Tag Archives: Chocolate

I posted these decadent bars 8 years ago and decided that it was time for a makeover. Here is my image from 2014. I have learned a few things about photography and styling since that time and it’s so rewarding to look back and appreciate my progress.

In addition to new photos, I have also updated the recipe slightly. I replaced the middle chocolate layer with Michael Smith’s brownie recipe, the best ever brownie recipe. And I changed the top caramel layer to a sturdier, chewier consistency, using Sally’s recipe for caramel candies.

I produced a little video so you can watch how they come together.

One bite of these bars transports you through an amazing texture and flavour journey. Crunchy pecans, chewy caramel, fudgy brownies and a salty crumbly pretzel crust. All in one little bar.

Click here to print recipe for Pretzel-Crusted-Turtle-Brownies-Download

Deluxe Matzoh Crunch

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This is my adaptation of her recipe. I have elevated matzoh crunch to the next level, by piping a decorative topping of white, milk and blonde chocolate. It looks fancy but it’s quite simple to do.

Click here to print recipe for Deluxe Matzoh Crunch

Double Chocolate Almond Butter Bark

Click here to print recipe for Double Chocolate Almond Butter Bark.

Marbled Matzoh Crunch

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Marbled Matzoh Crunch is my spin on Marcy Goldman’s “Caramel Matzoh Buttercrunch”, from her classic book, A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking.

Making Matzoh Crunch, on the surface, looks like a fairly simple process.

But, there are a few details you need to pay careful attention to, so that it comes out perfectly.

Make sure you line the baking sheet with foil and then lay a sheet of parchment on top of that. If you use only parchment paper, you will be scrubbing baked on caramel off the pan. If you use only foil, you will have a very hard time peeling the hardened matzoh crunch off of the foil.
Do not use chocolate chips. Buy good quality bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate and chop it up, or buy couverture chocolate callets. Chocolate chips have less cocoa butter in them so they keep their shape during baking, making them more difficult to melt and they have less flavor than bars or callets.
Use real white chocolate. Many products out there that look like white chocolate, especially chips, contain very little, if any, cocoa butter.They will not melt into a smooth liquid, like real white chocolate.
When cutting your matzoh to fit into the baking sheet, cut along the dotted lines the matzoh has, not across them. It will cut into straight pieces.
When cooking the butter and brown sugar, you will get to a point where the butter will separate from the brown sugar and look like an oily mess. Keep stirring and it will come together and thicken and bubble. That’s when it’s ready to pour onto the matzoh.
Do not omit the step where you sprinkle the wet chocolate with the sea salt. Chocolate and caramel are sweet. You need the salt.
Once the chocolate is set, remove it from the fridge and let it sit for about 30 minutes before cutting it into pieces. If you cut it cold, right from the fridge, the chocolate layer will separate from the caramel covered matzoh. If you wait until the chocolate softens a bit, it will stay sogether with the caramel. A very sharp knife is essential. For an alternate version, use milk chocolate and chopped toasted almonds. Also very delicious.

Click here to print recipe for Marbled Matzoh Crunch.

Click here to print recipe for Milk Chocolate Almond Matzoh Crunch.

Hazelnut Praline Truffles

Click here to print recipe for Hazelnut Praline Truffles

Malted Chocolate Brownies

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The first night of Chanukah is this week, on Tuesday night. Flushed with the success of my Beehive challahs at Rosh Hashanah, I. wanted to create something special for Chanukah. A crazy thought floated into my head. What about building a menorah out of brownies? I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wasn’t really sure how to go about creating it. I wasn’t one of those kids that played with building blocks, Leggo or puzzles. Barbie was more my thing.

I started with my favourite brownie recipe from Chef Michael Smith. I decided to switch out the cocoa powder with malted milk powder and added in some chopped malted milk balls for extra crunch. I chilled the brownies until firm and then I cut out an oval for the base. Using a small round cookie cutter I cut out little circles for the candle holders. I did a slightly larger circle for the shamash (helper) candle. I finally got a chance to use my food stylist tweezers! I mixed up some blue royal icing and glued on some edible blue pearls. To hold the candles I glued each one to a malted milk ball. I figured out that I needed to trim the bottom and top of the balls flat before gluing with royal icing.Even if you decide not to make a menorah, these malted chocolate brownies would make a delicious addition to your Chanukah party.

Click here to print recipe for Malted Chocolate Brownies.

Healthy-ish Salted Almond Joy Bars

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While these home-made almond joy bars aren’t exactly healthy, they are healthy-ish. It’s all a matter of degree. Consider the ingredients in a store bought Almond Joy:

Corn Syrup, Milk Chocolate (Milk Chocolate, Contains Sugar, Coca Butter, Chocolate, Milk, Lactose, Milk Fat, Nonfat Milk, Soy Lecithin, An Emulsifier), Coconut, Sugar, Almonds, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oils, Whey, Cocoa, Salt, Vanilla, Chocolate, Egg Whites, Soya Lecithin, and Sodium Metabisulfite, to Preserve Color.These simply contain unsweetened almond butter, unsweetened coconut, honey, coconut oil, vanilla bean paste and salt. They are finished with a thick coating of bittersweet chocolate and topped with whole toasted almonds and sea salt. This recipe is from the genius mind of Anna Jones. I am loving her new book, A Modern Way to Cook. Chill the mixture for about 45 minutes in the freezer before cutting into bars. Get your dipping station all set up. I was excited to use my chocolate dipping fork. I bought it over 30 years ago and it still thrills me every chance I get to use it. it makes me feel like a professional chocolatier. A regular fork works just as well for dipping.

These satisfy your sugar craving without being cloyingly sweet. The hard shell of bittersweet chocolate yields to a chewy almond coconut filling.

Click here to print recipe for Healthy-ish Salted Almond Joy Bars.

English Toffee

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Sadly, I never met my father-in-law as he died before I met my husband, and my mother-in-law died shortly before we became engaged. But I lucked out with four brother-in-laws and and one sister-in-law. My husband’s siblings welcomed me into the family with open arms and have always treated me as one of their own.

When I moved to Ottawa 25 years ago, I felt quite isolated after leaving all my family and friends behind in Toronto. My sister-in-law (who I am blessed to also call my friend), sent me regular care packages to ease my loneliness. The parcels almost always contained a box of Phipps Krunch, a delicious confection of crunchy caramel, roasted almonds and milk chocolate. Nothing like a heap of butter and sugar to fill the emotional void of sadness.

I was so excited to find a recipe for English Toffee in Bobbette and Belle’s new cookbook. It looked exactly like Phipps Krunch. I had to try my hand at making it.

Making toffee is not difficult. It just requires a candy thermometer and some patience. I love the chemistry of candy making. I feel like a magician when I turn simple ingredients like butter and sugar into something so glorious.

I was thrilled with the results. The buttery crunchy toffee is just on the edge of bitter, making it the perfect companion for that blanket of dark chocolate. Nutty toasted almonds take this candy to the next level. Please do not forget to toast the nuts. Untoasted nuts are one of my biggest culinary pet peeves. They taste like sawdust. Toasting nuts is one of the simplest ways to improve the flavour profile of anything.

Just preheat oven to 350°F and place nuts on a baking sheet. Roast for 10-12 minutes until they become toasty brown and fragrant. Let them cool completely before using or storing. If you are not going to use them right away, store them in the freezer, as they can go rancid quickly.

This makes a ton of toffee, so keep some for yourself and give the rest away as gifts. You will be quite beloved.

Click here to print recipe for English-Toffee.

Cookie Butter Rugelach

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If the title of this post has left you shaking your head, wondering what the heck I am writing about, let me enlighten you.I wrote about cookie butter last year. It is also known as Speculoos or Biscoff spread. Basically, we are talking about ground up spicy gingerbread cookies, mixed with additional sugar and oil, to create, a somewhat addictive spread, in the vein of peanut butter and Nutella.

Rugelach is a small Jewish pastry, of Eastern European origin. Traditionally they are made in the form of a crescent by rolling a triangle of dough around a filling. The origin of the name comes from the Polish word “Rog” which is the prefix for horn, (croissant shaped pastries kind of look like horns). “El” is used as a diminutive and the “Ach” ending indicates plural. So put together we have horn shaped little pastries –Rugelach.How this little cookie came to be made in a crescent shape is an interesting story. I have read several versions, but this is my favourite. In the 16^th Century, the Jews were living under the rule of the brutal Ottoman Empire. Life was not easy for them. A baker with a warped sense of humour, decided to create little pastries, shaped like the crescent that decorated the Ottoman war flags. With every bite of these delicious little noshes, the Jews imagined that they were “chewing out” their merciless oppressors.

Back in Europe, the dough for rugelach is light, airy and yeast raised. Somehow, when it arrived in North America, it transformed into a dense cream cheese based dough. This is the rugelach I grew up with and love. Rich and flaky, but not too sweet, the best rugelach let the dough be the star and the fillings play a supporting role.

Most often they are filled with jam, cinnamon-sugar, raisins and nuts. Often chocolate is thrown into the mix. Screwing with a 500 year old cookie could be a dangerous thing, but I like to live on the edge, so I played around with the traditional recipe and spread mine with Cookie Butter instead of jam.

The dough is simple to put together. I used the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated for the dough, with the addition of some cinnamon and ground ginger to mimic the gingerbread flavour of the cookie butter. The butter and cream cheese must be very cold.Only process the dough until it resembles small curd cottage cheese. Don’t let the processor form the dough into a ball, or you will have tough rugelach. I decided to make two varieties. The first, shaped in the traditional crescent, featured Cookie Butter and toasted chopped hazelnuts.These got treated to a shower of cinnamon sugar as soon as they came out of the oven. For the second variation I created little roulades. The dough was rolled into a rectangle, filled with cookie butter and chopped chocolate, and rolled and sliced, before baking.