Food for thought
Chocolate lovers beware
The dish on --
"Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking With Fine Chocolate," by Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger
Established in 1996, Scharffen Berger has become America's pre-eminent maker of cooking chocolate. "Essence of Chocolate," by the firm's founders and food writer Susie Heller, offers more than 100 recipes for a broad selection of delights like Chocolate Pudding Cakes, Chocolate Marbled Gingerbread, Cocoa Caramel Panna Cotta and Chocolate Chunk Cheesecake, as well as savory edibles made with chocolate like Tortilla Soup and Chile-Marinated Flank Steak. Unusual recipes also include the likes of Chocolate Chunk Challah and TKOs, a homemade version of Oreos that leaves those favorites on the supermarket shelf.
Arranged by chocolate intensity, the recipes come from the company's files and from chefs including Flo Braker, Jim Dodge, Thomas Keller and Stephanie Hersh. Although the formulas vary in difficulty, most are within the range of all cooks interested in making something terrific. Readers should note, however, that the recipes require chocolate with specific cocoa-solids contents - 62 percent semisweet, for example - that may be difficult to find. Most cooks will know, however, that one high-quality chocolate of similar cocoa content can usually replace another. With narrative sections in which Steinberg and Scharffenberger trace (at perhaps excessive length) their career trajectories, interesting asides such as Bread and Chocolate, lots of chocolate lore and a good primer on how chocolate is manufactured - plus color photos - the book makes a happy addition to the chocolate lovers' kitchen library. (Amazon.com)
Easy recipe: monkey bread
It's tree-tapping season. When the sap is flowing, our thoughts turn to maple syrup and pancakes. But Kathy Pucci uses maple syrup year-round to add pizzazz to myriad recipes. "I put it in baked beans. It's my secret ingredient," she said. "I put it on ham when I'm baking it. Brown sugar tends to fall off. I squirt syrup on it like a glaze." Pucci's favorite secret is the addition of maple syrup to her "monkey bread," a pull-apart bread made with ready-to-cook biscuits from a tube. She starts by melting butter in a bundt pan (you could use a tube pan), then stirs in brown sugar, vanilla and a healthy squirt of maple syrup. She then cuts each biscuit into quarters and rolls the pieces in cinnamon-sugar before tossing them in the pan (a fun job for children). After baking, turn the bread upside down onto a serving plate to expose the caramel topping. "Everyone thinks you've created this marvelous wonder," Pucci said, laughing. "It's so simple."
Kathy's Maple Monkey Bread
1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tubes of refrigerator biscuits
1/2cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/4teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
Melt butter in bundt pan in oven. Remove pan and stir in brown sugar until it begins to melt. Add maple syrup and vanilla, stirring well. Mix sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg inshallow bowl. Separate biscuits, then cut into quarters. Roll each piece in cinnamon mixture anddrop into bundt pan. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 25 minutes. Immediately put a plate on top of the pan and invert. Wait a couple minutesand remove pan. Quickly scrapeout the remaining topping and put on top of the bread. (It will harden as it cools, so move fast.) Serve warm. Yields 8 to 10 servings. (Saimi Rote Bergmann/Canton Repository)
Number to know: 242
Calories in a plain hot dog withbun. (www.calorie-count.com)
GateHouse News Service