Orange Chocolate Baklava

When Michael M suggested a Mediterranean theme for Sunday's dinner, I took the opportunity to try Scharffenberger's Orange Chocolate Baklava recipe from The Essence of Chocolate. The chocolate part is chopped up chocolate bits in the filling. The orange flavor is entirely in the sugar/honey syrup, which is cooked with orange juice, orange peel, and a cinnamon stick, then strained and poured over the just-baked pastry. And let's not forget the cup of clarified butter. Who wants butterfat?

Marshmallows

Inspired by a gourmet marshmallow site, and having an overabundance of gelatin from our upcoming Jello-themed party, Will and I decided to try making marshmallows from scratch. Super yummy, and turned out to be super easy. Heat up some sugar and corn syrup (we used honey) to soft ball stage, mix in gelatin and whip till frothy. Whip some egg whites and mix them in. Add some vanilla. Pour out onto powdered-sugared pan. Chill. Slice. The end! The honey substitution imparted a slight extra flavor, but not too strong.

I need to stop eating this much sugar all the time. Seriously.

Challah with Chocolate

I wanted to get through a glut of bread flour and decided to make a simple challah recipe. Garnished with chocolate. I found a recipe for "Honey Challah" in Jeff Nathan's Adventures in Jewish Cooking, a book I got a while ago and somehow forgot about. Bad Ben. Anyway, the recipe turned out well. I haven't made bread in a while. It's super easy to do it with the stand mixer compared to kneading it by hand. I did one loaf (braid?) with the chocolate mixed right into the dough and another loaf with the chocolate just on top. Must use this book more often.

Ice Cream Crazy

Acting on a tip, I picked up a fancy new self-freezing ice cream maker last week at a crazy discount. Of course, I couldn't decide on just one flavor to break it in with, so, you know, I made them all. Ended up having a bunch of friends over to share the bounty. Avocado, Dark Butterscotch, White Chocolate Ginger. Will made Goat's Milk Ice Cream with Fig and Chocolate and a couple sauces, Mexican Chocolate and Bourbon Caramel. Never anything plain.

I don't have pictures of every flavor, but you can see the new machine and a lot of the intermediate steps. I think the Avocado was technically a sherbet (no eggs). The Butterscotch was from Room for Dessert, but I used dark muscovado sugar instead of regular brown sugar. Really emphasized the brown sugar aspect of the butterscotch flavor. The white chocolate ginger recipe I just made up. Tweaked a basic vanilla recipe by adding melted white chocolate, a little zested ginger, and chopped candied ginger.

Having way more ice cream than I'll ever need to eat left over, I made everyone take a pint home. Now don't you wish you lived closer?