal products from pastured animals…you get the idea.

Speaking of the pastured animal foods, one of my current favorite dairy products is crème fraîche. It’s still unpopular and un-mainstream enough to be produced by real farms with animals freely grazing. The animals’ state of good health = dairy, egg, and meat products for us that taste damned good and also happen to be the most nutritious. (In case you’re curious about the numbers, pastured animal products have about half the fat of conventional animal products. Pastured also offers higher amounts of anti-inflammatory omega 3 fats and far more vitamins and other micronutrients than conventional products do.)

Along with being produced by great dairyists like Vermont Creamery, crème fraîche is also a cultured dairy product, which means it offers an intriguing tang along with its rich creaminess. It pairs beautifully with everything from fruit to potatoes! The nibs in this recipe add a nice crunch to the juicy orange and creamy/tangy crème fraîche.

Orange Segments Topped with Crème Fraîche & Cocoa Nibs

Peel oranges and gently pull apart into segments. Arrange in a bowl or on a plate and top with a dollop of crème fraîche. Sprinkle with cocoa nibs or broken-up chunks of dark chocolate. (When I say “dark,” I mean at least 75%. The sweetness of the orange is all the sweeter when paired with not-so-sweet chocolate.) Serve immediately for breakfast, dessert, or a snack. If you’d like to experiment with other fruit + crème fraîche combinations, try making Strawberries & Crème.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon-Maple Yogurt with Blueberries & Cooca Nibs

Plenty of “convenience” foods are far more convenient to make yourself — while the commercial versions tend to have unpronounceable ingredient lists and a mind-boggling amount of sugars/sweeteners, you can whip up a homemade version with a few simple healthy ingredients…and in less than a minute. Sixty seconds spent preparing AND at least 30 minutes saved by not going to the store? Now, that’s convenience! And using ingredients you already have vs. spending more money on an inferior product = thrifty (and smart) convenience.

Flavored yogurts fall into the “Prime Candidates for DIY Convenient Foods” category. If you keep a container of full-fat plain Greek yogurt in your fridge, you can enjoy the same yogurt innumerable ways by simply stirring in a few extra ingredients. Plus, when you have plain yogurt, you can even go sweet or savory without having to spend extra money. Use it as a basis for creamy salad dressings (use the yogurt in place of oil), as a way to enrich curries and soups (remove the pan or pot from the heat and stir in the yogurt at the last minute to keep it from curdling), or as a substitute for sour cream (to me, full-fat plain Greek yogurt tastes richer and fresher than sour cream does). And remember that fresh herbs make a wonderful companion to yogurt.

To go the sweet route, you can stir everything from spices to jam into your yogurt. For this batch, I opted to go with cinnamon, maple syrup, fresh blueberries, and a sprinkling of cocoa nibs. Any fruit would work, though, and you can use any sweetener you like, from honey to palm sugar to date sugar. Let your imagination run (conveniently) wild!

Cinnamon-Maple Yogurt with Blueberries & Cocoa Nibs

Plain full-fat Greek yogurt
Drizzle of maple syrup
Sprinkling of cinnamon
Fresh blueberries (or any other fruit)
Cocoa nibs (optional, but adds an appealing chocolate crunch)

Use a fork or a small whisk to stir the maple syrup and cinnamon into the yogurt. Gently stir in blueberries and top with nibs. Note that any fruit would be lovely — just be sure to cut the fruit into bite-sized pieces before stirring it in. Or you could dip larger-sized fruit slices into the yogurt.

Enjoy!

Buckwheat Crepes with Chocolate Yogurt

One of the many beauties of crepes is that you can fill them with whatever you like, whether that’s sweet or savory or something in between. And by varying the kind of flour you use to make the crepes themselves, you can tweak their base flavor to suit your mood. Want a nutty, rich-tasting crepe? Use teff, buckwheat, or chestnut flour. How about a mild crepe that would work with any filling? Try brown rice, sorghum, millet, or corn flour. For a decidedly savory crepe, go with chickpea or potato flour. In a chocolate kind of mood? Use unsweetened cocoa powder as one of your flours…and maybe throw in some coconut, too. Mesquite flour lends crepes a caramel flair; plantain has a hint of the tropics. Your options are endless.

Although I often make savory crepes intended for lunch wraps and chutney roll-ups, I made these for breakfast and filled them with chocolate yogurt and some blackberry jam. The whole-grain-ness of the crepe + the protein-rich whole-milk yogurt makes for a deliciously satisfying breakfast…and you can make both elements ahead of time and simply roll them at the last minute. Quick breakfasts can be classy and easy!

Buckwheat Crepes with Chocolate Yogurt
This crepe recipe makes about 12 crepes; the yogurt is enough for 2 servings. Feel free to downsize the crepe portions or upsize the yogurt portions as desired. I like to make a full batch of the crepes so that I have some leftovers to enjoy however I like.

For the crepes:
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup buckwheat flour*
1 1/2 cups whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
Dash of sea salt
Butter or ghee for cooking the crepes, preferably from grass-fed cows

For the chocolate yogurt:
1/2 cup whole-milk plain Greek yogurt (Fage is my favorite)
2 T. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T. maple syrup

To make the crepes, whisk all of the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Get out a (or two or three) 7″ nonstick crepe pan and place a dab of butter in the pan. Heat over medium heat — I go with mark 4 out of 10 on my electric burners — until butter has melted and is sizzling. Pour in 1/4 cup of the crepe batter and cook for 2-3 minutes or until crepe is set on top and browned on the bottom. Use a heatproof spatula to flip over the crepe and cook the second side for another minute or two or until equally browned. If you’re adventurous, by all means go ahead and flip that sucker up into the air to turn it over. Just don’t do that directly over the burner! It’s much easier to rescue a misdirected crepe from a cool element than a hot burner.

Place the cooked crepe on a wire rack. (If you put it on a plate, it’ll collect condensation and get soggy.) Make a second crepe in the same pan using the same technique. I find that I have to put a fresh dab of butter into my crepe pan every other crepe to keep them from sticking. Leftover crepes can be stacked in a sealed container and refrigerated for a week.

To make the yogurt, use a fork to thoroughly mix the ingredients in a bowl. Leftover yogurt can be kept up until the “expires by” date on the original package.

When you’re ready to assemble your chocolate-filled crepe, just spoon some yogurt onto the center of the crepe, roll up, and enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make wheat-based crepes, substitute 1 total cup of spelt, kamut, and/or whole-wheat flours for the brown rice and buckwheat.

Chocolate Macadamia Muffins

Peanuts make my favorite butter and almonds and chestnuts make my favorite flours, but macadamias make my favorite nuts + chocolate combination. In this case, the final result was muffins. (Or — if you frost the muffins with melted chocolate and butter and pop them into the refrigerator for about 20 minutes to harden your two-ingredient frosting — cupcakes.)

Macadamias are also fabulous in trail mixes. Eat them with raisins, for example, and they’ll taste like a nut-and-fruit version of oatmeal cookies. And here’s a bit of trivia about macadamia nuts that you might not know: the #1 macadamia-growing region of the world isn’t Hawaii. It’s Australia, where the first commercial crop was planted in the late 1800s.

Chocolate-Macadamia Muffins/Cupcakes**

1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup teff OR sorghum flour*
1/2 cup chestnut OR almond flour*
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably non-Dutched
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup macadamia nuts, roughly chopped
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup whole milk, preferably from grass-fed cows (OR coconut milk)
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a muffin tray with 12 baking cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and nuts. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ones and immediately pour into the muffin cups. Note that aluminum-free baking powder (which is what I use exclusively) reacts very quickly, so speed is of the essence here — no dallying! Get those muffins into the oven lickety-split. That way, you’ll have nicely raised, rounded tops. (Or, in the case of wheat-based muffins, peaked tops.)

Bake for 20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let muffins cool for about 15 minutes in the tray, then remove from the tray and finish cooling to room temp. (If you leave them in the tray, accumulated condensation can make the bottoms soggy.) If you’re like me, you probably want to eat one of them fresh out of the oven and piping hot.

Let muffins cool completely before storing in an airtight container. Muffins can be refrigerated for a week (but will dry out slightly in the fridge) or left out for four days. Chances are your house is dry and rather chilly in January, so mold shouldn’t be a problem; if you make these or any other muffins during the summer, promptly store them in the fridge.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d prefer to make a wheat-based version, use a total of 1 1/2 cups spelt, kamut, or whole-wheat flour instead.

** To make these muffins into cupcakes, make a simple frosting by melting dark chocolate (at least 75% dark) and unsalted butter (preferably from grass-fed cows) in a small saucepan over the lowest heat setting until chocolate is almost melted. The ratio should be about 2 chocolate squares to about 1 tablespoon of butter.

Remove from heat and stir to finish melting the chocolate — if you leave it on the heat until it’s completely melted, you risk burning the chocolate beyond repair — and get out a small spatula. Drip a dollop onto the center of each muffin top and use the spatula to spread the chocolate slightly out to the sides, giving the frosting a chance to run down slightly. Stash the muffins in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes to harden the frosting. Chances are you’ll only need about 4 squares to do 12 muffins.

Orange, Ginger & Chocolate Biscotti

‘Tis the season to take a little extra time with your baked goods. Not that biscotti takes a ridiculously long time to make, but the title alone — “twice-baked” in Italian — does set the stage for a few more moments to be spent rearranging baking sheets and dealing with dough. Think of biscotti as a savory, extra-thick cracker: baking it twice makes it crunchy and light-textured, and much like crackers, you can add adornments to your biscotti to flavor it.

For this batch, I used chestnut flour in the dough itself to lend a slightly nutty undertone; the adornment I chose was a chocolate bar embedded with orange zest and candied ginger. The bar itself turned out to be too sweet to eat out of hand (it fell below my 75% dark minimum), but it worked beautifully in the biscotti. You could just as easily include dried fruit or chopped/slivered nuts in your biscotti.

Just one thing to keep in mind: large pieces of anything — especially anything soft, like chocolate or fruit — will make the biscotti a touch more difficult to slice into neat wedges. Soft ingredients tend to make the slices gently fracture; hard ingredients like nuts could shatter the slices as you try to cut through the baked dough. I don’t mind the occasional torn piece, though, seeing as I think of them as the Baker’s Privileged Oopsies. That means I have to eat them on the spot. Don’t mind if I do!

Orange, Ginger & Chocolate Biscotti

2 cups chestnut flour OR sorghum flour*
1 cup brown rice flour*
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
Dash of sea salt
1 bar dark chocolate with orange zest and candied ginger (or whatever elements you prefer; straight chocolate is great, too), broken into small pieces
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil OR unrefined almond oil (almonds are particularly nice in this nut-friendly setting)
2/3 cup sucanat
3 large eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375F. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt, and chocolate pieces. Whisk together the remaining ingredients in another bowl. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ones, stirring until well blended. (This is a fairly dry dough, so the stirring will give you a workout.)

Have some extra brown rice flour at the ready. (I like to scatter mine onto a plate or into a bowl.) Flour your hands well and shape the dough into two equal loaves. They ought to reach across the baking sheet and nearly touch the edges. Space them well apart on the sheet and pop them into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes. Let them cool on a rack for about 5 minutes, then gently slide the baking sheet out from underneath the loaves to let the loaves sit directly on the rack. (This is where the parchment paper comes in handy — hang onto a corner of that while you slide the sheet away, and the loaves will stay on the paper.)

In about 10 more minutes, the loaves should be cool enough to touch comfortably. Cut them into angled slices about 1/2″ thick. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper and lay the slices out on the sheets. Bake for 8 minutes, then pull the sheets out of the oven and carefully flip each slice over. Bake for another 5 to 8 minutes or until both sides are golden brown.

Let cool completely before storing the biscotti in an airtight container. The whole point of biscotti is to be bracingly crunchy, and if any moisture forms in the container — which it will if the biscotti are warm at all — the crunch will quickly disappear.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d rather make a wheat-based version, use a total of 3 cups of whole-wheat, spelt, or kamut flours.

Chocolate, Cherry & Oat Balls

Imagine chocolate crinkle cookies. Now think about Russian teacakes — you know, those cute little balls covered with powdered sugar that are the mainstay of holiday cookie swaps. Then let your mind flit over to oatmeal-raisin cookies. What do you get when you put them all together? Chocolate, Cherry & Oat Balls. Or, if you prefer, Chocolate, Raisin & Oat Balls. Made with 100% whole-grain and no refined sugar, of course.

I was inspired to come up with this recipe when a friend said that his two favorite cookies were chocolate-chip and oatmeal-raisin. Seeing as I was completely out of my beloved 85% chocolate bars (a crisis that I’ve since remedied by means of restocking), I went with the chocolate crinkle approach of using cocoa powder instead. And since I happened to have oats and dried cherries on hand, I threw those in as well. Necessity is the mother of culinary invention, too!

Chocolate, Cherry & Oat Balls
Makes about 64 cookies.

1/2 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup teff flour*
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably non-Dutched/non-alkalized (the baking soda will react better if the cocoa is still in its natural acidic state)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
Dash sea salt
1/2 cup rolled oats (be sure to get gluten-free oats if you’re making gluten-free cookies!)
6 T. butter, preferably from grass-fed cows (Kerrygold and Organic Valley are great choices), softened
3/4 cup to 1 cup sucanat
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs, preferably from free-range hens
1 cup dried cherries OR raisins
1/2 cup cocoa nibs (optional)
Powdered sucanat for dusting/rolling (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F and cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and oats. In another large bowl, cream the softened butter for at least a full minute. Note that if you use butter from grass-fed cows, the butter will soften in about 10 minutes when left at room temperature since the butter naturally contains less saturated fat (which is very stiff when refrigerated). If you use conventional butter, plan on letting the butter sit out in the bowl for at least an hour to soften.

Gradually add sucanat to butter, creaming as you go. If you want not-so-sweet cookies, go with 3/4 sucanat; if you want cookies that approach a more traditional sweetness, use 1 cup. (I used 3/4 cup.) Beat in vanilla and eggs, then beat in flour mixture. If you are using wheat-based flours, stir in the flour rather than using an electric mixer. Either way, finish by stirring in the dried cherries and nibs.

Refrigerate the dough for 20 to 30 minutes to get it hard enough to roll into balls without the dough unduly sticking to your hands. Shape into balls 1″ across and place on parchment-covered sheets. Bake for 11 minutes. You’ll need to do two batches, so while the first one is baking, go ahead and shape the second half into balls and put them on a waiting plate. When the first batch is done, let the sheets cool for about 5 minutes or until you can comfortably touch them, then reload and rebake.

If you’d like to roll the cookies in powdered sucanat as a finishing touch, run some standard sucanat through a spice or coffee grinder while the first batch of cookies is baking. Put the powdered sucanat in a small paper bag. Drop the fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies into the bag 4 at a time, scrunch the bag closed, and gently upend the bag so that the cookies roll around inside and become coated with sucanat. Remove cookies and repeat with the remainder.

Let cool completely before storing the cookies in an airtight container. Warm cookies can be eaten immediately, of course.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you’d like to make a wheat-based version of this recipe, use equivalent amounts of kamut, spelt, and/or whole-wheat flours instead.

Stacked Crepe Torte

Today’s post is more of an ideas post than an actual recipe, but it’s an idea that you can take in uncountable directions, be that sweet or savory or as a main dish or a dessert. Another neat thing about this culinary concept is that you get to play the part of a pastry chef as you spread several layers of filling between stackable crepes. Unlike most pastries, however, a crepe torte is a lot more forgiving of less-than-professional techniques (which, when it comes to making pastries, mine certainly are) than just about any pastry you could name.

What I’m talking about is a stunningly simple — yet elegant! — idea: a layered torte made of stacked crepes with a savory or sweet filling in between them. As long as your chosen filling has a thick, spreadable, and non-runny consistency, you’re golden. (Salsa would obviously escape its crepe layers and spill back onto the plate, but guacamole would not.) From hummus to a thick and chunky tapenade, you can layer away to your heart’s content. If you wanted to go the sweet route, you could whip some fresh cream and alternately layer it into the crepes with some fresh fruit. Or you could make a rich chocolate ganache and layer that in, then top the torte with some crushed nuts and a drizzle of honey mixed with cinnamon.

No matter what kind of filling you choose, just be sure to use a sharp and thin knife to gently cut the torte into pieces — a big and/or dull knife would smash the layers down and make the filling squish out. Also, while you can certainly stack a batch of standard 6″ crepes, you might prefer to use a 9″ pan when you cook the crepes so that you’ll have a larger layer to work with later. This recipe for crepes will work for either size.

Stacked crepe tortes like this one I made with puréed smoked salmon and fromage blanc — the latter reminds me of smooth cottage cheese — will last for up to 4 days in the refrigerator. You can also make the crepes a day or two ahead of time if you like, then stack and serve just before company arrives. (Or just before you get hungry for lunch or dinner.)

Enjoy!

Chocolate Mesquite Cookies

Mesquite: it’s for more than just burning. And providing shade if you’re in the Arizona desert. Turns out that the pods the tree bears are edible (just as the wood is burnable), so if you let the pods dry out and grind them up, you have flour. A fragrant, fine flour that will make you think of caramel and barbecuing at the same time. That kind of hauntingly familiar smoke-edged flavor doesn’t go with everything, but it sure is an ideal companion whenever dark chocolate is involved!

Even if you don’t have mesquite flour on hand (I ordered my latest batch from aptly named Mesquitery in Arizona), these intensely dark chocolate cookies will still be a hit. Combining whole-grain flour with freshly ground almonds means these cookies will be crunchy, crisp, and light-textured — the perfect cookie all around, mesquite or no mesquite.

Chocolate Mesquite Cookies
Makes 60 cookies

1/2 cup mesquite flour* (if you don’t have mesquite, use teff — it has a rich, nutty flavor that also pairs well with chocolate)
1/2 cup almond meal (grind sliced almonds in a food processor or spice grinder, or buy almond meal)
1 cup brown rice flour*
1/4 cup sorghum flour*
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt

4 T. softened butter, preferably from pastured cows (Kerrygold is my reigning favorite, partially because of its amazing flavor and partially because it’s soft after 5 minutes of standing at room temperature thanks to the fact that it’s made from cream from grass-fed cows — their grassy diet means that their milk has a lot less saturated fat in it than milk from conventional grain-fed cows does)
1 cup sucanat
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/4 unrefined hazelnut oil OR 1/4 extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract

8 oz. dark chocolate (at least 70% dark; I used two 85% Lindt bars), broken into small pieces

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flours, almond meal, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the butter for 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually beat in sucanat. Beat in one egg at a time, then beat in oil and vanilla extract.

If you’re using gluten-free flours, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and beat it in until you have a smooth dough. If you’re using wheat, stir in the flour. (The gluten-free way is quicker since you don’t have to worry about overbeating the gluten present in the wheat.) Either way, stir in the chocolate chunks last.

Shape the dough into small balls about 1″ in diameter and place them in neat rows on the parchment-covered baking sheets. My sheets are rectangular, so I wound up with 4 rows of 5 balls across or 20 cookies per sheet. Since the recipe makes 60 cookies, stash the remaining dough in the fridge until you have a free sheet to use.

Bake cookies for 17 to 18 minutes or until they’re lightly brown on the top and brown on the bottom. (Flip one of them up to peek at its underside.) Let hot baking sheets cool completely before pulling the remaining dough out of the fridge and making the remaining cookies.

Enjoy!

* These are gluten-free flours. If you would prefer to make wheat-based cookies, substitute whole-wheat, kamut, or spelt flours for the gluten-free flours.

Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream

It is riDICulously hot! Unless perhaps you’re reading this in Antarctica, in which case I’m a bit jealous. (Although I admit I’d rather be grumping about heat than cold.) Then again, a happy consequence of the heat is that ice cream keeps sounding better and better! Especially when you’re talking cream from pastured cows, tastily sweet maple syrup, and tart-sweet raspberries. Or strawberries or blueberries or whatever kind of chocolate-friendly fruit you’d like to include.

I’m not a big fan of appliances, but ice cream makers are stunningly useful and are fairly inexpensive — mine was $30 with one of those ubiquitous Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons that everyone always seems to get in the mail. (Normal price was $40.) Once you have one and start making your own batches of ice cream — or sherberts or sorbets, for that matter — you’ll wonder why you didn’t buy an ice cream maker last summer. Or the one before that.

And if you have an ice cream maker and access to raw cream, your ice cream will blow away anything that Edy’s or Breyer’s could ever make. Cold Stone, Schmold Stone! I ordered raw cream from my farmer for the first time recently and was amazed. I’d expected it to be extra-rich and naturally thick (commercial cream is thickened with carrageenan) and to be much easier to whip (pasteurizing and whipping are both forms of “cooking” the cream and solidifying it — in essence, pasteurized cream is already halfway cooked and therefore is harder to whip), but the raw cream exceeded even my high expectations. Not only was it far thicker than its purposely thickened commercial counterpart, it whipped so quickly that I almost accidentally had butter instead of whipped cream. It was also so rich that I wound up thinning the cream with water rather than milk when I used it to make ice cream. And then there was the color: a light golden hue. That’s the beta-carotene from the grass showing through. (The green chlorophyll normally hides the orange beta-carotene. The same is true of leaves — in fall, when the chlorophyll starts to dissipate, the leaves turn orange and red and reveal their true colors.) So if you have raw cream within your reach, by all means use it! If not, try for Organic Valley or a local, grass-fed dairy’s cream.

Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream

1 cup heavy cream, preferably from grass-fed cows or raw cream (see preceding paragraphs)
1/2 cup water IF you use a rich cream; 1/2 cup whole milk otherwise
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 egg yolk, preferably from pastured hens (I would not advise eating raw yolk from a carton of 99-cent eggs; if that’s all you have, leave out the egg)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
6 oz. raspberries

Place all ingredients except raspberries in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into ice cream maker. Immediately pour raspberries into ice cream maker and proceed to make the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Ice cream will be soft-serve consistency when you first make it and then will get a little harder than commercial ice cream after it’s been frozen. Either let it sit out and thaw for a few minutes before scooping, or keep dunking your scoop in hot water to make it easier to portion out your summertime bliss.

Enjoy!

Cheese & Chocolate "Danish"

This may look like a Danish pastry, but it isn’t a pastry and doesn’t taste anything like one.  I’d be willing to bet, in fact, that this concoction doesn’t taste like anything you’ve had before: the saltiness of the sharp cheese, the sweet smokiness of the roasted pepper, and the rich depth of the dark chocolate combine to create a singular and elegant flavor.  Talk about a surprisingly simple three-ingredient treat!

Roasted Pepper with Cheese & Chocolate

Roasted peppers, either homemade or store-bought (if they’re store-bought, choose peppers that are large enough to hold a filling)*
Grated sharp cheese such as Swiss Gruyére, Spanish Manchego, American/English Cheddar, or Dutch Gouda
Dark chocolate (at least 70%)

Place roasted pepper on a foil-lined baking tray. If you want a slightly smoky flavor in your cheese-and-chocolate treat, leave a little bit of skin on the pepper; if not, peel away entire skin. With the pepper flipped up so that it forms a loose cup, fill with cheese. Bake in a toaster oven or standard oven just long enough for the cheese to start turning golden brown. I used a toaster oven, and it only took about 10 minutes at 250 for the cheese to get bubbly, but a standard oven would probably require more like 15 minutes at 350. (The confined, small interior of a toaster oven is ideal if you want quick and concentrated heat using a minimum of energy.)

Pull pepper out of oven and place a small square (about 1/2″ x 1/2″) of chocolate in the center of the melted cheese. Return to oven just long enough for the chocolate to melt. That will probably only take a minute or two, so don’t walk away from the oven! Scorched chocolate tastes terrible and cannot be fixed.

Let cool for about 5 minutes before serving so that the bubbling-hot cheese and chocolate won’t burn your tongue.

Enjoy!

* To roast a pepper, place the entire pepper on the center rack and roast at 425F for about 20 minutes or until the pepper is blackened on all sides. Since the pepper might leak some juices as it cooks, it’s best to place a piece of aluminum foil on the rack directly below the pepper to make clean-up MUCH easier. (Especially for those of us without self-cleaning ovens…) When the pepper is blackened and blistered, immediately place it in a sturdy zip-loc bag, seal the bag, and let the pepper cool. Remove skin, stems, and seeds by slipping them off/out — the slightest tug will be sufficient — and cut the pepper in half. At this point, you can either use it or refrigerate it for up to a week.

Double Chocolate Crunch Cookies

There are many ways to make a cookie great: use a natural sweetener like sucanat that contributes flavor as well as sweetness to your cookie, use a variety of whole-grain/whole-food flours like sorghum flour or teff flour or peanut flour that will likewise add dimension of their own to your cookie, and use a rich-tasting, good-quality butter.  (European butters are more often than not made from milk from grass-fed cows.  So are locally produced butters from small farms in your area.)

Another fantastic way to up the cookie ante is to include crunchy ingredients with lots of flavor and flair.  I’m talking things like pan-toasted nuts and cocoa nibs.  Talk about a cookie bonus!  And for this batch, I used cocoa powder as flour — remember, anything that can be ground into a fine powder counts as flour! — to make an even chocolaty-er cookie.  If you don’t have nibs, you can add dark-chocolate chunks or extra toasted nuts.  (I’m partial to Mindo Chocolate‘s nibs: they’re local to Detroit, yet they roast and ferment their fairly bought cocoa beans at their small farm in Mindo, Ecuador.  They also make and sell quite delicious dark chocolate bars.)

Double Chocolate Crunch Cookies (with nibs!)

1 cup pecan halves OR walnut halves
1/2 cup sorghum flour*
1/2 cup brown rice flour*
1/2 cup millet OR amaranth flour*
1/2 cup cocoa powder, preferably not Dutched
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) butter, preferably from grass-fed cows (Kerrygold is a great choice and is widely available)
1 cup sucanat
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/3 cup to 1/2 cup cocoa nibs, depending on how crunchy you like your cookies to be

Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets and set aside.

Coarsely chop pecans and place them in a large skillet. Toast them over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 4-5 minutes or until they’re fragrant and turning brown. (All of a sudden, the air will smell like pecans. A LOT like pecans. That’s when you’d better hustle over to the stove and check to see how quickly they’re browning!) Slide pecans onto a cool plate and set aside.

Whisk flours, cocoa powder, and baking powder together in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter for 1-2 minutes or until it’s light and fluffy. Gradually beat in sucanat. Add vanilla and the first egg and beat again. Beat in second egg.

Use a wooden spoon to stir in flour mixture, then the nibs and the toasted nuts. Roll the dough into balls about 1″ in diameter and place on cookie sheet. If you’d like flatter cookies, lightly press down on each one before popping the pans in the oven.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are fragrant and starting to crack slightly. (You won’t be able to see them browning since they’re so chocolaty and dark.) Flatter cookies will probably be done in 10 minutes; rounder ones will probably take 12.

Enjoy the crunch!

* These are gluten-free cookies. If you would prefer to make wheat-based cookies, use 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour instead of the sorghum, brown rice, and millet flours. White whole wheat flour is milled from a softer, more mild-tasting strain of wheat, so you may wish to look for white whole-wheat flour. (It is NOT the same thing as standard white flour made from wheat; unbleached white flour is the stripped-out, nutritionally deficient version of wheat, whereas soft white wheat is simply a specific type of wheat. Other varieties include hard red and durum.) Trader Joe’s sells white whole-wheat flour; so do many other grocers. Kamut or spelt flour would also work well, although neither is gluten-free.

Peanut Butter, Coconut & Cocoa Truffles

Not that you ever need an excuse to enjoy some good-quality chocolate, but now that the holidays are here, what better time to make your own truffles?  And this version is much, much quicker to make than the traditional version, because instead of slowly heating cream and chocolate and then using molds to get a glossy-smooth finish, you can zip these ingredients through a food processor and then roll them by hand with a minimum of mess. (Major bonus point: using dates makes the mixture stick to itself more than it’ll stick to your hand.)

What you roll your truffles in will determine the final flavor combo, so choose whatever suits you best.  In addition to the options listed here, you could also use ground nuts or even mix a hint of spice — cinnamon would be wonderful! — into whatever accent you choose for your batch.

(I will say that the traditional cream-and-chocolate way is fun, too.  About a year ago, I posted a recipe for dark chocolate truffles with roasted corn.  Feel free to make those, too, and then compare them!)

No-Fuss Holiday Truffles

For the dates:
6 ounces dates, pitted
1/2 cup pecan halves
1/4 cup cocoa powder, preferably non-Dutched
1 tsp. vanilla

For the accents:
Peanut flour
Additional cocoa powder
Flaked coconut

To make the truffles, place the dates, pecans, cocoa powder, and vanilla in a food processor. Process in spurts until the mixture comes together in one large ball. You may need to add a teaspoonful or two of water to get the ball to form.  Having that ball is important, because that means the mixture will stick together enough to make little truffle-sized balls. Place the big truffle ball in a large bowl, cover tightly, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (You can keep it in the refrigerator for a day or two at this point if you like.)

Roll the truffles into 1″ balls. Pour a little of each accent onto a clean plate and roll the truffles on the plates, only rolling each truffle in one flavor so as not to confuse your taste buds. (Peanut flour is great and so is flaked coconut, but I’m not sure about the combination…) I split my truffle pile into thirds and rolled each third in one flavor so that I would have a nice assortment at the end.

Store your truffles in an airtight container in the refrigerator…that is, if they last that long!

Enjoy!

Chocolate Velvet Cake with Dates

I admit it: I’m on a chocolate-cake-made-in-a-food-processor kick.  It’s just so easy to toss everything into a processor, blend it, pour it into a pan, and bake it!  And nuts and dates just seem to lend themselves to being blended, poured, and baked.  I have a feeling the chestnut cake I made recently is just the beginning of a new obsession.  This second cake is along similar lines, except this one features dates along with maple syrup and almonds instead of chestnuts. The moist dates give this cake more lift and lightness than the chestnut cake (which is more like a classic flourless cake), but this one is just as simple to make.

Since the prep time is only five minutes, this nutty chocolate treat would be a great dessert to take along to a holiday party.  And seeing as dates can easily be stored for up to six months in the refrigerator (probably more), the next time you see dates in the store, grab some so that you’ll have them on hand to make this last-minute cake whenever you need a luscious dessert in a hurry.

Chocolate Velvet Cake with Dates

7 oz. dates (I often see dates sold in 1 pound packages, so since 1 pound = 16 ounces, use a little less than half the package)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) dark chocolate, preferably 85%
1/4 cup melted butter, preferably from grass-fed cows
Pinch sea salt

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease a 9″ glass pie pan and set aside.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

If you like, garnish individual slices with a dollop of freshly whipped cream or a spoonful of naturally sweetened jam. (Raspberry and apricot would be particularly good accompaniments.) Cake will keep for 3 days at room temperature or 5 days in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Flourless Chestnut Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Jam

Two observations that would seem to be quite unrelated: chestnuts are in season again (!), and wow, food processors sure are handy!

One dish that makes the two connect: flourless chestnut chocolate cake made in a food processor.  Ridiculously easy, ridiculously tasty — using steamed chestnuts instead of flour gives the cake a dense, fudgy texture — and a great way to highlight a unique seasonal treat.  (Chestnuts are the starchiest nuts of all, so puréed chestnuts can easily stand in for flour.)  Also, using steamed chestnuts instead of chestnut flour is a much, much more economical way to incorporate that chestnut flavor into a cake: eight ounces of steamed chestnuts cost $3-$4, while a small bag of chestnut flour is usually $10+.

For the topping, I used naturally sweetened organic raspberry jam, but any dark berry jam would be fantastic, from strawberry to blackberry to cranberry.  A dollop of full-fat Greek yogurt or freshly whipped organic cream would also be great toppers.

Flourless Chestnut Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Jam

60 grams (about 2 ounces) dark chocolate, preferably 85% dark, broken into chunks
8 oz. steamed chestnuts (I buy mine at Trader Joe’s)
1 egg
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup buttermilk OR whole milk OR coconut milk
Pinch of sea salt
1 T. baking powder

Naturally sweetened raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease a 9″ glass pie pan and set aside.

In a small pot, melt chocolate over LOWEST heat setting, whisking often to help the chocolate melt. Remove from heat and finish whisking out the last lumps — don’t leave it sitting there until it’s completely melted, because odds are the chocolate will become scorched. Unlike chocolate that seizes during melting, scorched chocolate can’t be saved. (Seized chocolate can be rescued by whisking in enough cream or butter to make the mixture smooth again.)

Pour melted chocolate into a food processor. Add remaining ingredients EXCEPT for the jam and process until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 28 to 30 minutes or until center is firm and set.

Serve each slice topped with a small spoonful of jam.

Enjoy!