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

ROCKY ROAD ICE CREAM PIE: National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day!

Happy Rocky Road Ice Cream Day! For today's holiday, I'm posting a recipe for a delicious Rocky Road Ice Cream Pie. It's a great way to cool off. 

Rocky Road Ice Cream was 'invented' in Oakland,  California. One story goes that the Rocky Road ice cream flavor was created in March 1929 by William Dreyer in Oakland, CA. He cut up walnuts and marshmallows with his wife's sewing scissors and added them to his chocolate ice cream that reflected his partner Joseph Edy's chocolate candy that used walnuts and marshmallow pieces. Later the walnuts were replaced by toasted almonds. Another story is that Fenton's Creamery in Oakland claims is that William Dreyer based his recipe on a Rocky-Road style ice cream flavor invented by his friend, Fentons' George Farren, who blended his own Rocky Road-style candy bar into ice cream. So however it came into existence, have a scoop of Rocky Road Ice Cream today... or make a Rocky Road Ice Cream Pie!

ROCKY ROAD ICE CREAM PIE

Ingredients
2 cups vanilla fudge swirl ice cream, softened
2 cups chocolate ice cream, softened
2/3 cup miniature marshmallows
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate, chopped and divided
1/2 cup toasted almonds, chopped (or lightly salted peanuts)
*Chocolate Pie Crust (see recipe below) Prepare first**

Directions
In large bowl stir together ice cream, marshmallows, 1/2 cup chopped chocolate, and toasted almonds or peanuts. Spoon into crust. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup chopped chocolate.
Cover and freeze at least 2 hours or until firm.
Let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes before cutting.

*Chocolate Pie Crust (good for lots of pies)
2 cups chocolate wafers (in a pinch use Oreos)
6 Tbsp butter

Directions
Melt butter.
Put chocolate wafers in plastic bag. Close bag and crush with spoon or rolling pin until you have tiny pea-sized chocolate bits. Or just whirl the cookies in a blender.
Combine melted butter with chocolate bits.
Press ingredients into 9-inch buttered pie pan. Be sure and go up the sides.
Bake 10 minutes at 325°F.
Cool completely before adding ice-cream.

How easy is this? O.K. even easier: Soften a gallon of Rocky Road Ice Cream and add to your Chocolate Pie Crust. Refreeze for two hours.

FLOURLESS CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT CAKE: National Hazelnut Cake Day!

Today is Hazelnut Cake Day! Hazelnuts are a staple in European baked goods, and this Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake is divine. And FYI, Hazelnuts are also known as filberts.

I'm always looking for a good flourless chocolate cake recipe, and this one for Flourless Chocolate-Hazelnut Cake, adapted slightly from Epicurious, is fabulous. Both Hazelnuts and Chocolate are heart-healthy, too. One caveat, hazelnuts are high in calories, but you're making a chocolate cake, so...what the hey! Don't have time to make this today? Bookmark this Gluten-free Recipe!

Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

Ingredients 
12 ounces 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
6 large eggs
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup Frangelico or other hazelnut liqueur, divided
1 cup (about 5 ounces) finely ground hazelnuts (ground in food processor)
1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt
1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
Chopped toasted hazelnuts

Directions:
Put rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F.
Butter 9-inch springform pan. Line bottom of pan with parchment paper round. Wrap outside of pan tightly with 3 layers of heavy-duty foil.
Combine chocolate and butter in medium metal bowl; set bowl over saucepan of simmering water. Whisk until mixture is melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water.
Whisk eggs, golden brown sugar, and 1/4 cup Frangelico in large bowl to blend. Add chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. Stir in ground hazelnuts and 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt. Transfer batter to prepared pan.
Place springform pan in large roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into roasting pan to come halfway up sides of springform pan. Place in oven and tent springform pan loosely with foil.
Bake until cake is set in center and top is dry to touch, about 1 1/2 hours (top of cake will remain shiny).
Remove cake from roasting pan; remove foil from top and outside of pan.
Cool cake in pan on rack.
Chill cake until cold, about 3 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

Whipping Cream:
Using electric mixer, beat whipping cream and remaining 1/4 cup Frangelico in medium bowl until soft peaks form. Run knife around pan sides to loosen cake. Release pan sides.
Cut cake into wedges. Transfer to plates. Top with whipped cream; sprinkle with chopped toasted hazelnuts.