Category

chocolate

  • Chocolate Chile Pound Cakes

    Chocolate Chile Pound Cakes

    Tweaking a Daniel Boulud recipe is a little bit like rewriting the lyrics to a Bob Dylan song. It’s a brazen thing to do. But when I made that Smoky Beef Chili for Diana’s birthday (and, by the way, not enough of you liked that recipe on Facebook and Twitter; I think it’s because chili…

  • The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in the World

    The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie in the World

    How many cookies does the average person eat over the course of a lifetime? 500? 5,000? 5 MILLION? I’m not sure but since life is short, I believe it’s important to make your cookies count. Cracking open a box of Chips Ahoy might scratch an itch much like sleeping with a prostitute probably scratches a…

  • The Mast Brothers Salted Caramel Bonbon

    The Mast Brothers Salted Caramel Bonbon

    Wandering around Williamsburg last week, my nose (or “schnozz,” if you prefer) led me down a street to a place that looked like a warehouse. The warehouse was actually home to Mast Brothers chocolate, one of the most revered chocolate companies in the country. You may recognize their chocolate bars as the ones with wrapping…

  • Cocoa Puffed Chocolate Mousse

    Cocoa Puffed Chocolate Mousse

    In my first book, I told the story of the chocolate rose. In case you missed it: my mom once gave me a chocolate rose to give the girl across the street for Valentine’s Day. I nervously carried it over, rang the doorbell, and ended up giving the rose to her sister to pass on…

  • How To Completely Fail at Making Chocolate Cups

    How To Completely Fail at Making Chocolate Cups

    No good deed goes unpunished; or, in my case, no attempt to craft a timely, seasonal post–this one for Valentine’s Day–goes un-disastrously. I’m not usually that kind of blogger, but this time around I thought, “Well, why not have a beautiful, chocolatey Valentine’s Day-oriented dessert on my blog for Monday morning? What harm could that…

  • Drunk Blondies

    Drunk Blondies

    Repeat after me: Butter. Chocolate. Pecans. Coconut. Bourbon. Again: Butter. Chocolate. Pecans. Coconut. Bourbon. On Saturday night, we joined our friends Brendan and Danny for a screening of “Sunset Blvd.” at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. (You can read all about that in this week’s newsletter.) I was assigned the task of bringing a salad and…

  • Chocolate Guinness Cake

    Chocolate Guinness Cake

    Here’s how you know I’m the real deal: whereas most food publications will cram an upcoming holiday down your throat in hopes that you’ll link to their page as you plan your holiday meal, I’m not so clever or strategic. I wait until the holiday’s over, when the post will no longer be relevant, and…

  • The Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie at Jacques Torres

    The Warm Chocolate Chip Cookie at Jacques Torres

    Citizens of America, it is my duty to inform you about something unholy, something sinful that is going on in that wicked city known as New York. Deep in the bowels of a village known as “West” is a veritable Sodom & Gomorrah of chocolate whose creator, a Frenchman!, is trying to tempt our children…

  • Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No it’s me, The Amateur Gourmet, blogging to you live from Delta flight 2243, en route to Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, this is an absolute first for me, my first blog post written from a plane. And I choose, as my subject matter, a dessert that I made back in…

  • Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

    Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

    It’s pretty comical to come to Bellingham, Washington for Christmas. Comical because, for this Boca Ratonian Jew, it’s like stepping out of a noisy deli into a Christmas card. I’m writing this right now in a coffee shop with a Yule log burning on the fire and several people sitting around me who look like…