All posts tagged Chocolate

Warm Coffee-Infused Chocolate Cakes

05.11.11 // Comments:24

You know, I’ve gotten some pretty fantastic packages in the mail since I started blogging—a jar of coconut oil, a case of Talenti gelato, a bag of Xylitol, something like 20 containers of Chobani yogurt.

But this month, I received something totally new, something I’d never have expected, something that kind of amazed me when I opened it, in fact: I recieved an entire case of Starbucks Natural Fusions coffee—filled with several bags each of the vanilla, caramel, and cinnamon flavors—and along with, so it turns out, the opportunity to host a meal featuring the coffee: with $100 of grocery money to do it.

case of coffee

This, as you can imagine for someone who clips coupons and winces at $5 blueberries, was an offer too good to pass up.

starbucks cinnamon coffee

We planned the meal for Saturday, with six of us gathered around a table, eating a delicious feast of salmon and salad and vegetables, of which the crowning glory was definitely the dessert: coffee-infused chocolate cakes, topped with a coffee reduction sauce, set next to homemade coffee ice cream, with hot coffee to drink on the side.

Seriously.

Thank you, Starbucks.

eggs

Of the three coffee flavors, we liked the ingredients from the cinnamon the best, as they were the most whole (i.e., no maltodextrin), so that’s what we used in every aspect of our dessert: some grounds in the cakes, some super-strong brewed coffee in the sauce, some grounds steeped with milk in the process of making the ice cream.

eggs in bowl

The cakes, served warm, are like little domes of soft, rich heaven, I kid you not. They’re not overly sweet, which makes them ideal to pair with ice cream, and they’re wonderfully moist in the center, with chocolate liquid oozing out as you eat.

cakes ready to bake

cakes baked

Saturday was actually the second time we made the cakes; the first time, at another group dinner, we had experimented with proportions, done without coffee, used the berries in a sort of puree all over the top.

That time was OK.

nate's cake

This time was perfection.

a cup of coffee

I mean, really. Forget cream and sugar. I think I’ve found a new favorite way to have coffee.

(And also, just because a delicious (and free!) meal is something to celebrate, pictures of our lunch:)

salad
cauliflower
rosemary sourdough bread
my plate
around the table
Read more…

Comments:24 Click here to comment! Categories: cake, desserts

HOT Chocolate Cookies (+ BIG Announcement!)

04.20.11 // Comments:77

hot chocolate cookies

Yesterday morning, I had an entirely different post planned for you today. It wasn’t about cookies, it wasn’t about Nashville, it wasn’t about the person who likes these cookies most.

But plans change.

chocolate spice cookie

You might remember over a month ago, when I brought you these thin chocolate cookies and ice cream sandwiches, how I mentioned being on the hunt for a crisp chocolate cookie, the kind that was like a cocoa gingersnap, spiced and crisp, sharp and crunchy. What I didn’t tell you then was that it was really Tim who wanted this cookie, Tim who had mentioned it and sent my mind to work.

HOT chocolate cookies

And so it was, last week in Chicago, that I first tried this new recipe, an adaptation of Mexican chocolate cookies I’d found online, while Tim sat in my parents’ dining room working on his computer and I worked in a light-filled kitchen, hoping for crisp, spiced bites of chocolate. That first experiment was such a hit, I made the recipe again Monday, so I could bring them over to Tim’s house before we went to our respective Monday night Bible studies and he made me a chicken sandwich while we talked in his kitchen. They’re just what we (well, he) were after: chocolate cookies with the snap of ginger and hints of cayenne that surprise you.

I made them to try and do something nice for him, but, as is so often the case, I’ll remember them for how they surrounded his doing something nice for me. When I made them in Chicago, so it happens, it was just hours after Tim had sat down for coffee with my dad. When I made them in Nashville, so it seems, it was just one day before Tim sat with me in a park and got down on his knees.

percy warner park

And so it was, yesterday afternoon, that the love of my life—the same man who revolutionized my eating habits, lured me from Chicago to Nashville, became in the course of 15 months the best friend I’ve ever had—asked me, on a blanket beneath trees and alongside a creek, next to a cooler holding a handful of these very cookies, homemade lemonade, rosemary sourdough, avocados, apple slices, cheese, chocolate, bowls of blueberries and oranges, cream and a very important box, to become his wife.

our picnic

my ring

And when he slipped that ring on my finger, as you can imagine, I said yes.

Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

04.13.11 // Comments:28

I have been waiting a long time to tell you about these cookies.

buckwheat chocolate chip cookies

They first came to me last spring, in one of the earliest emails exchanged between here and Nashville.

Then came summer, fall, winter and a move to Tennessee.

Before long, here we were in the heart of spring again, evidenced all around us by green grass and blooming flowers, powerful thunderstorms and days of rain (and I mean that whether I’m at home in the South or at home visiting Chicago—which I’ve already done twice this month, and, I know, I know, but for good reasons, I promise).

Anyway, every year I remember again how much I love this time of year and the way buds poke out of branches, the way life comes out of the ground again. It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to pull out my camera, except for a small problem I’ve also been meaning to tell you about: somewhere in the midst of the move, I lost my camera’s battery charger, and when I ordered a replacement, it practically caught on fire when I plugged it in. So while I wait for a replacement replacement, now seems a perfect time to pull these buckwheat chocolate chip cookies out of hibernation.

Not only are they nutritious, but they’re something special in terms of taste and texture: cake-like and soft, but with a little crispness around the edges, riddled with bits of dark chocolate and that unmistakable bite of buckwheat.

holding buckwheat chocolate chip cookies

Plus, at least for me and my memories, they’re decidedly spring—a welcome attribute these days, while I watch the world come to life without a camera to share it with you, but with instead with just these cookies—something almost better.