CHOCOLATE MARSHMALLOW DREIDELS: Hanukah

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts Sunday night, and these fabulous Chocolate Marshmallow Dreidels are perfect for the holiday. They are easy to make and delicious to eat!

A Dreidel is a four-sided spinning top with a Hebrew letter on each side. During Chanukah (Hanukah, Hanukkah), children play a game that involves spinning the dreidel and betting on which Hebrew letter will show when the dreidel stops spinning. Children usually play for a pot of 'gelt' -- chocolate coins covered in gold colored foil.

You won't be spinning these tops unless you want chocolate all over the floor, but making these Chocolate Marshmallow Dreidels is a fun activity to do with children.

This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart's recipe for Chocolate Marshmallow Dreidels. If you want to take it up a notch, make your own marshmallows or buy some high end marshmallows made with natural ingredients like those from Recchiuti. I usually use whatever dark chocolate I have, but you can use any good dark chocolate. For the white chocolate I use Green & Black's White Chocolate that's made with Madagascar vanilla. I also use Paul Newman's Own Organic pretzel sticks. They are a little long, so I snap them in half. Or, you can use a short lollipop stick.

Apologies for the poor calligraphy. Practice makes perfect, and I'm very out of practice. :-)

CHOCOLATE MARSHMALLOW DREIDELS

Ingredients
12 chocolate kisses (I use Hershey's Kisses)
8 ounces melted dark chocolate
12 marshmallows (homemade or whatever you have)
12 thin pretzel sticks (I use Newman's Own)
2 ounces melted white chocolate (I use Green & Black)

Directions 
Dip bottom of chocolate kiss in melted semisweet chocolate. Press onto marshmallow; transfer to parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat to make 12 dreidels. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Cut small slit in bottom of each marshmallow or just one thin pretzel stick into the marshmallow. Dip dreidels in dark chocolate, and return to baking sheet. Refrigerate until set, about 15 minutes.

Fill plastic bag (or pastry bag) with melted white chocolate; cut a tiny opening in corner, and pipe Hebrew letters onto 3 sides of each dreidel. I used a pastry bag with a tip, but I should have practiced a bit first so I wouldn't have any drips.

Refrigerate at least 5 minutes or up to 8 hours before serving. 

 

NATIONAL PASTRY DAY!

Today is National Pastry Day. I know that the term pastry covers a huge range of baked goods that includes flour, butter, sugar, eggs and milk, but I thought today I'd mention the pâtisserie.  

I can rarely pass a Pâtisserie here or in France without going in and sampling the pastries. But the term pâtisserie has a very specific meaning in France and Belgium. It refers to a French or Belgian bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets. In those countries it is a legally controlled title that can only be used by bakeries that employ a licensed master pastry chef.

I am not a maître pâtissier, and I imagine you're not either, but for National Pastry Day, I thought I'd post my go-to pastry recipe for Mini-Chocolate Eclairs.

My favorite eclairs are not the long thin "traditional" hotdog shaped eclairs (although I like those, too), but rather, the mini-eclairs. Pâte à choux.. little puff pastry. I've been making for years. They are simple to make and easy to fill. They're so easy and yet look so beautiful and taste fabulous! Hope you enjoy making these as much as I do!

I've adapted this recipe for Mini Chocolate Eclairs from Paula Deen. It is one of my favorites because it's easy and fabulous! I never use margarine, so I've dropped that alternative from the recipe. Real butter is always best. As always, I use the very best dark chocolate for the topping. I've changed a few measurements and directions in the recipe for the novice Eclair Chef. If you're a purist, just click on Paula Deen's recipe above.

Because these eclairs are so small, feel free to have 3 or 4. Yield depends on how small you make them, but I can get about 40 small eclairs from this recipe. They're great for a crowd!

Want to make these even more chocolate? Add a handful of chocolate chips or chocolate chunks to the egg cream filling or fill with chocolate cream instead: just add 1/4 dark cocoa to the dry ingredients. To fill the eclairs, I use a pastry bag, but if you don't have one, you can always fill a Ziploc bag and cut the tip off to pipe the filling into the eclair.

You will probably have some extra icing. Half the recipe if you ice sparingly. I'm all about chocolate, so there's never much left.

MINI CHOCOLATE ECLAIRS

Pastry:
1 cup water
8 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
3 eggs

Filling:
3 cups whole milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla

Icing:
3 ounces unsweetened dark chocolate
2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F.
Heat water and butter to boiling point. Add flour and stir constantly until mixture is smooth and forms a ball when tested in cold water. Remove from heat and let cool. Beat in 3 eggs, one at a time. Drop dough from teaspoon, elongate slightly to form small eclairs (or drop in 'puffs'), onto greased cookie sheet. Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes or until light brown. Set aside to cool.
Prepare filling by mixing all dry ingredients. Very slowly add milk over low heat and cook until mixture thickens (don't let heat get too high), so you don't have any lumps. Then pour this custard into the beaten eggs, stirring quickly (so eggs don't cook). Cool and add vanilla.
With serrated knife, slice pastry puffs lengthwise (or if you have puffs make a hole), but not all the way through. Pipe custard mixture into the center.
Melt chocolate for icing, add sugar and cream. Cook over medium heat until soft ball stage.
Let cool and beat until smooth.
Ice tops of eclairs.

National Brownie Day: How Temperature, Butter, & Sugar Affect Your Brownies

Today is National Brownie Day! Be sure to search on DyingforChocolate.com for 150+ Brownie recipes. as I always say, you can never have enough recipes! 

A few years ago I came across this handy dandy chart at Delish on How Temperature, Butter, and Sugar Affect Your Brownies. All you need to know in one place. So helpful! Thanks, Delish! Be sure and check out lots of Brownie Recipes here on DyingforChocolate.com, as well as at Delish.com.

COTTON CANDY HOT CHOCOLATE: Cotton Candy Day

Today is Cotton Candy Day which seems odd since I always associate Cotton Candy with summer. Growing up we bought Cotton Candy fresh from the spinner at the Fair, the Carnival, on the Pier, or at the Amusement Park, all summer activities in my hemisphere. Now, you can buy Cotton Candy already made and packaged at the candy store or supermarket. You can also make your own using a Cotton Candy home machine available on Amazon and elsewhere. Cotton Candy used to be pink only, but now Cotton Candy comes in all kinds of bright colors -- pink, blue, yellow and more. It even comes in a chocolate flavor.

So because it's winter, I'm posting a recipe for Cotton Candy Hot Chocolate. The cotton candy is used as you would use marshmallows--on top of the cocoa. The cotton candy also acts as the sugar for your cocoa, so you can reduce the sugar in your hot chocolate recipe. This would be a great recipe for Valentine's Day, too. Just add some sugar heart candy! Bookmark the recipe. Of course you can always just make your own cocoa your own way and top with Cotton Candy, but I always like to have an alternate cocoa recipe.

Where did Cotton Candy originate?

Most people think the origin of cotton candy (also known as spun sugar" "fairy floss" or "candy floss") is a simple documented fact. It's not. There are several stories recounting the invention of cotton candy. All are interesting. None are definitive. Most accounts credit the invention of cotton candy to enterprising American businessmen at the turn of the 20th century. The Cotton Candy machine was patented in 1899 by William Morrison and John C. Wharton. The 1904 Louisiana Exposition in St. Louis is often cited as the place where cotton candy was introduction to the American people. The truth? Spun sugar was known long before this time. Mid-18th century master confectioners in Europe and America hand crafted spun sugar nests as Easter decorations and webs of silver and gold spun sugar for elaborate dessert presentations. At that time, spun sugar was an expensive, labor-intensive endeavor and was not generally available to the average person. The invention of modern machines changed all that.

COTTON CANDY HOT CHOCOLATE

Ingredients 
1-1/2 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1-1/2 ounces unsweetened cocoa
3/4 Tbsp cornstarch (or flour)
1 Tbsp sugar
1-1/2 cups milk
Cotton candy

Directions
In saucepan over low-medium heat, combine cocoa powder, chocolate, cornstarch, and sugar with small whisk. With a little bit of milk, whisk chocolate to avoid lumps. Add milk gradually while whisking continuously. Turn off heat when hot chocolate thickens and reaches consistency you like. If it's too thick, add more milk. Serve hot with cotton candy on top. The cotton candy serves as the sugar, so adjust the sugar amount to your taste.