An Easy Chocolate Dessert

If you are craving for chocolate, this is your dessert. Easy and extremely satisfying. The original recipe calls for dark chocolate. However, for me, a lover of the milk and white chocolate, the original version was almost too intensive. So, my second edition of this cake was made using milk chocolate and I liked it better. But everyone who tried the first version loved it and raved about it as well.

The reason why this dessert is so rich and delicious is that it simply tastes as whipped chocolate to the point that it is hard to qualify it as a cake or even a mousse, so, for the lack of a better term, let me just call it a dessert. You cannot eat much of it so a small portion of it goes a long way. I decided to post this recipe today as the first in this year to start it with a burst of sweet indulgence.

Chocolate Dessert

Ingredients:
2 cups of heavy whipping cream plus an extra 1/2 cup for decoration,
1 lb (about 2 and 1/2 cup) of a good quality dark (or whichever) chocolate or chocolate chips,
2 tsp vanilla extract,
cocoa powder for dusting,

Preparation:
1. Line a small baking form (e.g., seven inch) with high walls, or a small bowl, with a clingfilm foil, so the foil overhangs from the wall.
2. Melt the chocolate over the pot with boiling water or in a microwave oven. If you use a microwave oven, do it for no longer than 30 seconds, several times, stirring in between each turn, until it is melted completely.

3. Whisk the heavy whipping cream with vanilla until stiff then add half of the chocolate. Gently fold it in. Add the rest of the chocolate.
4. Pour a chocolate mix into the baking form or a bowl lined with foil, so the edges of the foil stick out. Using a spreading knife finish the top of the dessert and let it chill in a refrigerator for at least two hours.

5. Beat the extra cream until stiff.
6. Remove the cake from the bowl by pulling the foil ends, Gentle remove the foil. Dust the dessert with cocoa powder.
7. Cut it in small triangles and serve with whipped cream.

Chickpea Flat Bread from Tuscany

I have read about this interesting flat bread, called "cecina" in at least three Italian cook books. It is made of chickpea flour and olive oil and should be baked in a large shallow pan. The original recipe comes from northern Tuscany.

Cecina batter is greasy and liquid and very easy to make. However, it is important to remember to set it aside for at least an hour before putting it in an oven.

All kinds of bread, especially Italian, are very popular in my home. So the other day I bought a chickpea flour, which so far I used only in Indian recipes, and made my first cecina.

It came out very nice and crispy. It had a yellow color and a slightly "eggy" taste, although not a single egg was used to make it. No one could guess what this bread was made of but everyone enjoyed it.

Cecina could be served as an appetizer and makes a wonderful party snack to accompany a glass of wine. You can sprinkle it with rosemary or pepper flakes, but my favorite is the traditional version of it with sea salt and ground black pepper.

Chickpea Flat Bread

Ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cup chickpea flour,
2 cups water,
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil,
1/2 tsp salt plus extra for sprinkling,
freshly ground black pepper.

Preparation:
1. Put the water and one tbsp olive oil in a bowl. Add chickpea flour and salt and mix everything until it makes a smooth batter. Let it rest for at least an hour or even overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 425 F.
3. Pour the remaining 3 tbsp of olive oil on a 12-inch metal pizza or shallow, non-stick baking pan. Stir the batter and pour it on the pan. It should not be more than a quarter inch high.

4. Bake for about 20-30 minutes, until the bread is set and golden brown on top.
5. Remove the pan from the oven and when it is still hot sprinkle it with salt and pepper.

Serve it warm.

Cream Cheese Cookies with Apricot Filling

I am not a cookie person, especially when it comes to these soft chocolate chip cookies that my son loves so much. Therefore, today, I will share a recipe for the cookies that I like.

They come from Poland. It is an easy recipe and it always works. Last time I made them was decades ago, when I was making my first steps in the kitchen.

I made them at that time with the slightly sour white farmers' cheese and different home-made sour cherry or plum preserves, or poppy seeds filling. I loved the taste of these cookies as the slightly sour dough nicely complimented the sweet filling from fruits preserves.

Recently, I found a version of the same cookies calling for cream cheese instead of farmers' cheese. I also learned that this recipe originally comes from the Jewish culinary tradition, which I was not aware of since, over the years, it blended strongly into the Polish cuisine.

A couple of weeks ago, when I made bow-tie cookies, I used my favorite apricot preserves. But for Christmas I am planning on using an exquisite and aromatic rose petal preserve which a friend of mine brought me from Poland. Any preserves of your choice can be used in this recipe, and they would not be too sweet, as the dough does not have any sugar and you just dust them them with icing sugar at the end.

Cream Cheese Cookies with Apricot Filling

Ingredients:
8oz cream cheese or farmers' cheese (Polish "twarog"), at room temperature,
2 sticks (about 250 g) butter, room temperature,
2 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour,
1 cup of preserves of your choice,
1 tsp vanilla extract,
icing sugar for dusting,

Preparation:
1. In a stand up mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter until soft and well combined. Add the vanilla extract, flour, and beat slowly until a smooth dough forms.
2. Wrap the dough in a plastic foil and chill for two hours or preferably overnight.
3. Take out the dough from a refrigerator and let it stand in room temperature for 1/2 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 400F.
5. Roll out the dough on a large surface, slightly dusted with flour. Cut 2-inch squares. Place a teaspoon of preserve in a middle of each square and bring the opposite corners together slightly squeezing them. Put them on a buttered cookie sheet.

6. Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes, until puffed and gold.
7. Cool down the cookies and dust them with icing sugar.