Category Archives: Chocolate

Tantalizing Preview: Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe By Thomas Keller

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Just-baked chocolate chip cookes from the upcoming Ad Hoc cookbook

Confession time.

I have “The French Laundry Cookbook,” the “Bouchon Cookbook,” and the “Under Pressure” sous vide tome, all by Thomas Keller.

These oversized, coffee-table books reside in a prominent place on my bookshelf. I have leafed through them all, savoring the recipes, and lusting after each and every magnificent dish photographed so dreamily.

But I’ve yet to cook from any of them. Maybe I’ve felt unworthy. Maybe I’ve lacked the equipment necessary. And maybe I’ve lacked the time for some of the rather involved dishes that my husband joked he’d have to take days off from work to help me pull off.

That is, until now.

Until a promo brochure for the upcoming “Ad Hoc At Home” (Artisan) book arrived in my mail, and I fairly ran to the kitchen to start pulling measuring spoons and bowls out of my cabinets.

I’ve had the pleasure of eating at Ad Hoc in Yountville a couple of times. I’ve always been won over by the impeccable quality of the seasonal, family-style food served at this casual eatery. It’s comfort food done with utmost fun and finesse.

Salmon tartare cornets I’ll leave to the French Laundry staff to construct. A Bouchon recipe for French onion soup that requires a half day to caramelize onions ever so slowly (I’m exaggerating, but not by much) makes my eyes glaze over. Sous vide anything makes me start to tremble.

But chocolate chip cookies? OK, this I can do.

Making the dough.

Keller acknowledges his other books might be intimidating to most of us. He goes so far as to refer to the new Ad Hoc book as “the long-awaited cookbook for the home chef.” It’s described as uncomplicated, the way Keller cooks at home — without intricate garnishes or an immersion circulator. Though, knowing him, I’m sure he cooks in the world’s most organized, uncluttered home kitchen around, with everything labeled and alphabetized, and every electrical cord neatly wound just so. He can’t help himself.

The book won’t be available until November. But the promo materials give a hint at the very doable, very delectable dishes in store: leek bread pudding, blow-torch prime rib roast, caramelized sea scallops, and pineapple upside-down cake.

Being the cookie fiend that I am, though, it was the recipe included in full for chocolate chip cookies that got me pumped up.

With so many chocolate chip cookie recipes already out there, how could this one be any different?

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Patric Chocolate: From Bean to Bar

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Small-batch chocolate made in Missouri.

Columbia, MO-based Patric Chocolate makes dark chocolate bars in small batches, from cacao beans sourced from Madagascar.

Founder Alan McClure started his company three years ago, after being inspired by the chocolate-making traditions he witnessed while traveling in France.

Hearing about Food Gal’s insatiable appetite for all things chocolate, McClure sent me a sample to try. The 1.75-ounce bars retail for $6.25 each.

I’ll use my patented scale of 1 to 10 lip-smackers, with 1 being the “Bleh, save your money” far end of the spectrum; 5 being the “I’m not sure I’d buy it, but if it was just there, I might nibble some” middle-of-the-road response; and 10 being the “My gawd, I could die now and never be happier, because this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth” supreme ranking.

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Man-Happy Cookies

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You can't resist taking a bite of these chewy cookies.

Whenever I pull out my mixer and measuring cups, my husband will eagerly chirp, “Oooh, what are you baking?”

If I answer “lemon-grapefruit-kumquat coconut bars” or “cardamom-nutmeg-pine nut chewies” or anything else a little exotic, he’ll sigh dejectedly.

“Oh,” he’ll fret. Then add, “How about chocolate-chip or peanut butter instead?”

You see, besides his nickname of Meat Boy, he’s also known in our house as Basic Boy.

Sure, he likes his fancy four-star dinners at swank restaurants. But after awhile, he’s craving the simpler tastes in life. A good burger or — dare I say it — Taco Bell.

Like many men that I know, he’s also a milk chocolate lover. He much prefers that to the dark, earthy, slightly bitter, dark variety I can’t get enough of.

So when I spied this recipe for “Peanut Butter Cookies with Milk Chocolate” in the “Baked” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) cookbook by Brooklyn bakery owners Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, I thought I’d give it a try.

Milk chocolate swirled with peanut butter in a cookie.

Unlike other peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I’ve made, this one calls for milk chocolate, coarsely chopped from a bar, rather than milk chocolate chips. So instead of a peanut butter cookie studded with milk chocolate chips you get a cookie that’s a little like a melted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. As the cookies bake, some of the milk chocolate melts into the peanut butter batter, creating chewy cookies that are swirled throughout with nutty and chocolatey goodness.

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Tantilizing Toffee

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Victoria's Toffee

The rewards of blogging are many, not the least of which is the kindness of Food Gal readers, many of whom know me only through cyberspace.

Take SteveK for instance. Steve and I have never met, though we both live in the Bay Area. His older brother happens to be a well-known broadcast journalist who belongs to a media organization of which I’m also a member. But no, I’ve never met his brother, either.

But SteveK, knowing I’m a fiend for chocolate, told me I ought to try this chocolate toffee made by a woman who used to help watch his young daughter at day-care. The woman, Victoria Stillian, used to make the toffee as gifts for friends and families. It was so addicting, they told her, that she ought to sell it. So, five years ago, Victoria and her husband, Ron Stillian, started doing just that.

Victoria’s Toffee of San Mateo is now sold at Draeger’s Markets, Piazza’s Fine Foods in San Mateo, Roberts Market, and GC’s Cafe in Menlo Park, as well as online. A 1-pound box is $24.95.

The chocolate almond toffee squares are strewn with crunchy chopped nuts. The toffee is sweet, but tempered by the slight earthiness of the chocolate. It has a nice texture — not so hard and sticky that it gets glued to your molars for life, but just right, as Goldilocks might say if she nibbled some. Read more

Beauteous Bundts

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Definitely not your average bundt cake.

You know how when you’re a kid, you have all the time in the world, but just don’t know it?

When I was a kid, I loved to bake cakes. Layer cakes. With homemade frosting, all done up with elaborate swirls, sprinkles, and flowers.

Heck, I had the time then.

Now? Forget about it.

Nowadays, if I do bake a cake, it’s apt to be a no-nonsense springform-pan variety or the reliable bundt-style.

So when Nothing Bundt Cakes came calling, offering to send a sample for me to try, my first thought was: “Really? A bakery that makes nothing but bundt cakes? Why on earth?”

After all, bundts are one of the quickest and easiest of cakes to make. Would people really opt to buy these, rather than fancy layer cakes enrobed in pastel fondant or airy meringue buttercream if they were going to the trouble and expense of buying a cake?

Marble bundt cake

When the doorbell rang and the cakes arrived, I understood why they would.

Why, of course, if they got a bundt cake that looked like this: Dressed up with a big, bright yellow sunflower bursting from its center, and thick ripples of ivory cream cheese frosting cascading down it. A precious card and butterfly magnet perched atop it all upped the cute factor even more.

Sure, it looked amazing. But was it merely a bimbo cake — all looks and no substance underneath? One taste would determine that.

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