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The Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Pots de Crème

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Aka, The Easiest Dessert Ever.

When I was at home suffering from the plague last week, I had a major craving for chocolate, specifically something rich and creamy and easy. These chocolate pots de crème satisfy all of those criteria: throw some chocolate chips and eggs in a blender, blend with some steaming hot coffee, chill, and eat. Couldn’t be simpler, or more decadent! I topped them with a little coconut cream (I didn’t have any whipping cream) and they were totally delicious. It’s a good thing I only discovered these recently, or I would have been making them once a week. Very dangerous.

Technically, I don’t think you can call these “true” pots de crème, because they don’t actually contain any cream, nor are they baked in a water bath. However, the flavour and texture are pretty much right on. The hot coffee serves to cook the eggs and imparts a little bit of coffee flavour, but mostly it just intensifies the chocolate flavour. I think you could use hot milk or cream instead of coffee and change up the dark chocolate chips for milk or white chocolate, and add whatever flavours you want (I added a pinch of cinnamon). I intend to do lots of experimenting with this one – it got rave reviews from everyone who tried it, and was waaaay too good not to make again soon! So if you need a quick chocolate fix, here you go: you can thank me later.

Chocolate Pots de Crème

Adapted from the Pioneer Woman. Makes 4 servings.

In a blender jar, combine:

6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 eggs

a small pinch of salt

1 tbsp or so of liqueur (I used French vanilla Kahlua)

Put the lid on and blend to combine.

Pour in 1/2 cup very hot coffee and blend, blend, blend. You are supposed to pour the coffee in through the hole in the lid while the blender is going, but I’m not very good at reading instructions and just dumped the coffee in all at once, then put the lid back on and blended. It worked fine.

At this point you can also add a pinch of cinnamon or a dash of vanilla if you feel so inclined.

Pour the blended mixture into 4 small vessels of about 1/2 cup capacity.

Chill them in the fridge for a few hours until cold and set. Top with lightly sweetened whipped cream (or coconut cream) and devour.

Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists

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Lemon and rosemary might not be a flavour combination you’re familiar with in a sweet context, but man oh man, does it ever work! I stumbled across a recipe for Meyer Lemon Rosemary Sticky Buns and bookmarked it immediately because it sounded so intriguing, and I planned to make them using one portion of challah dough. Then I saw Sawsan’s beautiful cinnamon twists and decided to use her technique instead of just making plain old spirals.

The result is these very tasty, very pretty Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists.

I used Meyer lemons for these, and it’s the first time I’ve ever gotten my hands on them. I’ve been hearing about Meyer lemons for quite a while, but had never seen them in any grocery stores – until a week ago, when they started popping up everywhere! A Meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, and has a sweeter, tart taste and thinner skin than a regular lemon. Quite honestly, I’m still not sure what all the fuss is about. They are tasty, but they don’t quite have the tang that a regular lemon does, and I think a good, ripe, organic lemon would give you just as much (maybe better?) lemon flavour. If you love Meyer lemons, go ahead and use them here, but don’t worry if you can’t find them – regular lemons will be just fine!

These smelled AMAZING coming out of the oven, and once I’d smothered them in a lemon-cream cheese glaze, they were pretty irresistible. The first sweet bite revealed subtle lemon and floral rosemary, the combination of which somehow reminded me of rosewater. Really unique, and really delicious. I found the flavour to be even better the next day (if they last that long, that is!).

Lemon Rosemary Sticky Bun Twists

Filling and glaze adapted from Eats Well With Others; twist technique from Chef in Disguise. This recipe uses one approximately 1 1/2 -pound portion of challah dough. Makes 8 twists.

When handling the dough, DO NOT knead it. While a certain amount of man-handling is necessary to roll and twist the dough, try to be as gentle as possible and use only a minimal amount of extra flour to keep it from sticking. If you feel you’ve over-worked the dough, let it have a longer rest before baking.

On a lightly floured surface, place:

approximately 1 1/2 lbs of chilled challah dough

Divide the dough into three roughly equal pieces, and gently shape/roll each piece into a 10-inch circle, using just enough flour to stop it from sticking. If the dough resists rolling, let it rest for a few minutes, then come back to it. Set the rounds aside while you make the filling.

Filling

In a bowl, combine:

1 cup white granulated sugar

1/4 tsp nutmeg

zest of 2 lemons

1 tbsp minced fresh rosemary

Mix together with your fingers until it resembles damp sand, then stir in:

2 tbsp lemon juice

Have ready:

3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

Assembly

Place one round of dough on your lightly floured work surface. Spread it with about 1 tbsp softened butter, then with half of the lemon-rosemary-sugar filling.

Top it with a second round and spread it with 1 tbsp butter and the other half of the filling. Place the final round on top and spread it with the last 1 tbsp butter. With a large, sharp knife, cut the round into 8 wedges. Flour the knife blade if needed, and make single downward cuts to keep things as neat as possible. With the tip of the knife, cut a ~1-inch slit in the middle of each triangular piece.

Pull on the sides of the triangle to widen the hole, then tuck the point of the triangle into the hole. Gently pull it through to form the twist.

Arrange the 8 pieces in a circle with their sides touching on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Pinch together the two points at the base of each triangle.

Cover the twists lightly with plastic wrap and let rest for about 1 hour at room temperature (or refrigerate for several hours or overnight). It’s OK if some of the sugar-lemon mixture seeps out while the twists are resting.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F and bake the twists for 20-30 minutes, until nicely browned and baked through in the middle.

While the twists are baking, prepare the glaze.

Glaze

In a small bowl, cream until light and fluffy:

2 oz cream cheese

With a whisk, beat in:

1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix until smooth.

Add:

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

The glaze should be about the consistency of honey. Drizzle the glaze over the warm twists.

These are fantastic warm from the oven, and if you happen to have any leftover, the lemon-rosemary flavour is even better the next day.

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

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Here they are… the caramel pecan sticky buns that started my obsession with making bread the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day way. They are so good that I am sure they will also start your obsession.

This is one way to use up a portion of this challah dough. Roll it out, spread it with cinnamon-sugar-butter and sprinkle it with pecans, sit it on a bed of brown sugar-butter-pecan goodness, let it rest, let it bake, and then you will be in caramel pecan sticky bun heaven.

I’m telling you, these are GOOD, and although they require some waiting time, they don’t require a lot of physical effort. They don’t even have to be particularly pretty or neat looking to still taste out-of-this-world amazing. There is a TON of butter and sugar in this recipe, so if you’re looking for something diet-friendly, you might want to pass on this one… but I wouldn’t recommend it ;).

The pecans are calling your name. Make these sticky buns. You know you want to…

Caramel Pecan Sticky Buns

From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Makes 8 buns. This recipe uses one 1 1/2-ish lb portion of challah dough.

Caramel-Pecan Topping

In a medium bowl, cream together:

6 tbsp unsalted butter, soft

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Spread the mixture evenly over the bottom of a 9″ round cake pan. Sprinkle it with:

1/2 cup roughly chopped pecans (you can leave them whole if you prefer)

Set aside.

Filling

In a small bowl, cream together:

4 tbsp unsalted butter, soft

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Set aside.

In a 375˚F oven, toast:

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Toasting the pecans keeps them from getting soggy inside the rolls. They should take about 20-25 minutes – watch them carefully and stir several times. Set aside to cool.

Assembly

Place a 1 1/2-ish lb portion of chilled challah dough on a lightly floured surface. Using your hands and a rolling pin, roll and stretch it into an 18″ x 9″ rectangle. Keep the dough lightly floured to prevent it from sticking, but try not to over-flour it.

Spread the rectangle of dough evenly with the filling, then sprinkle it with the toasted pecans. From one of the long edges, roll up the dough securely to enclose the filling.

With a sharp serrated knife, cut the roll into 8 pieces. Arrange them over the caramel-pecan topping mixture in the baking pan. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and set aside to rest for about 1 hour.

After an hour, the buns should have expanded quite a bit. With a few minutes left in the rest period, preheat the oven to 350˚F. Remove the plastic wrap, place the pan on a cookie sheet to protect against bubbling-over caramel (I didn’t do this and my oven was a mess of melted butter and molten caramel!), and bake at 350˚F for about 40 minutes, until golden brown and cooked all the way to the center of the pan.

Place the pan on a cooling rack for about 5 minutes, until the bubbling caramel subsides. While still hot, run a knife around the edge of the pan to release the buns and invert them onto a plate (if you wait for them to cool they will stick to the pan). Scrape out any caramel and pecans left behind.

Devour!

Daring Bakers: Quickbread

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The Daring Bakers’ February 2012 host was – Lis! Lisa stepped in last minute and challenged us to create a quick bread we could call our own. She supplied us with a base recipe and shared some recipes she loves from various websites and encouraged us to build upon them and create new flavor profiles.

A quickbread is a sweet or savory bread/cake that is made with baking powder or baking soda (and sometimes eggs) rather than yeast, thereby making it “quick” to make, start to finish. Scones, muffins, popovers, Irish soda bread, and loaves like banana bread and tea cakes all fall into this category.

A beautiful, golden brown, airy popover

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Devonshire Cream

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If you are a fan of afternoon tea, such as I am, you might agree that the best part of said afternoon tea is the scones with cream (such as the chocolate scones pictured above). And not just any old kind of cream – it should be Devonshire cream, also known as clotted cream. Real Devonshire cream is made by heating unpasteurized milk over a steam bath until a thick layer of cream “clots” on top, then cooling the milk and skimming off the cream. The resulting cream is so thick (at least 55% fat content!) that it doesn’t need to be whipped, and has a slightly nutty, rich, sweet taste. Absolutely delicious on a fresh baked scone with jam or lemon curd.

To be called Devonshire cream, it should be produced in the county of Devon in the UK. Obviously what follows is not true Devonshire cream because a) it’s not made in Devon, and b) it’s not real clotted cream – but it’s a good approximation, especially considering how easy it is, and how much harder it would be (for me, anyway) to get hold of unpasteurized milk to make the real stuff. This mock Devonshire cream is simply whipping cream with a little bit of cream cheese to add a slightly tangy, rich flavour. Super delicious, and super easy – especially when you have a brand new blender to make it in! Actually, I just wanted an excuse to use the blender and the special whipping blade that came with it – it ended up requiring far more scraping of the sides than I felt was necessary (although it also came with a very effective custom spatula), so a stand or hand-held mixer would be a better choice!

Mock Devonshire Cream

Makes about 1 1/2 cups

In a mixer bowl fitted with the whisk attachment (or blender with whipping blade), combine:

3 oz cream cheese, softened (about 3 heaping tbsp)

1 tbsp sugar

1/8 tsp salt

Beat until light and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

With the beater going, slowly pour in:

1 cup whipping cream

Continue beating until soft peaks form. Serve with fresh scones for afternoon tea :).

Daring Bakers: Scone Mojo

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Audax Artifex was our January 2012 Daring Bakers’ host. Aud worked tirelessly to master light and fluffy scones (a/k/a biscuits) to help us create delicious and perfect batches in our own kitchens!

Audax, who can offer a wealth of information, tips, and tricks for every challenge (even when he’s not hosting it), did not disappoint with this one. When I saw that the challenge was scones, I honestly wondered how much I would learn, being that I already considered myself to have “mastered” scones – I learned to make them in grade 7 Home Ec, and have been turning them out very successfully ever since. The spirit of this challenge was to find a way to make scones that works best for you, and Audax did a ton of research on what makes a good scone and the techniques to use to make them more flaky or more tender and cake-like. All things I never knew before! He also went into the difference between a scone and a biscuit, which as far as I understand, mostly comes down to geography: they are essentially the same thing, but in America they are called biscuits, and anywhere with a British influence they are called scones. In general, I personally tend to think of scones as sweet (or served with sweet things) and biscuits as savory (or served with savory things).

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Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Bread

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This Chocolate Hazelnut Banana Bread is sure to derail your New Year’s resolutions to eat less sugar and/or chocolate. I have stopped trying to make those kinds of resolutions for myself, because they never last long and I just straight up love sugar and chocolate (luckily I also love exercise, so it balances out). The collection of over-ripe frozen bananas in my freezer was approaching epic proportions, so I figured it was time for a batch of the best banana bread in the entire world ever. I’m also trying to find ways to use up the crazy amount of Nutella that I got for Christmas that doesn’t involve eating it straight out of the jar (at least I use a spoon), and the logical progression was to combine the two. …

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Daring Bakers: Povitica

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The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

My first thought when I saw this month’s challenge was, “What the hell is povitica?”. When I found out that it was a walnut-filled bread, I have to admit that I was not super excited about it – we had just done croissants last month, and I was hankering for something drenched in chocolate. However, once I started seeing some of the beautiful loaves showing up on the Daring Baker’s members’ forum and reading all the various iterations of, “OH MY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD!!!”, I decided to pull up my socks like a big girl and get over my attitude problem. And I’m really glad I did, because this is a beautiful, delicious bread!…

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Pulled Molasses Taffy

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One of my favorite things about Hallowe’en, other than the adorable trick-or-treaters and watching fireworks, is the molasses taffy that comes wrapped up in the black and orange waxed paper. I love the brown sugary flavour and the chewy texture, but last year I could not find them for sale ANYWHERE, so I decided that I would try to make them myself this year. So, the other day, I did. Pulling taffy is fun in the same way that making “ghost gum” out of a marshmallow is fun, and it looks like spun gold while you’re doing it – it gets this metallic sheen that unfortunately disappears when you stop. The candies came out tasting great, but they are rather harder than I was hoping for. You’re supposed to cook the syrup to 270˚F, or the “soft crack” stage, but during the process I discovered that my candy thermometer didn’t work, so I used the “sugar syrup and water” method instead, which is less precise and resulted in a slightly overcooked syrup. But with a working thermometer, these candies would be perfect! I used blackstrap molasses, so the flavour is quite strong. If you prefer a mellower molasses flavour, use fancy molasses instead. I would also recommend using demerara brown sugar if you can find it – it is a less-refined brown sugar with more flavour than regular brown sugar, which is actually just white sugar with molasses added back into it!

Pulled Molasses Taffy

From Canadian Living

In a medium sized pot with high sides, combine:

1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar, preferably demerara

1/3 cup molasses, blackstrap or fancy, your choice

1/4 cup water

2 tbsp cider vinegar

2 tsp butter

Bring a boil, stirring, over medium heat. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pot and without stirring, let the mixture cook over medium heat until it gets to 270˚F. Alternately, test the temperature by drizzling a bit of the syrup off a spoon into a cup of cold water – when the syrup forms hard but pliable threads (aka “soft crack” stage), it is ready.

While the syrup boils, mix together:

1 tsp warm water

1/4 tsp baking soda

When the syrup reaches the correct temperature, remove it from the heat and immediately stir in the baking soda mixture. It will foam up a bit – stir vigorously to dissipate the chemical reaction. Pour the taffy mixture onto a greased cookie sheet and let it cool for about 5 minutes. With a greased spatula, fold the edges of the taffy in towards the middle. Continue until the taffy is cool enough to handle and when you poke it with your finger, an indentation remains.

Pick up the taffy with well-greased hands. Pull the taffy apart with a twisting motion, then fold it in half and pull it apart again, twisting with your hands. Repeat until the taffy is glossy and light in colour with a metallic shine, about 5 minutes. Divide the taffy in half and pull/twist each half into a rope about 1/2 an inch thick. Place on the greased cookie sheet. With a pair of scissors dipped in cold water, snip the taffy into 1/2″ pieces. If the taffy is soft enough, wrap each piece individually in a small piece of waxed paper (if it’s too hard it will just rip the paper when you twist the ends). Alternately, layer in an airtight container between sheets of waxed paper.

Daring Bakers: Homemade Croissants!

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The Daring Bakers go retro this month!  Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

I have been wanting to try making croissants for a long time, so this was the perfect challenge! It became immediately apparent, however, that croissants can be very finicky. To make then, you encase butter in dough and then roll it out and fold it and let it rest and roll it out and fold it and let it rest and repeat several more times, all the while making sure that the butter in the dough doesn’t get too soft and melt or get too hard and shatter and that you keep it evenly layered, so that in the end you hopefully end up with beautiful, flaky, light crescents of buttery, airy, honeycomb-textured pastry. No wonder croissants are considered daunting by many home bakers!…

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All content © Korena Vezerian and Korena in the Kitchen, 2011 – 2021. Please contact me before duplicating any content, including pictures. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Korena Vezerian and Korena in the Kitchen with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.