The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World from “Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home”

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Kiesha

Day three of Ice Cream Week! This time, it’s chocolate.

I made three recipes out of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home before diving into chocolate. So when it was time to go chocolate, I decided to really GO chocolate and chose the recipe titled “The Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream in the World.”

This ice cream gets its intense chocolately flavor from a chocolate sauce that combines cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate, brewed coffee and sugar.

Jeni notes that this ice cream has a slightly chewy texture, which is true. I sort of love it. I like chewing my ice cream; it makes it seem like a meal.

The only issue I had with this ice cream was my own fault. Pretty much every ice cream recipe in the book calls for a little cream cheese and I was using cream cheese from a small tub. I think I pushed the tub too far back in my freezer and froze the cream cheese, which then thawed back out. My cream cheese had tiny little ‘beads’ in it, like tapioca, which I thought I got all smoothed out, but which reappeared upon freezing the ice cream. It didn’t affect the taste or texture in the least, but it was a little strange to see ‘bumpy’ ice cream in the dish.

Tomorrow I’ll finish out Ice Cream Week with Beet Ice Cream! Think pink!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Kiesha

This past weekend, Rob and I went up to Scarsdale to visit some friends. They have three children, two of which are at cupcake-eating age. The last time we visited, I brought Pumpkin Whoopie Pies, which the kids loved. This time around, I decided to bring cupcakes.

Most people are huge fans of the chocolate and peanut butter combo. I like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups as much as the next person, but in baked goods, it’s not my favorite flavor combo. But it’s a popular one and proves to be endlessly popular with kids. So I found a recipe and went to work.

The chocolate cupcake and peanut butter/cream cheese filling came from My Man’s Belly (I skipped her peanut butter/white chocolate ganache and chocolate frosting in favor of just peanut butter frosting).

I have two recommendations if you use this recipe:

1.) Fill the cupcake liners only halfway full because they puff up like crazy and will overflow.

2.) When you scoop out the middles of the cupcakes after baking for 15 minutes, DO NOT reuse that batter to cover over the peanut butter/cream cheese filling. I ended up with 18 cupcakes and almost enough new batter to cover them. I would recommend only making 15 cupcakes and using the leftover new batter to cover the middles.

I reused the partially baked batter, and when the cupcakes baked for their final 15 minutes, that batter didn’t look so hot. It tasted fine, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as the cupcakes that used brand new batter on top. Just a suggestion.

Of course, frosting covers all sins, and the cupcakes turned out pretty good looking, if I do say so myself.

The cupcakes were a big hit with everyone who had one. Our friends’ eldest daughter worked on hers and proclaimed that “the frosting is the bestest part.” I had a few leftover that I gave to another friend of ours here in Brooklyn on Sunday night. A few hours later, he posted on my Facebook page “the Oscar for best peanut butter cupcakes goes to…”

I aim to please, folks. Aim to please.

The Brooklyn Baker Bakes! Chocolate-Grand Marnier Tart

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Kiesha

I’ve been baking pretty hard-core for the last two years, and it wasn’t until two weekends ago that I finally made a tart. I don’t know what’s kept me from the little single crust short pies, but I finally broke down and bought a tart pan and decided to do something with it.

A game night was organized in New Jersey, and Rob and I (as well as our friends Rich and Paula) made our way to our other friends’ (Steve and Becky) house and I knew it was the perfect opportunity to put together a nice tart. I settled on chocolate and then went to work finding something to complement it.

The answer was orange. One of my husband’s favorite flavor combinations is chocolate and orange (I spent the better part of a year desperately trying to find a cookbook that contained an orange-chocolate cookie recipe that I once made for him. I finally found it and copied down the recipe like a smart person.) I knew I’d be using actual orange zest, but I wanted something a little more grown-up. Grand Marnier it was!

(By the way: Did you know Grand Marnier is ridiculously expensive? It is!)

The first step to the tart was making the crust. I found many different options, but finally settled on Smitten Kitchen‘s “Great Unshrinkable Sweet Tart Shell”, especially after reading about Danae‘s trials with shrinking tart shells. I’m happy to say that Smitten Kitchen’s recipe and instructions worked just fine, with the only shrinking happening as the crust pulled away from the tin. No short crusts here!

The next step was heating up some heavy cream and pouring it over six ounces of semi sweet chocolate, then whisking the mixture to a smooth texture. At this point, I added two tablespoons of Grand Marnier and two tablespoons of finely grated orange zest. Grand Marnier is strong! I leaned over the bowl after I stirred it in, took a deep whiff and almost got knocked on my butt. Once both the tart shell and the chocolate had cooled, I poured the chocolate into the shell, covered the tart with plastic wrap and threw it in the fridge.

Upon removal from the refrigerator the next afternoon, the tart looked beautiful. We loaded up the car and I held the tart on my lap for the roughly 80 minute drive. Sadly, by the time we got to our friends’ house, the chocolate had started to melt again, and the plastic wrap (which I stupidly had NOT greased), was stuck to the top. When I pulled it off, it left ridges across my once perfectly smooth tart.

No matter. When the time came to dig into the tart, I rubbed a tablespoon of finely grated orange zest into one fourth of a cup of sugar. I whipped a cup of heavy cream to bubbly, foamy-ness and then added the sugar and continued to beat, until I got a nice, lightly sweetened whipped cream. Looking back, I could have added more orange zest, or even some Grand Marnier, because although the whipped cream was very nice, it wasn’t terribly orangey.

The tart seemed to be a big hit with the friends. And now I’ve got most of a bottle of Grand Marnier left with which to experiment. Leave your dessert ideas in the comments!