Chocolate Sauce

20130409-175847.jpg

One time, after lunch, we needed some dessert. Sometimes, you need dessert and you didn’t plan for this need ahead of time. It was then we realized that you melt chocolate in a pan and dip darn near anything in it. Voila! Dessert. Not just any chocolate will do the job. “Chocolat Dessert” is what the marches in France call it ( duh, I should have figured this out long ago ). In America, I think it’s called baker’s chocolate. Or you can use semi-sweet chocolate chips. I always have melting chocolate on hand because it lasts in the pantry and has the added bonus of dessert potential at any moment. With the shops closed through the two hour lunch and finish the day at seven, you need to plan sweet cravings ahead of time.

20130409-175900.jpg

Usually we do a slow melt with a spot of cream and a dash of salt. Tonight, I added two new friends

Sweetened condensed milk
Vanilla extract

Then, magic happened.
I didn’t take notes on the ratio, but I think this chocolate sauce is something you feel. You can serve it over a cottage cake ( not very sweet, heavy on the butter )

Or if cake isn’t your thing, spoon it.

20130409-175926.jpg

Or if you’re six, eat what’s on your plate and save some for later.

20130409-183000.jpg

No Wheat Treats

20130207-151738.jpg

For those of you in search of sweets without wheat, let me introduce to you the country of France. A country where cream is king. Sweets start with cream and build upon this custard or egg white-y base.

Oh sure they do “cake” but said “cake” looks like a cake, feels like a mousse ( snuggled with sponge ).

20130207-151752.jpg

Don’t be frightened of mousse. It’s actually straightforward. Even if you suck at making mousse, your effort will still arrive with mousse-y characteristics thus tricking your target with culinary, mousse-y delight.

20130207-151805.jpg

After many attempts with chocolate mousse, I’ve settled in on 4×4 Chocolate Mousse TM.

4 eggs
4 oz chocolate

It’s easy to remember so when you have five people, a cat, a dog and some chickens talking to you at the same time, you will not mess up the ratio.

Separate the eggs
Melt the chocolate
Whisk the yellows
Beat the whites
Fold it all together gently
Put in cute ramekins or little espresso cups
Chill, girl. Just chill

It’s gonna be a’ite

Best Chocolate I Ever Ate

20130109-184634.jpg

I’m not frequent with the sugar consumption so when we were gifted a big box of dark chocolate , Lindt flavor discs, we took no pause before tucking in.

The flavors were
– chocolate
– caramel
– cherry piment ( that’s French for spicy )
– orange

Oh and they were good. Oh they were lovely.

My ranking:
Caramel ( my ab fav )
Cherry Piment ( Brent’s nemesis chocolate )
Orange
Chocolate

20130109-190636.jpg

I had to bite two cherry piment to get this picture; the first one was blurry. I’m loving chocolate photography.

Cookies of Two Dimensions

20120913-171446.jpg

One recipe, two methods. Cookie Left: chilled dough, convection oven. Cookie Right: dough done then cooked normally.

Convection cookies presented perky with some chewiness while normal cookies were flat but crispy.

It’s a preference really.

My sample size of m ( ‘m’ for men ) were split.

Comments for convection-

M1: meh. Chewy. I’m not into chewy

M2: mgrats mgrood. ( translated by wife as “that is good, Honey, how lovely of you to make cookies. Is it possible that I could clean up and then sweep the floor after?” )