Chocolate Surprise Desserts

This is a simple and playful dessert inspired by the buttercream filled marzipan frog at the Swedish Bakery in Chicago. They're great for a dinner party because everyone likes chocolate (for the most part), they're small therefore promoting the portion control idea, and they're just the cutest.

To assemble, make a half recipe of the vanilla cake and a half recipe of the buttercream from the strawberries and creme cake (which can be elevated a little more with some fresh vanilla bean), and 12 ounces of good dark chocolate.

Prepare the cake and let cool and prepare the buttercream. To assemble, use a small biscuit cutter (1.5") about the same size of a shot glass and cut out circles of the cake. Cut these in half horizontally so they're not too tall. Top with a cookie scoop of frosting or a large rounded tablespoon. Now you want to temper the chocolate and the trick here is to melt it very slowly. Remove from heat before the chocolate is completely melted and stir until smooth. Now pour over your assembled cakes and make sure they're completely covered. Let these sit at room temperature for a half hour or so until it's hardened.

Now it's time for creativity. Decorate these however you want. If you want to be more classy, steer away from the faces and use the buttercream to pipe an elegant pattern. However, if you're going for the whimsical presentation, have a great time.

These taste wonderful with the sweet and dense cake, light airy buttercream, and the intense bitter chocolate. Everyone will be impressed and satisfied.

Lemon

I'm a HUGE fan of lemon meringue pie but quite honestly, any store bought versions are impressively bad. They either have heavy and dense crusts, overly sweet lemon curd, over or under cooked meringue, or a lovely combination of these unfortunate problems. This dairy free beauty has a light and flaky crust, tart lemon curd, and perfectly cooked meringue topping. This is an overall great adaption of the Cook's Illustrated recipe.

Use the pie crust recipe from the quiche. Once it's chilled, roll out and form into the pie shell. Refrigerate the rolled out dough. Then after a half hour, crimp the edges and refrigerate for another hour or so until perfectly firm. Once that's all done, preheat the oven to 400. Cover the pie crust with tin foil and fill with pie weights or beans. Bake for about 15 minutes and then remove the tin foil and, reduce the temperature to 350, and bake for another 10 minutes to achieve the slightly browned crust.

Lemon Curd:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cold water
6 egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons earth balance butter replacement

Meringue:
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

Now that your pie crust is cooling and looking wonderful, it's time to prepare the filling. In a large sauce pan that is a non-reactive surface (none of that nonstick stuff), mix the sugar, cornstarch, salt, and water and bring to a simmer over medium heat whisking occasionally until it begins to thicken and then stir more frequently. The mixture will start to become translucent after several minutes at which point you need to add in the egg yolks two at a time. Then, whisk in the zest, then lemon juice, then the butter. Bring this whole thing to a simmer vigorously whisking. Remove from heat and cover with plastic wrap making sure to have the plastic touching the surface of the lemon curd to prevent the development of a film.

Meringue time! In a small saucepan, bring the cornstarch to a simmer with 1/3 cup water whisking frequently until the mixture thickens and starts to become translucent. Then let it cool while you go to whipping those whites.

Heat your oven to 325 and mix together the sugar and cream of tartar in a small bowl. Then put the egg whites and vanilla in your stand mixer and mix on medium high with the whisk attachment until frothy (about 30 seconds or so). With the motor running on high, slowly pour in the sugar/cream of tartar mixture and whip to soft peaks. Finally, pour in the cooled cornstarch mixture in and continue to whip until you have stiff peaks.

Pour in the slightly cooled lemon curd into the pie crust and then pour on the meringue smoothing out with a rubber spatula and swirling to make those little peaks throughout. The trick here is to spread the meringue all the way to the crust and make sure it's touching the crust that way it'll attach and not shrink while baking.

Bake the pie for 20 minutes until the top is golden brown. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.

ENJOY!

Pumpkin Pie

This is always a crowd favorite and no one will ever know that it's dairy free. The addition of dairy free cream cheese gives these pies a velvety texture and if you use actual pumpkin puree verses the canned stuff, it will be lighter and even more spectacular.

Graham Cracker Crust
5 graham crackers
3 tablespoons sugar
2 ounces chopped pecans (1/2 cup or so)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons earth balance butter replacement, melted

Pumpkin Pie:
1 8 ounce package of tofutti cream cheese, softened
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks
1 cup light soy milk
1/4 cup earth balance butter replacement, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 whole vanilla bean, seeded (or you can just use an additional 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 325. Place the graham crackers, sugar, chopped pecans, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a food processor and pulse until completely combined (about 15- 2 second pulses).

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add the melted butter. Stir with a rubber spatula to combine and then firmly press into a 9" spring form pan or a 9" pie dish. Bake for 15 minutes until the edges are slightly browned and then let cool.

Increase the oven temperature to 350 and then start working on the filling. Beat the cream cheese in a mixer on medium high for a few seconds. Add in the pumpkin puree and beat until combined. Then add the salt and sugar and beat until combined. Beat in the eggs, soy milk and melted butter until combined. Finally, beat in the vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger (yeah you probably guessed it...) until combined.

Pour the mixture into the cooled pie crust and then bake 50 minutes until the filling is set. Remove from the oven and allow to come to room temperature before diving into this heavenly pie.

Honey Cornbread Muffin

These cornbread muffins are extremely versatile and can be made days ahead of time and stored in an airtight container. Even more importantly however, they're moist! For some reason, the result of many cooks' attempts to create cornbread is a combination of dry and flavorless bread. This recipe will provide 12 regular sized muffins.

**A handy way to measure things like molasses, honey, and maple syrup, spray your measuring cup with baking spray before pouring in the ingredient and it will pour out much easier.

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (yes, a tablespoon is correct)
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup soymilk
2 eggs
1/4 cup earth balance butter replacement
1/4 cup honey

Preheat the oven to 400. Melt the butter and let cool. In a large bowl, mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Then in a medium bowl, combine everything but the butter. While whisking the wet ingredients, slowly pour in the butter. Don't be concerned if the butter solidifies in little balls because it will melt while cooking and produce steam.

Stir in the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Now here comes the trick that I picked up from Alton Brown. Once the batter is made, it's best to scoop out the batter into the muffin tin and then let it sit for a half hour. DO NOT TOUCH THIS once you have dolled it out. The baking powder will begin to work its chemical magic and produce little bubbles throughout the batter that will give it a more even rise that will stay risen after baking.

After the batter has rested for a half hour, bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Pistachio Marzipan

This is a very versatile recipe. It'll impress anyone because it's completely homemade, it is a great alternative to almond if someone is either allergic or just doesn't like almond, and it just tastes spectacular!

1/4 cup shelled pistachios
3 ounces confectioner's sugar
1 ounce corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon flavorless oil

You want to first toast the pistachios in a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes (NO LONGER because if they burn, they're trash). Cool and then put the pistachios in the food processor and blend until they're a powder. Next, add in the confectioner's sugar and blend until they make a paste. Add in the corn syrup and oil and process until they come together as a dough. At this point, pat the dough and tightly wrap with plastic wrap and place in an air tight container. If you wanted to color this, you would want to place a few drops of food coloring in the just made dough and knead it in until the dough is the right color, then wrap and let rest.

This will keep well in the fridge for 6 weeks or so wrapped tightly in the air tight container. You can roll it out to cover a cake (this recipe will make one 9" disk so if you want to cover a cake, you should double this recipe). You can also use like I did to fill a cake and make marzipan flowers.

The Best Vanilla Cake

This recipe is great for a number of reasons. Number one, it's an adaption of a great recipe by Cake Boss's star and baker Buddy Valastro. Second, while sometimes a vanilla cake can be dry or flavorless, this one is incredibly moist and oozing with flavor. Third, this is more of a baseline recipe that can be easily altered for different flavored cakes (i.e. the addition of chocolate, or almond extract, rum, etc.) Finally, and arguably most importantly, this recipe shows that you can have a spectacular cake that is completely dairy free.

2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups silk live vanilla yogurt (this is important)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 cup soymilk

Butter and flour 2 9" cake pans and insert parchment rounds that are buttered and floured to make removing your cakes a simple task. Preheat the oven to 350 and this is important. Do not think about placing these cakes in the oven as soon as it beeps. Your oven may say it's preheated but truth be told, it is almost certainly not at the right temperature and placing your cake in an under heated oven can ruin a baked good. I suggest you get an oven thermometer and not insert your cakes until it reads 350, however, if you don't want to do this you should simply preheat and wait at least 15 minutes after it beeps to place the cakes in.

I suggest you leave the yogurt and soymilk out for an hour or so before assembling to bring them closer to room temperature.

In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, place in the cake flour, sugar, yogurt, vegetable oil, baking powder, vanilla, and salt in the standing mixer and mix on slow just until the ingredients are mixed in (a few seconds). Then increase the speed to low-medium and mix for a minute until the mixture is smooth.

With the motor on, mix in 1 egg at a time adding the next egg in as soon as the previous has been absorbed. Stop the motor periodically to scrape the sides and bottom with a rubber spatula.

Then with the motor running, add the soymilk 1/2 cup at a time, stopping after each addition to scrape the batter. Mix for a final minute or so to make sure everything is thoroughly mixed (however make sure you are not mixing on high speeds).

Now here is the tricky part of this recipe (but absolutely worth the extra step). To keep these cakes from crowning, the batter needs to be between 70 and 73 degrees (or if your house is a bit colder like mine is, you want the batter to register at room temperature). To test this, plunge the thermometer in the middle of the batter and if it's too cold, leave on the counter for a few minutes and if it's too warm, let cool in refrigerator for a few minutes.

Evenly distribute the batter between the two pans and bake for 25-30 minutes (I can almost guarantee that it will take at least 28 minutes but you should check the cakes at 25 minutes). You can insert a toothpick into the cake to see if it comes out clean but I'm not a huge fan of doing this. The tops of the cakes will be slightly springy and it should be a little golden on top when the cakes are done.

Rest the cakes in the pan for about 30 minutes and then invert them onto a cooling rack and remove the parchment paper and let the cakes completely cool. Here's the cool thing that I learned from Mr. Cake Boss - freezing cakes. Once the cake comes to room temperature, placing the cake in the freezer for an hour or two is important for a few reasons. First of all, by freezing the cakes they will be much easier to level and divide into layers (just make sure you don't freeze them into rocks because that's very dangerous as your knife may attack you after bouncing off the boulder you call a cake). The other cool aspect (forgive the pun) of freezing the cake is that unlike refrigerating a cake which leeches out moisture, freezing the cake locks the moisture in.

Shortbread cookies

As you can tell by the picture, I made these into adorable santa cookies as was pictured in the magazine (Best Holiday Cookies). For the sake of time, I'd suggest simply rolling these out to about 1/2" and bake. You can eat these unadorned because they taste great but you can also use the butter cream recipe in the Strawberries and Cream Cake to frost these and they will be great.

As far as the number of cookies this makes, once the dough is rolled out you can use any cookie cutter or simply cut it into any size squares you want. You are the master of your cookie size.

1 cup dairy free margarine at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon soy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 325. In your stand mixer, beat the margarine on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Then scrape the sides of the bowl and beat the sugar into the margarine until combined. Then scrape the sides again and beat in the milk and vanilla until combined. Reduce the speed to medium low and slowly beat in the flour until your mixer starts shaking (and looking like it can't take much more - this depends on the quality of your mixer but since I don't have a thousand dollar professional grade mixer and you probably don't as well, this dough is a little tough). Once you reach that point, use a spatula or wooden spoon to incorporate the rest of the flour.

Now you can roll out the dough to 1/2" and cut out the shapes you want. Bake them for about 12-15 minutes until the edges are very lightly browned. I would absolutely suggest you take these out a little early verses a little late because if these overcook, they will be dry, stiff, and horrible.

If you REALLY want to spend a long time making cookies and want to make the santa cookies, when you finish making the dough, remove 1 cup of dough and set aside and then with the remaining dough, work in red food coloring until it's the right shade of red. This will make 12 cookies so for each one, roll one 1" ball of red dough, five 1/2" balls of red dough, one 1" ball of regular colored dough and four 1/2" balls of regular dough. To put them together, flatten out the 1" red ball to about 1/2" thick and flatten the 1" regular colored dough ball to same thickness and attach. Attach four of the red 1/2" balls for legs and arms and then attach the four 1/2" balls of regular dough to those. Next, use the remaining 1/2" red ball to form into a little hat and attaching to the head. Finally, use mini chocolate chips for eyes and buttons and bake these for 12-15 minutes at 325 degrees. Once the cookies are cool, use butter cream to make the beard and hat decorations and use a red cinnamon candy for his nose.

Maple Glazed Chicken

This recipe is mentioned in the mashed sweet potatoes and is extremely easy.
This recipe serves 4

2 tablespoons maple syrup
4 chicken breasts
salt and pepper to season

Heat a pan to medium high heat and place a little oil to coat the pan. Season the chicken breasts and place them in the pan. Depending on the size of the chicken breast, cooking times will vary. For the medium sized ones I used, it takes about 3-4 minutes per side. Once the chicken is cooked, brush the tops with maple syrup and flip and brush the other side. Then flip, cook for 5 seconds and remove from heat. If you wait too long and let the maple syrup cook, it'll burn fast. No more than 5 seconds a side. I served them with the mashed potatoes and a nice salad.

Wasabi Chicken Pastries

The pastry dough for this recipe is from Rachel Allen and it is spectacular. Not only is it wildly easy to make, but it can be filled with anything you want and can be used for both sweet and savory applications. The only thing to remember is that if you plan on filling it with something that has a decent amount of liquid in it (therefore producing condensation while it cooks), make sure to make a few slits in it so the dough doesn't pop.

If you need to clear your sinuses and love wasabi, this is a great recipe but like I said, you can fill it with whatever you want for a wonderful dinner. I provide the measurements for flour and water by weight because when you're making something like a pastry dough, accuracy is vitally important.

6 tablespoons earth balance butter (I prefer the stick kind because it's easy to measure)
8 ounces flour
4 ounces water
1 egg
2 chicken breasts
1 tablespoon wasabi paste
1 tablespoon stone ground mustard
1 tablespoon kethup
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced pepper
extra egg for the egg wash
For the pastry, sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the center. Place the butter (cubed) in the 4 ounces of water in a sauce pan. Heat gently over medium high heat until the butter has melted and bring the mixture to a boil. As soon as it comes to a rolling boil, take it off the heat, scramble the egg and pour it in the well in the flour, and aggressively stir as you pour in the hot liquid until it comes together as a dough. Spread the dough out onto a large plate and let rest at room temperature for 15 minutes. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a half hour.

While the dough is refrigerating, season and cook the chicken breasts on the stove top on medium high heat (cooking times vary depending on size). Once the chicken is cooked, remove them and place them in foil. Then reduce the heat to medium, and saute the onions and peppers until they're soft and cooked (about 5-6 minutes).

In a bowl, place the wasabi paste, ketchup, and mustard and whisk together. Then dice the now cooled chicken and place in the bowl with the sauteed onions and peppers and mix together until fully incorporated and let cool. You don't want this mix to be hot when you put it in the dough. WARNING - when the wasabi paste comes in contact with the hot onions, the steam will burn your eyes and be wildly uncomfortable (I found out first hand). Keep your head back when you mix all of these.

Once the dough is firm, preheat the oven to 425 and lightly flour a surface and roll out to 1/16" and cut in 4 1/2" circles (this dough will make 12 pastries each being .75 ounces of dough). On one half of the circle, put a tablespoon of the chicken salad mixture down. Then, use the egg wash to fold over the dough to make a crescent and seal this with your fingers. Then use the fork tines to close the seal and make a nice pattern. Brush the pastries with egg wash and bake for 15-20 minutes until the tops are beginning to brown. If you're not sure if the pastry is cooked at 15 minutes, place a toothpick in and if it comes out clean, you're good to go.

You can serve them while they're hot or room temperature.

Sweet Potato and Roasted Banana Mash

This may sound kind of weird but it's wonderfully sweet, healthy, creamy, and a fantastic side dish for something like a maple glazed chicken breast. Furthermore, it's pretty easy to make and gets all of its sweetness from the natural sweetness of sweet potatoes and roasted bananas.

4 medium sweet potatoes
2 ripe bananas
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup almond milk or soy milk
1 tablespoon margarine

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Slice your bananas in half lengthwise and sprinkle the cinnamon over it. Roast until the bananas are soft (it really depends on the size of the banana but it shouldn't take more than a few minutes). Remove the bananas from the oven and puree in a food processor and place in a large bowl.

Now for cooking the sweet potatoes, it depends on your preferred method. I microwaved mine but you can do it in the oven if you like. Once the sweet potatoes are cooked, let them cool and then process them as well. Once they are pureed, add the milk and margarine to the warm puree and puree again just to incorporate the milk and margarine. Then stir the sweet potato puree with the banana puree and serve.

Homemade Pasta

So if you have a pasta machine, this is a pretty easy thing to accomplish and it absolutely tastes better than dried pasta from a box. It is definitely more labor intensive than opening a box so if you're not going to have time to do it right, go with the boxed stuff because it's better than poorly made pasta.

Here's a wonderful rule of thumb for pasta making that I learned from Jamie Oliver. For every 100 grams of flour use 1 egg. To make enough pasta for a few people to have reasonably small portions, you could make dough with 100 g of flour and 1 egg. However if you're making a large dish or you just want to make a decent amount of pasta for 4-6 people, I'd double it. Also, if you make too much you can always hang the fresh pasta until it dries and then store it.

100 grams of flour
1 egg
dash salt

Here's the classic way to make pasta. Place the flour in a large mound (if you want to be really authentic, throw the flour mound directly on your counter top but you can certainly do this in a bowl). Make a well in the top and pour in the egg. Carefully whisk up the egg being certain that you don't get the flour everywhere and then once the egg is scrambled, slowly begin incorporating the flour until you have a cohesive dough.

Then, flour a board or your counter and pour out the dough. Now to be quite honest, you have to knead the hell out of this. You will have to knead this for at least 15 minutes by hand (No shortcuts). You'll know when this is done because miraculously, it will be a smooth and elastic dough.

Brush the dough with olive oil and then wrap in plastic wrap for at least a half hour (but I usually do an hour so I have time to clean up and sit for a few minutes).

Then when you're ready to roll this dough out, break it into sections and then re-wrap the remainder until you're ready to use it. Follow the instructions for your pasta machine and remember that when you cook this stuff, it cooks REALLY fast. Like in 2 minutes so watch it.

Shakshuka

Shakshuka is one of my favorite Israeli dishes. I can still distinctly remember eating this wonderful dish on the roof of a Jerusalem apartment looking out toward the West Bank on a hot spring day. This is a really easy recipe to make and yet it's fun for dinner parties and is a nice and healthy filling dish. I served this in individual souffle ramekins but you can easily serve this in a baking dish or cast iron skillet.

This recipe serves 4 so alter it based on the number of people you want to serve

2 cups tomato sauce (homemade is absolutely best but you can use store bought)
4 eggs
Fresh thyme and parsley for garnish

Preheat your oven to 350.

If you're using the souffle ramekins, pour 1/2 cup tomato sauce in the bottom of each ramekin and then carefully crack an egg over each being very careful not to pop the yolk because then this will just be messy. If you like runny yolk (which is really how this should be eaten because it adds a wonderful richness to the dish), bake for about 20 minutes. Start checking around 15 minutes because essentially, once the egg white has set and there is no longer any liquid whites, you're done. If you are like my girlfriend and do not like runny eggs, you'll need to cook this closer to a half hour until the yolk is fully set.

Garnish with fresh chopped herbs and serve immediately, just beware of the dish because it's really hot.

*If you're using a baking dish or cast iron pan to make this, simply place the tomato sauce in the bottom and crack the eggs around the pan.

Fall Vegetable Stew

This is a fantastic recipe for a few reasons. First of all, it's extremely healthy and yet warm and satisfying making it a wonderful cold weather dinner. Also, you can substitute different vegetables if you don't like what's in this recipe and customize a stew to perfectly please yourself and your guests. This recipe serves 4 at 300 calories a serving.

2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 cup sliced leak
3 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1 cup water
3/4 cup dark beer
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrot
3 chopped jalapenos (seeds and all. You can remove this if you're not a spicy food fan).
1/2 cup chopped parsnip
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup uncooked pearl barley
1/4 teaspoon dry thyme
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons cream sherry (more or less depending on your taste. I personally think sherry adds a wonderful richness to soup)
1/2 cup dried lentils
1/4 teaspoon salt

In a Dutch oven, heat the oil on medium high heat. When the oil's warm, sautee the leaks for about 2 minutes. Then add the water, beer, and chicken stock and bring to a boil.

Once it's boiling, add the celery, carrots, parsnips, dill, barley, thyme, bay leaves, and sherry and return to a boil. Then cover and reduce heat to simmer for 15 minutes. Then stir in the lentils and cover and cook for 30 minutes. At the end of the 30 minutes, throw away the bay leaves.

Now this part is great because it's an extremely healthy way to thicken a soup. Remove 1 1/2 cups of soup and put it in your food processor. Make sure you remove the plug on top to let the steam out but put a towel over it unless you want to redecorate the walls in your kitchen. Once it's pureed, return it back to the soup. Bring it back to a boil and then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Then, you're ready to eat.