Chocolate Creme Brulee (and peppermint)

So it's the last day of the month and I just HAD to make the Brulee! It was a great experiment, I've always had hit and miss luck with custard bases. And this was no exception, I ended up making a second batch because I ruined my first one. AND the first time around I made plain chocolate brulee, and the second time I added a bit of peppermint and used crushed candy cane on top! I really liked the effect. But in the end using the broiler to caramelize the top just didn't work out, and if I was going to make this a dessert staple I'd have to invest in a brulee torch.

Chocolate Crème Brulee

makes four 4 oz ramekins

1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 vanilla bean
4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped (I used bittersweet)
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon sugar
4 to 6 tablespoons cane sugar, for topping
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Mix the cream and vanilla bean together in a double boiler. Heat the mixture for 10 to 15 minutes and stir in the chocolate. Remove the vanilla bean.
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Slowly pour the chocolate cream into the egg mix, continuously whisking. Place the bowl over simmering water until the cream mix thickens and coats the back of a spoon, about 6 to 8 minutes. Pour into 4 (4-ounce) custard dishes. Place in a large baking pan and add enough water to come up halfway up the sides of the cups. Bake until the custard is set, about 1 hour. Remove from the water and cool. Cover and refrigerate. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar on top of each one and with a brulee torch, caramelize the top and serve.

So it was going just fine until hit the stage of thickening the chocolate and egg mixture. At about 5 mins I thought "oh, it's perfect, I should take it off the heat now" but didn't because the recipe said 6-8 mins, and maybe just maybe I was wrong and it got thicker or better somehow. BUT I should have listened to my instincts. On the Left is the first batch at 6 mins and on the right is the second batch at 5 mins. Obviously a mins makes a huge difference. Make sure you take it off the heat as soon as it looks like thick pudding.

Also make sure you pour it into the ramekins quickly, and keep stirring. The bowl is still very hot and cooking. The last bit of my 2nd batch actually overcooked and I couldn't use it. You can see on the left the over cooked batch started to separate, and on the right the undercooked batch looks creamy!

Here they are after baking, the left batch kept curdling, even burning and the right batch kept up nicely. I actually only cooked the 2nd batch for 50 mins, and it was done.

After the cooking and refrigerating I covered 2 of the 2nd batch with crushed candy cane and 2 of the 2nd batch with regular cane sugar.

And while they cooked and crusted over, they didn't actually caramelize. The Candy cane was actually more successful than the regular sugar. The other problem is it heated the whole custard, and it wasn't as good as if the custard had stayed chilled while the top was crusted and caramelized.

Dark Chocolate Souffle

So usually I make the monthly Chocolate Therapy challenge the first day or two, but this month I was missing part of what I needed. I didn't have any Souffle ramekins!!! One of the reasons we picked this is it was a great excuse to GET ramekins, but of course it was a busy month and I didn't make it to the store until this week! So today I finally made the Souffle and tomorrow I'm planning on making the Brulee.

Everyone knows that souffle's are "fancy", and pose a bit of a difficulty. Reading more about it the reason souffle's rise is that the bubbles in the whipped egg whites expand when heated. So as the souffle's cool they drop. But that said I don't remember ever eating a souffle, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Dark Chocolate Souffle

makes 2 6 oz souffle

1 ounce heavy cream
4 oz. 70% cacao dark chocolate
1/2 tablespoon butter
2 large eggs separated
A dash of cream of tartar
1/6 cup sugar

Prepare two 6 ounce souffle ramekins by applying a layer of cold butter to the interior of the ramekins. Pour some granulated sugar into the ramekin and shake and roll the ramekin to coat the bottom and sides with sugar. Coat all the way up the side to facilitate the rise. The sugar sweetens the side, and makes it crunchy.

Melt the butter, cream, and chocolate in the double boiler, then turn off the heat. Whisk the two egg yolks into the chocolate. It will seize, just stir until smooth.

In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until the egg whites reach soft peaks. Add the sugar to the egg whites and continue to beat until you reach stiff peaks. Adding the whites a little at a time, fold them into the chocolate mixture

Pour the batter into the two prepared ramekins. Fill them at least 3/4 of the way up (mine went to the top). They can be prepared to this point beforehand and refrigerated for up to three days, leave out for 2 hours before cooking. Place the ramekins on a baking pan and place the pan in the oven on a rack set in the middle position. Bake the souffle's for 15 minutes at 375°F.

It was actually very easy and quick to make. I doubled the batch and it made 4 instead of 2 just fine. They were very large servings, and as it cooled and shrank it got more dense. I used quality chocolate with a great flavor and was pleased with the flavor and texture. I think I might have overcooked it by a min or two. I had some surprise visitors show up and was a bit distracted and couldn't find my oven mitt. So next time I'll cook them 13 mins. and see what I think.

My friend at Duff's ABC's wasn't impressed with the first recipe we choose. She didn't care for the flavor, not strong/rich enough. So I decided to try this one instead. It's a little simpler, and uses a darker chocolate, so I thought it might work out better. While it wasn't the Chocolate Nemesis it was pretty good. Where the Nemesis was so dense and moist (even creamy/smooth) that it just needed a bit of whipping cream to balance it, the Souffle was moist, but airy, a bit gritty/dry(if that makes any sense, like extra moist dense cake, I'm not very good at describing food, I'd make a terrible food critic, I just KNOW what I like, but can't describe it well) it needed some creamy vanilla Ice cream to balance it best.

Focaccia

So I have always loved the bread at the Macaroni Grill and have been looking for a similar recipe for ages. And then I stumbled across this recipe at Dad~baker&chef, it sounded just right and so I tried it! (sorry about the B&W pictures, I let my older son take some shots of the baby in B&W and forgot to switch it back!)

Focaccia

makes one 8" loaf

1 cup tepid water

1 tsp dry yeast

1 tsp ground sea salt

2 cups flour

olive oil

toppings: coarse sea salt, rosemary, olives...really anything

In a large bowl, dissolve the 1 tsp of instant yeast in 1 cup of tepid water. Add 1 cup of flour and 1 tsp of salt. Stir for a few minutes. Add another cup of flour and mix. Stir for another 2-3 minutes. Set aside in a warm spot to proof. The dough will rise nicely. Pour dough into an 8" cake pan well coated with olive oil. Brush the top with olive oil and sprinkle with preferred topping. Bake for 15-20 minutes in a preheated 230C oven.

As Dharm suggested I used extra water. "To get the right consistency, as it is supposed to be soft, sticky and almost liquid, I added another 1/4 cup of water." And since it turned out great I'm assuming it was the right thing to do. I might try to NOT add the extra water next time and see how it works.

I undercooked the bread a bit, I'm still figuring out my new oven and it had a nice crust, but was a bit too soft inside still. I pulled it out after 13 mins, so I think 2-4 more mins would have been perfect. I let my older 2 "help" and they each oiled their own pans and picked there own toppings. We put the course salt on both, and one choose grated Parmesan and the other choose Rosemary and basil.

The loafs were great! It was an incredibly easy recipe (just one bowl dirty, with one measuring cup and rubber spatula) with wonderful results. We finished one loaf last night and saved the other for tonight, so I'll update on how well it is the next day! And of course we served our with olive oil, fresh pepper and my FAVORITE balsamic vinegar (if you've never had it ask for it next time you go to the Macaroni Grill!)

Foodie Blogroll

So I've followed in the path of my friend at My ABC's and joined the Foodie Blogroll (hoping to get some more people checking out this blog and connect with other food lovers/bloggers.). So if your interested in checking out more food lovers check out the link at the bottom right of the page.