Meringues with a kick

The pasilla chile softening on the comal is a traditional start to a Mexican meal. And next the next step, perhaps, would be grilling tomatoes, onions, and garlic to make the perfect base for a savoury sauce. Well not in this case. This was the start of dessert for last night's dinner. Part 1 of the pudding was to be chocolate-chile ice cream.

Next step is creating a chile and cream infusion as the base to the ice cream. Just steep the softened chile in the cream.  Then you waz it up in a blender, then strain out the bits of chile (which if  you've blended it well, there shouldn't be much of).

While that's all going on, there was chocolate being chopped. Using the good stuff makes a big difference. Then the chile infusion gets mixed together with this lovely chocolate and is well on its way to becoming the custard base for the ice cream.

Add the chile-chocolate-cream mixture to a bowl full of egg yolks and sugar. Now you're ready for cooking the custard.

The custard has to thicken over a double boiler so there's a bit of arm-building whisking action involved. Although it's a lot less arduous than say, making mayonnaise.  And because there's no shortage of steps in this ice cream making process, once it's all up to the right temperature and thickened up, then the custard has to be cooled. So stick it in an ice bath and whisk some more.

At this point, I was wondering if this whole process was ever going to end, but having an array of delicious ingredients, I cracked on with it. A little vanilla, some heavy cream, and a bit of chocolate liquer. Then into the ice cream maker it all goes.

Once this final step is complete, it can go into the freezer for a few hours or overnight to harden up and for the flavours to really marry together.

And since the ice cream only used the egg yolks, and I don't like to waste, I thought I'd try my hand at making some meringues. Last weekend I made a pavlova, which was very delicious but the meringue base was not quite right. So this time, I used the basic recipe for the Joy of Cooking. The trick to the nice stiff peaks: cream of tartar. Conveniently I had some in the pantry, so stiff ones all around.

My initial dessert plan had been to have the chocolate-chile ice cream with grilled pineapple, which I still made, but with the meringues (which I have to say came out pretty freaking perfectly), it was perhaps one of the best desserts I've ever put together. I gave myself quite a few pats on the back.

And, I'm also happy to report, J and our dinner guests enjoyed it. And that's reallly what all the time and effort is about, seeing the clean plates in front of everyone.

Again with the champagne and chocolates

Another law firm hosted a champagne and chocolate event tonight. This one at Moroco choclatiers in Yorkville. It was a very fun event hosted by the firm's women's group and it was almost universally women clients. There were four different sparkling beverages - one was a hard cider from the Loire Valley in France, then there were three champagnes, of which I don't remember the names of any except the Veuve Cliquot. Along with that many, many, many kinds of chocolates. My favourites were the truffle balls with the fleur du sel liquid centre, truffle with strawberry and balsamic, the raspberry cream one and the marzipan with orange and brandy. There were a whole lot more but honestly, I couldn't keep up they were coming so fast. Each one had a different design on it - here are a couple of them. I believe the hearts was the raspberry cream and the dots were espresso.


We were greeted upon arrival with a glass of champagne and there was a table of sweet goodies ready for the guests that included: Maroc's famous homemade marshmallows, macrons, brownies on a stick, shortbread cookies, meringues, chocolate-covered pretzels, mini cupcakes, and more.



We also got a little goodie bag at the end that had some treats from Maroc and little bottle of French Cross sparkling wine.

All in all, I'm giving the law firms the thumbs up on these events and letting them know I'll be happy to attend your events if they continue in this fine style. And in keeping with the fact it's work . . . all pics taken with the work BlackBerry . . .

Nothing goes together better than chocolate & chili

I had been jonesing to make make a chili chocolate cake for some time and during Passover last month, I found this one online and decided to make it when we had guests from out of town. It was the dessert for a Mexican-themed seder-type meal (which was very delicious but did not have an hour of pre-amble from the Haggadah before we could partake of the repast, so to speak.) Anywho . . . more on that at another time! This cake doesn't have any flour or other leavining agents so it was perfect for Passover but that's not to hold me back from making it any time because it is SO delicious!

For my version, I used good quality Belgian chocolate and ground the dried chipotles myself in the mortar and pestle so the flavour was still strong and smokey. I definitely used more spices than the original recipe called for and also had goose eggs in the house so used those (1 goose egg = 4 regular eggs), which I think makes it richer. It comes out a lot like a brownie but with a bit of a kick. I could eat the whole thing myself, so it's a good thing there'll be others to share it!

Chipotle Flourless Chocolate Cake

• 285g of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
• 7 tablespoons (100g) of unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 5 large eggs (or 1 goose egg and one regular egg), room temperature
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons of chipotle chili powder
• Dash or more of cayenne pepper
• Pinch of salt
• Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of a 9 ½ inch springform pan with a circle of parchment paper. Grease the sides and the parchment with butter or non-stick cooking spray.

Melt the chocolate and butter together over a double boiler stirring occasionally until smooth.

Whisk together the eggs and the sugar in a large bowl, and then slowly, a bit at a time, whisk in the melted chocolate. Add the salt and spices and taste, adjusting the spices if needed.

Pour into the springform pan and bake for 25-32 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Wine & chocolate & extraordinary women

G here again . . . feeling the need to share on the nibblies front.

Last week I was invited by a law firm to it's "5th annual extraordinary women's wine and chocolate extravaganza." I'm supposing it's because I'm so extraordinary that I made it on to the invite list . . . hmm.

Anywho, walked in the door and was met with a glass of champagne with a little raspberry in the bottom and really, that's the way to start off any event. In fact, I think each workday should begin in that fashion and it would all just be so much more pleasant.

The chocolates on offer were from Stubbe Chocolates and choclatier Daniel Stubbe was on hand to chat about his creations. There were six chocolates paired with wines. Now I will say that I tried all the chocolates but not all the wines, although I did give a couple a go.

First up (and I did not take any photos) and because I may have mentioned that I'm on a chili binge, I had the rasampatti chili with bittersweet chocolate. This was a ganache filled offering made with a not-too-hot Indian chili that gave a sweet first taste then gradually left you with a bit of the chili heat. It was paired with Ricossa Moscato D'Asti, a sweet dessert wine that really added a depth and roundness to the chocolate. I had a few tastes of this one! It was my favourite. Daniel said he had spent quite a lot of time using different chilis to get one that worked with this and that it's always a bit of a challenge using chilis which get spicier as the days go by. This was still fairly mild as he said they'd only been made a few days before.

Secondly I tried the solid pink peppercorns on dark semisweet chocolate, which was also delicious. It was paired with the Muskoka Lakes Windery Red Maple, a dessert wine made with cranberries and maple syrup. Again a nice sweet wine against the spicy chocolate. Liked this one as well. The chocolatier again said he'd experimented with different types of peppercorns and finds the pink ones to be the best for the chocolate as it is more delicate than black or white.

The most unusual one I tried was the hard lemongrass in bittersweet chocolate, which actually had a really refreshing taste to it, just as you would imagine lemongrass would. Nice and light. The third and last of the hard chocolates was a wild fennel in semisweet chocolate, which was not too licorice-tasting and really quite pleasant.

There were two other ganache-filled options: Tanzania dark chocolate, which was a straight-up deliciously deep chocolate and balsamic vinegar in dark chocolate, a taste sensation. The trick to the balsamic filling is using a vinegar that's about 5 years old, nothing to dense or fancy, apparently. You need to have a bit of the tartness and if you use well-aged balsamic it's too sweet and often too viscous.

All in all a really fun evening chatting about chocolate and ingredients. And we got a little box of treats to take home.