Choco-Choco Chip

Now if you read my last post, you'd see that I was currently enjoying reading a little book that goes by the title the "Chocolate Conoisseur".

God it's fabulous, but I feel it may be a double-edged sword; all I want to eat is chocolate chocolate and more chocolate. I want to breathe chocolate. I want to date a man made of chocolate. I want to go to the chocolate factory, push Willy Wonka down a well and make like Gustave and drink the chocolate fountain.

He's got the right idea...

]It also caused me to travel all around Brisbane today in search of various gourmet brands because if you're anything like me, you like to think you're an expert in little things like "gourmet chocolate" or anything that could fall into that particular category.


What I found was Brisbane's chocolate selection is pretty dismal; but I couldn't end my search without purchasing something to taste so I settled on some Lindt Noir 70% cocoa.

Lindt chocolate has that beautiful melt upon your tongue instant effect, and this bar was no exception. The 70% exhibits a well rounded, full bodied taste that starts as bitter, but as it dissolves upon your tastebuds a flux of flavours fill your senses. My new-found palette discerned forest berries soaked in liquor, subtle hints of coffee and an aftertaste of...I know it sounds strange...but burnt toast and wood ash.


It actually really makes a difference when you take the time to taste chocolate. It really helps you appreciate it, and you'll feel like an awesome food snob/Matt Preston wannabe, which in my opinion is pretty sweet.

Anyway, after I'd tasted the Lindt, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to bake with it, so here's a lovely little recipe for double chocolate chip cookies. It's adapted from an old recipe I found at the back of my cupboard for plain ol' run of the mill chocolate chip cookies.

Enjoy!

Double Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup packed brown sugar (dark or light, it's a matter of taste.)

1/2 granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Eight tablespoons of butter (1 stick)

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1/2 cup Lindt 70% chocolate pieces (melted down)

3/4 cup stock standard milk chocolate chips (not melted down)

1 egg (bring to room temperature)

Pinch of salt (use sea salt...)

Method

Melt down the Lindt 70% using a saucepan. Put the chips in, and heat them up, waiting for them to melt while stirring all the while so they don't burn and stick to the sides of the pan.

Then...

Chuck every single ingredient in the bowl and set to work with your fingers or your spoon or whatever mixing appliance you have and bash the shit out of it. Bring it all together till there are no clumps of any ingredients then roll into a long tube, wrap in glad wrap and bung in the freezer until you're ready to use it.

Preheat your oven to 175 degrees celsius. Bring your cookie dough out of the freezer and either scoop it into little cookie sized mounds on a flat baking tray lined with baking paper, or, if your cookie dough is in a reasonable enough shape, slice straight from it and do the same thing.

Put in the oven for 12-14 minutes and WAHHH LAAAAAHHH!

ROFLMAYOCOPTER @ MY HEXAGON COOKIEZZZ YO

Chocolate

Today I decided to buy myself a present.

You know those days where you feel a little slow, you've got assessment coming out of orifices you didn't know you had, and you're just generally up for some retail therapy.

Now, I don't know if many people are like me but my retail therapy doesn't consist of shoes, jewellery or items of clothing.

My form of retail therapy is to buy weird shit.

No I did not buy a contortionist but I wish I did.

Why, just last week I bought baby Iranian dried figs because I got a terrible terrible (projectile vomit worthy) mark on one of my journalism assessment pieces. My logic was that if I bought these strange little items all my troubles would melt away. And when I added these dried Iranian figs to my morning muesli, well by George, they did.

Hahah they look like little dried ovaries. Yum yum!

Sometimes my impulsive buying of strange items goes astray; when I bought purple carrots from the James Street Markets the other day because I was feeling obese, my mother thought they looked like an old lady's fingers that had caught the plague. Needless to say, we didn't eat those bad boys.

I think buying strange items such as new ingredients, books, notepads and other trinkets are a much more rewarding form of retail therapy.

Maybe this is just because my mother is an extremely fashionable artist and I've never felt the urge to buy clothes as I just literally throw myself into her wardrobe and come out looking like I fell into a Sass&Bide bin.

Anyway, what brings me to the point of this post is to do a little persuading on the general public to buy this book I bought in my last little depressed retail expenditure day.

It's called the "Chocolate Conisseur", and if you're into chocolate as much as I am, you will NOT regret it.

She's into chocolate like Hitler wasn't into jews...she has like a seriously strange fetish/obsession that comes across a little strong, but nevertheless she's entertaining.

So far I've learnt all of these fabulous things about chocolate; how to taste, where the cocoa beans come from, and that when your chocolate gets that white pattern on it from being left in the fridge too long, that's called bloom.

Bloom is the fat coming to the surface of the chocolate and it happens to chocolate that hasn't been tempered properly.

I also found out the top ten chocolate bars in the world. Mars Bar is number one.

Ooooh who's a happy chappy now!

Now tell me you're shocked thatTWIX is number two!!! Can you believe that? And Bounty is ten! CHERRY RIPE DOESN'T EVEN MAKE AN APPEARANCE?!?!?

It's fucked let's leave it at that. I feel personally obligated to go and eat four hundred million Bueno bars to se their little chocolatey selves in that stupid top ten.

Twix...honestly...

Anyway, it's a great read and it convinced me to believe that eating chocolate would actually make me a healthier happier human being.

So go buy it.

No recipe for now, but there's a pretty darn tempting Nutella tart in that chocolate book that I will probably bake tomorrow so stay tuned.

Tah tah.

Rhu-Barbara Ann

Rhubarb is such a what the fuck vegetable.

Wait, is it even a vegetable? Excuse me while I check this fact...Oooh! Here we go.

Now that we have established that rhubarb is in fact a vegetable, let me go back to why it often connotates a "what the fuck" expression when I announce that I am using it as a main ingredient.

Why, just before I was tutoring a 13 year old in English and said that I couldn't wait to post my rhubarb creation on my blog.

He looked at me with such an expression of confusion I could've have acquired a similar response had I announced I used a dog turd instead of toothpaste this morning. Half plausible, I have bad breath in the morning and the two seem to be of the same consistency...

Enough of that. I explained that rhubarb was "uhhhh, the red version of celery?" and then we proceeded to Google all types of weird fruit like mangosteen, dragonfruit and those disgusting custard apple things.

Though rhubarb is pretty uncommonly used in Australian recipes, the American's dig it.

So, following the trend of one of my various baking bibles and decided to incoporate rhubarb into a lovely little creation that I have decided to call...

Rhubarb and Ginger Pie with Lime Zest Shortbread Crust

This recipe is a little more sophisticated than my previous ones, it would be better to bake this baby for a special occasion, or a break up. Sitting in front of a chick flick one hand holding pie tin the other a spoon and an icecream container between your legs. Timessss.

Shortbread Crust Pastry

250g plain all purpose flour

100g butter

100g icing sugar (I used caster sugar accidentally and it was saaaweeet though)

small pinch of salt

1 large egg + 1 extra yolk

zest of one lime

Method

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until fine crumbs are formed. Take your dough out and on a lightly floured surface give it a quick knead around. Wrap the bugger in plastic wrap and refridgerate while you get your other components ready.

Rhubarb and Ginger Filling

2 teaspoons of ginger paste (you can buy this at coles in the spice section in a little tube dude.)

750g of rhubarb (without the leaves) chopped into edible portion sizes

2 tart apples (granny smith or red delicious) peeled, cored and diced

2 teaspoons of lime zest

a generous squirt of lime juice from the lime you have just zested

1 cup of brown sugar

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

Method

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celsius.

In a saucepan, heat the brown sugar and 125mL of water for 4-5 minutes or until the mixture goes syrupy. Add the rhubarb, apple, ginger, lime, lime juice, cinnamon and nutmeg and bung the lid on. Let it stew for about five minutes to let all of the spices and fruits infuse one another.

While this is happening, get your pastry out of the fridge and grease a tart pan with a generous handful of butter(get your fingers messy :) )

Line the tart pan, but leave some dough you can flatten out and put on the top.

Drain off the liquid and then put the rhubarb and apple mix into the tart casing.

Once the mix is in roll out the remainder of your dough and place on top. Whisk up a little concotion using some egg and a splash of milk, and brush the top of your pie with this. It'll make your pie go golden brown and lovely jubbly.

Sprinkle the top with any brown sugar you have lying around and bung it in the oven for 40. Or until golden and crunchy and yum.

Serve drizzled in honey and vanilla icecream.

(I didn't have vanilla icecream so I got some ricotta, vanilla essence, cinnamon and honey, whizzed it in the food processor and ate it with that. BEST. DECISION. EVER.)