Happy Absinthe Day! Add Chocolate

Today is National Absinthe Day, and I thought I'd repost my blog from last year, with a few additions. Absinthe is a strong herbal liqueur distilled with a large number of herbs like anise, licorice, hyssop, veronica, fennel, lemon balm, angelica and wormwood (the flavor of anise and/or licorice, at least in contemporary forms of the liquor, tends to predominate).  

Wormwood, the one that's gained the most notoriety, is Artemisia absinthum, an herb that grows wild in Europe and has been cultivated in the United States as well. Much of the liquor's legendary effect is due to its extremely high alcohol content, ranging from 50% to 75% (usually around 60%), plus the contribution of the various herbs. It has been assumed by many that the so-called "active ingredient" in absinthe is wormwood, although that is apparently not really the case.

The drink was referred to in France as "La Fée Verte", or The Green Fairy, which is a reference to its dazzling green color (depending on the brand). The color usually came from the chlorophyll content of the herbs used in the distillation process; however, some disreputable manufacturers added toxic chemicals to produce both the green color and the louche (or clouding) effect that in reputable brands was caused by the precipitation of the essential oils of the herbs. It is quite probable that the bad reputation absinthe developed was due to these low-grade and perhaps quite poisonous version of the real thing.

Absinthe was very popular in fin-de-siècle Paris, with Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Verlaine, Alfred Jarry and Oscar Wilde among its most famous imbibers. 


Two good websites for Absinthe: La Fee Verte  & The Wormwood Society




Absinthe pairs nicely with Dark Chocolate, so you might want to consider a chocolate/absinthe pairing at your next party. Really! Or you can try some of the following:

Artemisia Collection makes a Chocolate Absinthe which is cocoa mixed with the aroma of Sicilian oranges and red hot peppers from Calabria blended with Wormwood. This Hot Spicy Chocolate Artemisia Absinthe gives the drinker a sweet and unique sensation.

Nunu Chocolates' Absinthe Delight is one of the most popular flavors from Nunu Chocolates. The anise flavor holds its own with the dark chocolate! A very 'addictive' treat!  Want to make your own absinthe truffles? Food Curated has a great post with the recipe for Nunu Chocolates' Absinthe Liquor Ganache. Yum!

Pastiglie Leone makes an Absinthe Dark Chocolate Bar, but I've never had it. I know they have a whole line of absinthe related sweets. 

CutoutandKeep has a fabulous recipe for Flaming Chocolate Absinthe Cake. You might need to convert the ingredients, but that's easy enough. Great step by step instructions! Absinthe Cakes are traditional Birthday Cakes in New Orleans and France...well, for some people! Why not make it Chocolate.


And, be sure and read my post on Absinthe & Edgar Allan Poe on Mystery Fanfare.

Kerry Greenwood Cookbook: Boiled Chocolate Cake

If you read this blog, you know that I also post about crime fiction (news, reviews, holiday booklists, and interviews) at MysteryFanfare.com. Many mystery writers include recipes in their mysteries, or their characters cook or bake, or they dine on sumptious meals. I collect literary/mystery/TV/movie tie-in cookbooks, so I've been wanting a cookbook from Australian author Kerry Greenwood to accompany her Corinna Chapman, baker mysteries. Well, the wait is over. There is now a Corinna Chapman cookbook available as a free PDF download. Great recipes, historical annotations, food history, and encouraging cooking tips. 26 pages.  Kerry Greenwood: mouth-watering morsels to make your man melt: Recipes from Corinna Chapman, baker and reluctant investigator. Go HERE and click on the cover of the Cookbook to download.

I mentioned the Kerry Greenwood Cookbook the other day on MysteryFanfare.com, but with a different recipe. Since this is a Chocolate blog, I thought Corinna Chapman's recipe for Boiled Chocolate Cake would be best. You'll need to adjust your oven setting to 350 degrees if you're in the U.S. Caster Sugar is superfine sugar. This recipe is quite versatile, and you can ice or not, add decorations or not, use cocoa or dark chocolate instead of powdered milk chocolate. So many choices!

From the Cookbook:
BOILED CHOCOLATE CAKE

From the admirable Mary Phillipou, for when you unexpectedly have a children’s party arriving on your doorstep or a lot of relatives who didn’t mention that they were on their way . . .

Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
3⁄4 cup caster sugar
1⁄4 cup drinking chocolate powder (milk)
1⁄4 teaspoon bicarb of soda
1⁄4 cup water
1⁄2 cup milk
1 egg
1-1⁄2 cups self-raising flour

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease a 20-cm cake tin and line it with baking paper. Combine the butter, sugar, chocolate, bicarb of soda, water and milk in a saucepan. Stir and bring to the boil. Take off the stove. Allow to cool to room temperature. Add the egg and flour and mix well. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 30 minutes. It’s cooked when a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool before icing.

Icing
2 cups pure icing sugar
3 tablespoons milk chocolate powder
melted butter milk

Mix together the chocolate powder and enough melted butter and milk to make it smooth—about a teaspoon of each to start, then add more little by little until the paste is sturdy but not stiff.
Ice cake when cold. A studding of smarties is always popular. Or hundreds and thousands. Or grated chocolate. You can make a grown-up version of this for a very fast and impressive dessert cake by using baking cocoa or grated dark cooking chocolate instead of milk chocolate powder. When the cake is cool pour over it a tablespoon or two of Kahlua, rum or brandy and then either ready-made chocolate syrup or chocolate ganache, made by melting equal quantities of good dark chocolate and cream in a microwave. Add a handful of glacé cherries or candied peel or sugared violets or walnuts and serve with heavy cream and strawberries.

It’s a flexible recipe. Play with variations on one of those cold dark Sunday afternoons when you feel like cooking and your undeserving household is watching the cricket/football. If the experiment fails, they still have to eat it. And like it.
***

Kerry Greenwood was born in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray and after wandering far and wide, she returned to live there. She has a degree in English and Law from Melbourne University and was admitted to the legal profession on the 1st April 1982, a day which she finds both soothing and significant.

Kerry has written twenty novels, a number of plays, including The Troubadours with Stephen D'Arcy, is an award-winning children's writer and has edited and contributed to several anthologies. In 1996 she published a book of essays on female murderers called Things She Loves: Why women Kill.

The Phryne Fisher series (pronounced Fry-knee, to rhyme with briny) began in 1989 with Cocaine Blues which was a great success. Kerry has written eighteen books in this series with no sign yet of Miss Fisher hanging up her pearl-handled pistol. Kerry says that as long as people want to read them, she can keep writing them. In 2012, Phryne will appear in a series to be screened on ABC TV (in Australia)

Kerry Greenwood has worked as a folk singer, factory hand, director, producer, translator, costume-maker, cook and is currently a solicitor. When she is not writing, she works as a locum solicitor for the Victorian Legal Aid. She is also the unpaid curator of seven thousand books, three cats (Attila, Belladonna and Ashe) and a computer called Apple (which squeaks). She embroiders very well but cannot knit. She has flown planes and leapt out of them (with a parachute) in an attempt to cure her fear of heights (she is now terrified of jumping out of planes but can climb ladders without fear). She can detect second-hand bookshops from blocks away and is often found within them.

For fun Kerry reads science fiction/fantasy and detective stories. She is not married, has no children and lives with a registered wizard. When she is not doing any of the above she stares blankly out of the window.

Hap Tip to Fan, Entrepreneur and Pastry Chef Luna Raven for alerting me to this cookbook.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! March 2nd is not only Dr. Seuss's Birthday, but it's also National Read Across America Day, a national program to support and encourage children's reading. NEA's Read Across America is an annual reading motivation and awareness program that calls for every child in every community to celebrate reading on March 2, the birthday of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss. Having been a reading teacher in a former life, I know how important it is to get children reading when they're young. This is a fabulous day, and since this is a Chocolate Blog, you can enhance the day with chocolate, but that's my bias.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. 

The more you learn, the more places you'll go." 

— Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!

Even though Green Eggs & Ham is the most popular of the 'food' Seuss books, and, by all means read it and make some green eggs and ham, since it's Dr. Seuss's Birthday, read  Happy Birthday to You and bake a cake!  Check out a copy from your library or buy a copy and read it to or with a child. To enhance the experience, bake a few chocolate cakes, cupcakes or buy a chocolate Sheet Cake, and have the children decorate.

You could also read Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose and serve Chocolate Mousse sprinkled with red candy hearts.

Here's a classic recipe for Cat in the Hat Cookies:  Melt white chocolate in the microwave. Dip a round cracker or cookie in the white chocolate, place on wax paper and top with a marshmallow. Allow to cool. Pipe bright red icing as rings around the marshmallow and cover the top.

And from Parents Connect, here's a recipe for  Dr. Seuss's Sneetch Treats. Perfect as a companion to reading The Sneetches.

8 oz. butter, melted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1½ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups uncooked, 1-minute oatmeal
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup golden raisins
2 chocolate bars, broken into squares
6 large marshmallows
Wooden skewers soaked in water or BBQ forks

1 Preheat oven to 350°
2 Combine melted butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla in a bowl. Mix well.
3 In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to the butter mixture.
4 Add the oatmeal, walnuts and raisins. Mix well.
5 Drop the batter (1 tablespoon at a time) onto ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten each cookie slightly with the back of a spatula.
6 Bake 12 minutes until golden and firm. Remove cookies to cake rack to cool.
7 Once cookies have cooled, put a square of chocolate onto each cookie.
8 Heat up your grill (or smoker... or fire pit... or oven).
9 Place marshmallows on skewers or BBQ forks. Slowly roast marshmallows over the grill until they're golden on each side.
10 Carefully slide marshmallows off of forks and onto the chocolate-covered cookies. Place another cookie on top of the Marshmallow.

Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American writer and cartoonist  best known for his classic children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss. With millions of books in print, and nearly all of his titles still available for sale, Dr. Seuss was, up until his death in 1991, one of the most prolific living writer behind Barbara Cartland. His Green Eggs and Ham is the third largest selling book in the English language. He wrote 44 children’s books. His best-sellers included: Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who!, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Seuss’s first book And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street was published in 1937 after being rejected almost 30 times.

This was a Cat in the Hat Birthday Cake from Christine Guzman, owner of The Quaint Cake Co in Boca Raton, FL.  It was a chocolate cake, of course! They're no longer making cakes, but be sure and check out their gallery...site is still up for your enjoyment!

Scottish Macaroon Bars: Catriona McPherson

Photo: Janet Rudolph

The great thing about having author events for Mystery Readers NorCal at my home is that the participants bring treats, and knowing of my chocolate addiction, they're always stellar! Recently crime writer Val McDermid was here for a Literary Salon, and she invited fellow Scottish mystery author Catriona McPherson. Catriona brought the absolutely fabulous Scottish national sweet Macaroon Bars. These tasted nothing like any macaroon I've ever had--and don't even think about comparing them to the French macaron. Scottish Macaroon Bars have a very sugary snow white inside that's dipped in chocolate and rolled in toasted coconut. These are very, very, very sweet.

This candy reminded me of those coconut patties my grandparents used to bring back from Florida when I was a kid. So you can imagine my surprise when Catriona told me the secret ingredient -- mashed potatoes. Of course I immediately asked her to share her recipe with readers of DyingforChocolate.com. My mystery and chocolate worlds collide again. Love her post and recipe method.. being Scottish she also has a plan for the leftover bits :-)

Catriona McPherson is a Scottish mystery writer whose recent transplantation to Northern California has had two main repercussions: a lot of Skype time with old friends and a lo-hot of learning to make things she used to buy - shortbread, haggis, oatcakes and these traditional macaroon bars. For more on Catriona's series of 1920s detective novels - the latest is Dandy Gilver and The Proper Treatment of Bloodstains - please visit www.dandygilver.com.

CATRIONA McPHERSON:

Every Scottish kid buys these with his or her pocket money. I didn’t know you could make them until I moved to California and was forced into extremes of ingenuity. And even I was surprised by the first ingredient. A good tip is not to tell anyone about it until they’ve tasted the results. No one has spat one out yet on hearing the news.

Macaroon Bars

Photo: Catriona McPherson

Ingredients:
One large floury potato (a Russet is ideal)
Roughly a pound of icing aka powdered sugar and then some
Roughly a pound of dark chocolate
Roughly a pound of shredded coconut
A pinch of salt (optional)

Now, I know the quantities in the ingredients list are not calibrated with precision. The main thing is to have lots of icing sugar. If you run out of chocolate or coconut, you can save the filling in the freezer for when you’ve bought more. If you find yourself with too much chocolate (?) and coconut you can make a couple of rocky roads with crumbled digestives and dried fruit.

Method:
Peel and boil the potato until it’s tender but not mushy and then mash it very smooth. Don’t whip it with a machine - it’ll go gummy.
In a large bowl, begin to tip in the sugar in batches and mix it with the potato. Keep going until you have a paste so stiff your arms hurt. Pinch a piece off and taste it. It shouldn’t taste like potato. If it does, rest your arms and then try again. If you use a processor for this bit, just keep going until you can’t incorporate any more sugar or your machine blows up.
Roll the paste out into a shortbread tin or other shallow pan. No need to grease.
At this stage, I would sprinkle the pan with a little salt. I love salt with chocolate. Miss it out if it seems odd but if you use it, sprinkle it at this stage and don’t mix it in. Burst of salt through the sweet on the tongue are so much better than overall saltiness.
Now mark the mixture out into squares ready to break it up when it’s set. Small pieces will be best: it’s quite sweet.

Put the tin in the freezer to chill and stiffen even more.
Melt the chocolate very gently in a bowl set over simmering water. When it’s all melted keep it over the water to stay warm.
Toast the coconut in a dry frying pan. Be careful! It burns about half a second after it browns. Don’t use the toasting time to check your email. When it’s all toasted, spread it on a plate.
Set out a few big plates or racks covered with greaseproof paper.
Now take the tin of filling out of the freezer and break it up into “bars”.
Using tongs or a fish slice, dip each bar into chocolate, then toss it in coconut, then lay it on the greaseproof paper. This operation will descend into sticky chaos.
When the bars are all coated or the chocolate and coconut has run out, put them back into the fridge or freezer to chill them, then keep them in airtight tins, interleaved with paper, until you want them.

I have no idea how long they keep. How would you find out?