Archive for the 'Chocolate' Category (17)

Tuesdays with Dorie: French Chocolate Brownies

French Brownie 1

We took these French Chocolate Brownies to a “Lost” season finale party Thursday night, and it’s a good thing the room was dark, so no one noticed exactly how many I wolfed down.

I needed something to supplement our dinner, which was a menu of Things That Are Difficult If Not Impossible For Me To Eat In Public. We’re talking corn-on-the-cob, which makes me obsess about my teeth. I think there’s something stuck between them. Can he see it? Maybe if I drink some water. Nope. Where’s a mirror? Maybe I can just keep my mouth shut all night. Is that a kernel?

And there were vegetables that had to be sliced with a knife.

Remember that scene in “Pretty Woman” where Julia Roberts tries to shuck an oyster and winds up hurling it across the restaurant? That’s me. That’s why I like to order things that stay put, like taters.

Anyway, I made a meal of these brownies. The crackly top adds a little texture to an otherwise completely moist, melt-in-your-mouth, fudgy brownie. Perfect for picnics, parties, and corn malfunctions.

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The good, the bad, the bittersweet

Gooey cakes 1

March ended with unnecessary roughness. A miserably muddy soccer field. A single-point loss in overtime. A busted lip. Not mine, Jeff’s.

So much for going “out like a lamb.”

His bruises skipped blue and went directly to black and purple. So, we skipped the rest of the afternoon and went directly to evening. Closed the shades. Ordered dinner at 3:30 p.m. Wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and watched “John Adams.” Nothing like the bloody pox and a maritime amputation to put things in perspective. And then there was the chocolate.

The night before, we’d made Dorie Greenspan’s Gooey Chocolate Cakes. Six ramekins brimming with lethal amounts of bittersweet chocolate, butter, and sugar. And the texture… even though they looked cracked and dried out from the oven, one light tap on the surface, and your finger would sink into the chocolate quicksand.

A much better way to go than the bloody pox.

The next day’s cakes were just as moist as the first. We popped the ramekins into the microwave and topped the bounty of molten chocolate with a scoop each of Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. You know, to cut the sweet. The perfect way to end a woolly month.

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