Chocolate & Zucchini's Canelés

It was love at first bite. Sorry I can't resist a cheesy play on words. Back to the batter at hand (tee hee).

I first made canelés, if you might remember, at Bonnie Gordon's School of Confectionary Arts. I signed up for the two-day course mainly to learn how to make macarons.

And I did, and they were delicious, and I had rave reviews. But. As soon as I had learned how to make the macarons, all I could think about was how delicious these unassuming canelés are.

Sure enough, they are near-impossible to find in Toronto (only at Nadege Patisserie I believe - that's Nah-dej, not Nah-deh-jeh). So I had been craving them ever since.

Hazelnut-almond financiers redux

I am a micromanager at the best of times and one of the ways that manifests itself is my obsessive checking of my blog stats. I can't help but wonder - who keeps misspelling my surname as Nercessian to come to this blog? And who are the readers in Afghanistan? Also, are financiers molds really that hard to find that so many people find my blog by Googling those keywords? (Please, for the love of all things chocolate, reveal yourselves!)

In fact, they are hard to find and I bought my silicone financiers molds at eBay from a purveyor in New York City. And after many, many, many months I used them.

Pear and chocolate cake-tart

I came across this recipe in food blogger extraordinaire Clotilde Dusoulier's book "Clotilde's Edible Adventures in Paris."
Dusoulier, the blogger behind Chocolate & Zucchini, a delectable compendium of recipes and anecdotes has never steered me wrong before.
Be it the chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles; tarte tomate a la tatin or pistachio and chorizo cake; or the mini-financiers au miel, I often refer to this French foodie's cookbook for some inspiration.

So when I saw her recipe for this cake-tart hybrid, I was smitten. I love poached pears, and I love deep, dark chocolate, and a marriage between the two seemed like fate.

If you can't find Dusoulier's book at your local library or bookstore, you can find the recipe for this tarte-gateau here on the MSNBC website.

Substitutions:

I didn't make any.

Would I make this again?

Indeed I would, but for the right crowd. If your guests don't have a sweet tooth or delight in the rich, gooey texture of a molten chocolate cake or bread pudding, then this is not for them.

Next time, however, I will poach the pears for longer, and I will also cut them into more narrow pieces to ensure they are completely submerged under the liquid when it is simmering to avoid any inconsistencies in texture.

I felt a bit as though the presentation of this tarte was drab, and that it needed a bit more colour, perhaps.

I'm not sure yet how I could improve it's appearance but I am open to suggestions!

Grade:

Four stars out of five. The crust was light in texture and the dense chocolate filling was not overly sweet. This is one of those cakes, pardon me, cake-tarts that will sate your sweet tooth after just one slice. Serve it with a strong, bitter espresso or port to bring out the right notes.

Still, I wasn't so impressed by its appearance as I mentioned above. The fact that it is not a typical chocolate ganache -- and that the surface is mottled in texture -- subtracted marks from what could have been five stars out of five.

South of France-inspired brunch

It's been nearly ten years since I stepped foot in the south of France, but the tastes still linger in my culinary memory: aromatic olives, sun-kissed red tomatoes bursting with juice, the hint of lavender in Herbes de Provence.
As much as I'd love to hop on a place to take a stroll on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice right now, this bun in the oven is keeping my feet on the ground for now, so what better way to honour the foods of France than to recreate some of those flavours in my own kitchen?

I served the following menu at a brunch for some friends:

Tarte tatin a la tomate, a savoury upside-down tart of oven-roasted tomatoes, a layer of olive tapenade, goat cheese accented with Herbes de Provences, and a buttery pastry dough. If you are looking for one show-stopping tart, this is it. Prepare to take a bite and be transported to the Mediterranean climes of the south of France. Recipe courtesy Chocolate & Zucchini's Clotilde Dusoulier

Mini croque-monsieur, otherwise known as "a fancy French ham and cheese sandwich" as one friend put it, topped with a bechamel sauce and melting Gruyere. Recipe adapted from Ina Garten
An array of croissants and Bonne Maman jams

Pistachio and chorizo cake, a savoury loaf cake brought to life with slivers of sun-dried tomatoes, Spanish sausage, and crunchy pistachioes in a dense but moist and flavourful batter that takes minutes to whip up. Irresistible when fresh out of the oven, and even more tasty warmed up the day after with a layer of butter. Recipe also from Chocolate & Zucchini, by way of blogger David Lebovitz

Manchego, Oka, and Cantenaar cheeses
Heirloom tomato carpaccio, which involved slicing these tomatoes very thin, drizzling them with organic balsamic vinegar, olive oil, freshly ground pepper, and citrus sea salt, and adding basil and toasted pine nuts (click on the first photo in this post to get a closer look - the variety of colours is astounding
For dessert, I strayed from the theme - and the region, I must admit. I served fresh berries and Mexican snowballs. These are balls of vanilla ice cream that I froze, and then rolled in toasted flaked coconut and cinnamon. So easy, and yet so impressive. I will be making these Mexican snowballs time and time again. Recipe courtesy Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food" book

Chocolate and Zucchini's chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles

Pressed for a last-minute sweet for dinner guests, after my macarons failed miserably, I turned to my copy of "Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian kitchen." Penned by food blogger extraordinaire Clotilde Dusoulier, I read this book cover-to-cover on a train ride from Paris to Amsterdam. It holds a special place in my heart for several reasons: Clotilde's was the first food blog I ever read and bookmarked; I bought this book at Paris' legendary Shakespeare and Company bookstore; and finally, all the recipes I've tried, so far, are divine.
To find some inspiration for my after-dinner sweets, I turned to the chapter entitled Mignardises, French for the "sweet bites" that you get with your coffee at a high-end restaurant. Clotilde says in her blog that the word comes from mignard, "an old-fashioned word which, as a noun, means a small child, and as an adjective means delicate, graceful and pretty."
I happened to have all the necessary ingredients to make the Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Marbles, or Billes de Noisettes au Chocolat in French, so I happily set forth.
The end result was these elegant bites of hazelnut heaven that like miniature candied apples and taste like the Ferrero Rocher. The list of ingredients is short and to the point: 1 cup of shelled hazelnuts, 3/4 cup of confectioners' sugar; fine sea salt; 2 teaspoons honey; and 3 ounces of good-quality bittersweet chocolate.

Directions:
In short, you husk the toasted hazelnuts and pulse them with the sugar and salt in a food processor. Then you add the honey with a tablespoon of hot water, and stir the mixture. After leaving the bowl in the refrigerator, you shape the paste into marble-sized balls and plant toothpicks in each one.
After melting the chocolate, and this is the tricky part, you dip the marbles in the chocolate. Rather than try to twirl the marble in the melted chocolate, use a small spatula to spread the chocolate around the hazelnut paste.
Leave the top uncoated so that the paste peeks through. Let the excess chocolate drip off and then let rest somewhere for a couple of hours in a cool place.

My substitutions: I used dark chocolate rather than bittersweet chocolate. Also, despite the directions, I grew impatient and threw the tray in the fridge, despite the recipe warning against this tactic. I wish I had Clotilde's foresight because my husband opened the fridge door and the whole tray went tumbling down. Luckily for me, and him, I had tried them before they had set completely. The recipe also suggests making the marbles with almonds or pecans.

Grade: Four stars out of five. While I will make these chic mignardises again, happily, they were tricky to make and time-consuming too. Set a couple of leisurely hours aside to make these from start to finish, turn on the Carla Bruni tunes and have a glass of wine. Otherwise you'll be sweating when you're in a rush to shape these tiny marbles and dip them carefully in the chocolate. And you might be tempted to, like I did, put them in the refrigerator.