CHOCOLATE CHIP APPLESAUCE BUNDT CAKE: National Applesauce Cake Day!

Today is National Applesauce Cake Day, and my favorite recipe for Chocolate Applesauce Cake comes from Kristin Donnelly in Food and Wine (2007). I love it because it's a one bowl cake, and when it's made in a bundt pan, it's pretty, as well as easy. Applesauce cakes are usually spice cakes, so this recipe may remind you of the holidays. Nevertheless, it's great all year round, but especially today on National Applesauce Cake Day!

I used to make my own applesauce from my Gravenstein apple trees, but my golden retrievers 'retrieve' the apples before they get ripe. Some years, I've picked up a flat or bushel along the road in Sebastopol in Sonoma county, famous for its Gravenstein Apples. Lately I've been buying my applesauce from Trader Joe's. They sell First Press Gravenstein applesauce. How great is that?

CHOCOLATE CHIP APPLESAUCE BUNDT CAKE

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 cups unsweetened applesauce  (applesauce from Gravenstein apples - my favorite!)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
12-ounces semisweet chocolate chips
Powdered sugar, for dusting
Optional: Crème fraîche or whipped cream, for serving

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and flour 12-cup Bundt pan.
In large bowl, whisk flour with granulated sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, salt, cloves, and pepper. Whisk in applesauce, eggs, oil, and melted butter. Fold in chocolate chunks or chips.
Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few crumbs attached.
Transfer pan to a rack and let cool for 10 minutes, then invert onto rack and cool completely, about 20 minutes. Sift powdered sugar over cake, slice and serve with crème fraîche or whipped cream--or plain.
This cake also tastes great toasted for breakfast with unsalted butter or cream cheese!

FROZEN MOCHA CHEESECAKE: Retro Ad with Recipe

I love Retro Ads with recipes, especially when they include chocolate. 

Here's an easy and delicious recipe for Frozen Mocha Cheesecake from Borden's Eagle Brand, 1983! This is perfect for the upcoming warm weekend.

As always use the very best ingredients--always butter, not margarine, the best 'real' chocolate syrup, etc. 

FROZEN MOCHA CHEESECAKE

Ingredients

• 1-1/4 cups chocolate wafer cookie crumbs
• 1/4 cup sugar 
• 1/4 cup margarine or butter, melted 
• 8 ounces package cream cheese, softened
• 14 ounces Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)
• 2/3 cup chocolate flavored syrup
• 2 tablespoons instant coffee
• 1 teaspoon hot water
• 1 cup whipping cream, whipped

Directions

1. In small bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and margarine. 
2. In buttered 9-inch springform pan or 13- by 9-inch baking dish, pat crumbs firmly on bottom and up sides of pan. 
3. Chill. 
4. In large mixer bowl, beat cheese until fluffy; add Eagle Brand and chocolate syrup. 
5. In small bowl, dissolve coffee in water; add to Eagle Brand mixture. 
6. Mix well. 
7. Fold in whipped cream. 
8. Pour into prepared pan. 
9. Cover. 
10. Freeze 6 hours or until firm. 
11. Garnish with additional chocolate crumbs if desired. Return leftovers to freezer.

Cognac Truffles: Three Recipes for National Cognac Day!

Happy Cognac Day. Here are three recipes for Cognac Truffles to celebrate! Cognac is a brandy that comes from the Cognac region in France. Distilled for a long time, it's the aging process that gives Cognac its very distinctive taste. Only brandy that is produced in Cognac can be labeled Cognac. 

Cognac goes so well with Chocolate, especially in Cognac Truffles. I always opt for easy truffle recipes. I've posted two of these great recipes in the past, but I've added a third which includes orange zest! The second recipe includes raw eggs (although they heat up a bit in the chocolate), so if that's a problem for you, make the first or third recipe. I have tried many different types of chocolate (brands and amounts of cacao), and as always the flavors will change with the chocolate. These recipes are basically ganache truffles, so no tempering needed. You can roll them in cocoa or chopped nuts.

1. COGNAC TRUFFLES

Ingredients
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 Tbsp Cognac
unsweetened cocoa or chopped nuts

Directions
Put chopped chocolate in bowl. On low heat warm cream and butter until nearly boiling. Pour cream and butter over chocolate and mix gently and thoroughly until chocolate is melted. You can always just melt all ingredients together in the top of a double boiler, if you're careful.
Cool and add cognac, mixing into chocolate mixture.
Cover and refrigerate 3 hours or more.
Using a melonballer or spoon, scoop chocolate into balls. Then roll in hands to smooth out the ball.
Roll balls in cocoa or nuts and refrigerate until ready to serve.

2. COGNAC TRUFFLES

Ingredients
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1-1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
2 Tbsp cognac
cocoa or chopped nuts

Directions
Melt chocolate.
Combine sugar and butter in bowl then cream together.
Add egg yolks 1 at a time then stir in melted chocolate and cognac.
Chill mixture at least one hour then scoop out and form into balls.
Roll in coating of your choice and dry for 1 hour.

3. COGNAC TRUFFLES

Ingredients 
6 ounces DARK chocolate, chopped
3 ounces heavy cream
1 Tbsp cognac
1-1/2 Tbsp grated orange zest
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions
Bring cream to simmer in saucepan over medium-high heat. Set aside. Add chocolate and stir until smooth. Add cognac and orange zest and stir well. Cover and chill it refrigerator for 4 hours until stiff.
With scoop or teaspoon, make small balls.
Put cocoa powder in bowl and roll truffles in it.
Chill for half an hour and serve.

National Egg Day: Chocolate "Egg" Cream!

Despite its name, the Egg Cream contains neither eggs nor cream. I think it's the perfect recipe, though, today for National Egg Day! LOL!!!

Thanks to Whatscookingamerica.com for the history of the Egg Cream. 

In the beginning, it was a soda produced almost exclusively in New York (particularly Brooklyn). The basic ingredients are milk, seltzer, and chocolate syrup. It is traditionally made in a small Coke-style glass.

True New Yorkers insist that it is not a classic egg cream without Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup. It is perfectly proper to gulp down an egg cream. In fact, egg cream will lose its head and become flat if it is not enjoyed immediately.

For many years, the egg cream remained a product sold only through New York soda fountains because bottled versions were hard to replicate. The cream, chocolate, and soda had a tendency to separate and to go bad after a couple days at best, and efforts to pasteurize or preserve the product ruined the taste. Today, Egg Cream drinks are bottled by a few small companies.

According to The Brooklyn Cookbook by Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy Jr., "You absolutely cannot make an egg cream without Fox's U-Bet." The cookbook quotes Fox's grandson, David, for the story of the syrup's name:

"The name 'U-Bet' dates from the late-'20s, when Fox's grandfather got wildcatting fever and headed to Texas to drill for oil. 'You bet' was a friendly term the oilmen used. His oil venture a failure, he returned to the old firm, changing Fox's Chocolate Syrup to Fox's U-Bet. He said, 'I came back broke but with a good name for the syrup.'


Chocolate Egg Cream

Ingredients
Approximately 1/2 cup cold whole milk (Skim or 2% milk won't foam as well)
1 cup bottled seltzer
2 Tbsp chocolate syrup (Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup)

Directions
Pour 1/2 inch of cold milk into a tall soda glass. Add seltzer or club soda to within 1 inch of the top of the glass; stir vigorously with a long spoon (this will cause it to become white and bubbly with a good head of foam).
Very gently pour 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup slowly down the inside of the glass; briskly stir with a long spoon only at the bottom of the glass where the chocolate sits. The resulting drink should have a dark brown bottom and a 1-inch high pure white foam top (if you mix it too much, the foam disappears).

NOTE: Do not let Egg Cream sit for a long period of time-5 minutes or more; it will go flat.


The Original Brooklyn Egg-Cream

Take a tall, chilled, straight-sided, 8oz. glass
Spoon 1 inch of U-bet Chocolate syrup into glass
Add 1 inch whole milk
Tilt the glass and spray seltzer (from a pressurized cylinder only) off a spoon, to make a big chocolate head
Stir, Drink, Enjoy