Category Archives: Chocolate

Gourmet Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

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Ready-to-bake cookie dough balls with spectacular results.

In their plastic container, they almost resemble mini scoops of mocha chip ice cream.

But bake them in the oven to transform them into thick chocolate chip cookies with crisp exteriors and chewy interiors — the kind you’ll have an extremely hard time saying “no” to.

These ready-for-baking cookie dough balls are the brainchild of Erin Harrison, a single mom, who left a career as a film industry publicist for Pixar and Sony Pictures, to get her baking groove on.

They look like scoops of mocha chip ice cream.

Her South San Francisco-based Country Baking Company turns out cookie dough balls, a dozen to a container, which can be found in the refrigerator case at local Whole Foods markets, Lunardi’s, Draeger’s and Piedmont Grocery. Look for them soon at Mollie Stone’s, too.

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Cookie Mixes From a Mother-Daughter Duo

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Oatmeal-cranberry cookies -- from a mix.

“Healthier homemade” was Susan Nolte’s mantra when she came up with her line of cookie mixes in Connecticut four years ago.

Made with rolled oats and whole wheat flour, these convenient mixes are now available on this coast at many farmers markets and stores in Southern California, thanks to her daughter, Marissa, who started managing business development for the company.

May Cookie Co., named after Susan Nolte’s great-grandmother, makes three types of cookie mixes: Triple Chocolate Oatmeal, Oatmeal Cranberry and the vegan Chocolate Chocolate Chip.

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Time for Nothing Bundt Cakes — and a Food Gal Giveaway

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How cute is this cake? (Photo courtesy of Nothing Bundt Cakes)

Bundt cakes are among the most homespun of baked goods.

Baked in one pan, then drizzled with a pretty glaze, it’s simple, sweet and thoroughly nostalgic.

Leave it to Nothing Bundt Cakes to take that basic premise and add major bling.

The bakery just opened a seventh locale in the Bay Area in the Fremont Hub Shopping Center (39952 Fremont Hub). It bakes up nine flavors of cake (from Red Velvet to Pecan Praline to Chocolate Chocolate Chip), then glides on a thick cream cheese frosting down the sides like the petals of a flower. If that weren’t enough, a colorful paper bloom fills the center, then fun paper butterflies, bees or other decorations are added. It’s a total party in a cake.

The cakes, themselves, are quite moist and have a surprisingly airy texture that’s more like a sponge cake rather than your typical dense, heavy bundt cake.

The cakes come in various sizes — from the Bundtini (the size of a cupcake; $18.75 for a dozen) to the single-serve Bundlet ($3.99) to a 10-inch cake that serves about 18 ($39.50).

Cakes are available at the bakery, as well as by phone and online orders.

Contest: One lucky Food Gal reader will win a gift card good for one free Nothing Bundt Cake individual Bundlet every month for a year (a $47.88 value). The only catch is that the winner must pick up the Bundlet each month in person at the Fremont store. As such, this contest is limited to those who can make it to Fremont regularly. Entries will be accepted through midnight PST Jan. 14. Winner will be announced Jan. 16.

How to win?

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Cabernet Wine — In Flour

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Cupcakes made with flour milled from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes skins.

You can find flour milled from most any grain these days.

Now, you also can find flour with red wine in it. Cabernet Sauvignon, to be exact.

Earlier this year, when I was strolling through the Tyler Florence Shop in Napa, I spied bags of Cabernet Wine Flour and Cabernet Cocoa Powder, both of which I just had to buy. After all, it’s pretty hard to resist their striking reddish-brown hues.

They’re made by Marche Noir Foods of Irvine, CA. The wine flour is made from the pomace (skins) of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes after they are crushed. The skins are dried, then milled into a powder, which apparently is high in iron, fiber and Resveratrol (a natural anti-oxidant). The Cabernet Cocoa Powder is just dark cocoa powder mixed with the Cabernet Wine Flour.

The beautiful color of the wine flour.

A 10-ounce bag of the Cabernet Wine Flour was $14.95 at the store; a 10-ounce bag of the Cabernet Cocoa Powder was $9.95.

I couldn’t wait to try baking with them. The Marche Noir Web site is a good place to start for recipes. I zeroed in on the one for “Cabernet Velvet Cupcakes with Ganache Glaze,” which incorporates both the wine flour and cocoa powder. The recipe also calls for red food coloring, but I left that out.

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