Chocolate-Orange Hazelnut Entremet

Having made one fancy entremet, I was eager to try another one– this time, I decided to forego the silicone mold and restrict myself to a plain round shape, which would hopefully lend itself well to a dark chocolate mirror glaze. Finding myself with an extra jar of marmalade, I thought I’d combine it with dark chocolate and some chocolate-hazelnut spread.

This entremet has a base layer of chocolate brownie (cakey, not fudgy, to keep the dessert from being too dense), a thin layer of Nutella-coated cornflakes (a substitute for feutilline), and a layer of orange marmalade, all encased in a chocolate-hazelnut mousse and covered in chocolate mirror glaze. I decorated with some candied orange slices, chocolate ganache truffles, and some edible paint made from gold luster dust and vodka.

The finished dessert was excellent– the mousse was light yet rich, the cornflakes added some much-appreciated crunch (though the chilled nutella was slightly hard to cut through– next time I might add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to soften it a bit), and the marmalade was a nice contrast in flavor. And of course, it was one of the most gorgeous desserts I’ve ever made, so there’s that…

Aquafaba Macarons

I love macarons. They’re beautiful, delicious, and lend themselves to all kinds of flavor combinations. Unfortunately they also take a bunch of egg whites, which I rarely have available without wasting yolks, and I hate waste. Which is why, after I made a chickpea dish the other night, I saved the chickpea brine to make something out of.

What do macarons have to do with chickpea brine, you ask? Everything. Because apparently (and this is something I only recently discovered, though it’s been a thing for a while) you can treat chickpea brine like egg white and it will whip up into a meringue! Amazing! You do have to reduce the brine by 50% first to get it to fluff up properly, but that part is easy.

I will note right now that to make the macarons with my aquafaba, I used my standard macaron recipe, which you can find here.

Anyway, I reduced my brine, chilled it, and it whipped up beautifully, making a perfect meringue.

It also made a lovely magma-like macaron batter.

That being said, when I followed the directions of several tutorials and baked my macarons at a very low temperature (250 degrees F) to avoid making the tops crack (apparently a danger with aquafaba macarons), the macarons themselves turned out rather flat. No feet!

I tried my last pan at my usual macaron temperature (350 for 2 minutes, then crack the oven door and bake for another 8-10 minutes) and they got feet, but they also rose unevenly and cracked, so I guess the correct temperature is something around 300.

I’ll have to try again at some point, but for now you can at least be assured that these will be smooth on top at the lower temperature.

Once they were baked and cooled, I sandwiched the shells with my latest chocolate fudge frosting and a dollop of Nutella, then let my daughter roll the sides in sprinkles and paint the tops with food coloring.

Okay, I admit that I kept a few to paint myself so they’d be extra-pretty, but I always do that when I have little helpers in the kitchen! The results were delicious– just like normal macarons!– so I will definitely be trying these again the next time I make something with chickpeas in it!

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Caramel Mooncakes

I know, I make a lot of mooncakes here on the blog, but they’re just so adorable that I can’t help it. These aren’t all that different from my chocolate-cherry mooncakes, using the same cake and crust recipes and the same general technique, so I suggest you check out that post for recipes and instructions. Still, I just had to post about these because the gooey caramel center was so neat!

I started with homemade chocolate cake, then crumbled it up fine and stirred in big globs of Nutella.

Did that get your attention? Thought so.

Nutella Twists

Have you ever bought a ball of fresh pizza dough from the grocery store, full of good intentions to make delicious, healthy homemade pizza… then looked into your fridge a week later to realize that you’d completely forgotten it and have no cheese or other toppings in the house? I did that this morning, and noted that over time the dough had slowly expanded so that it was straining to escape the confines of the plastic bag– it was definitely time to use it up.

Luckily I can think outside the box, and when I spied the giant jar of Nutella in my pantry I realized that I wasn’t confined to making actual pizza. Instead, I made these delicious breakfast treats (what? They’re no worse than donuts or danish!).

Chocolate Nutella Crunchies

I was recently faced with an emergency– I needed to make something sweet and decadent for a work gathering, and I basically had an hour to make it. Talk about short notice! (well, it wasn’t really that short– I’d known the night before I needed to make something and then completely forgot until I woke up the next morning) I took a quick survey of my pantry ingredients and was inspired by the Honey Cornflake Crunchies I’d made earlier, along with a jar of Nutella on the shelf.

For a starting point I googled “nutella cornflake cookies” and found a recipe for a no-bake candy involving just three ingredients– cornflakes, Nutella, and chocolate. How could I go wrong with those? I fiddled with the recipe a bit, doubling it. substituting dark chocolate for milk chocolate (I always have dark chocolate on hand) and adding more cornflakes for texture, but it really couldn’t be easier. And the results?

The Cake Pop Chronicles, Part II: Canned Doughs

After my experiment with blueberry muffins, I decided to put a different spin on things and see what resulted when I used canned crescent roll dough and pizza crust in the cake pop maker. I tried both savory and sweet fillings here, to see which worked better.