Bittersweet Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tarts

These Bittersweet Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tarts are decadent and delicious. They are seriously elegant, and perfect for a small party or a romantic dinner for two.

This recipe for chocolate caramel pecan tarts makes two 4 inch tarts. It's up to you as to how many servings that is. I like a quarter piece, and Mr. Kitchen can easily polish off half a tart (he has the skinny gene). The recipe can also be easily scaled and adapted for a muffin tin or a larger tart. Just bring your geometry skills.

Coconut Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries

This coconut panna cotta with fresh raspberries is so light and delicious. It's a wonderful make-ahead guilt free dessert.

This coconut panna cotta with fresh berries is a lightened up version of the amazing delicious dessert of dairy thickened with gelatin. It's origins are Italian, and the name is loosely translated to "cooked cream."

Ukrainian Caramel Honey Cake

This Caramel Honey Cake is loaded with chopped pecans and frosted with an amazing Dulce de Leche Buttercream.

This Caramel Honey Cake is six layers of honey sponge cake loaded with chopped pecans and almond flour that are brushed with a sweetened condensed milk and cream mixture and then frosted with the amazing buttercream.

Mint Chocolate French Macarons

These mint chocolate French macarons, elegant little almond cookie shells filled with a mint chocolate ganache, are such huge crowd pleasers. 

This month, the Fantastical Food Fight members are sharing recipes with the theme of chocolate mint. I originally attempted making chocolate mint brownies for the theme, but they were a complete fail, so instead I decided to make macarons.

My Top Five Desserts for 2018

These are my top five favorite desserts for 2018. 

All of these desserts were so good!

Cranberry-Almond Shortbread Tart

This cranberry-almond shortbread tart features a shortbread crust flavored with almonds and cornmeal, and filled with a tart homemade cranberry jam brightened with lemon juice and apricot jam.

This cranberry tart is easy to make ahead. First, you can make the dough and refrigerate it up to two days or freeze it for up to two weeks.

Fresh Cherry Clafoutis with Almonds

This Fresh Cherry Clafoutis with almonds is a tasty custardy dessert. Clafoutis (pronounced cla-foo-tee) is totally elegant, yet very easy to make. 

Cherry Clafoutis is a traditional French dessert. In fact, the traditional way it is baked is with un-pitted cherries. Evidently the thinking is that the cherry pits impart an almond flavor to the dessert.

Espresso Chiffon Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This Espresso Chiffon Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting is both light from the chiffon layers, and rich from the fudge buttercream.

I don't make cakes very often, mostly because I'm pretty bad at frosting them (and stacking the layers so they don't look like the leaning tower of Pisa).

Palets de Dames, Lille Style | Tuesdays with Dorie

Palets de Dames, Lille Style, are small, cake-like vanilla cookies, lightly glazed with a sweet icing.

They are the first recipe the Tuesdays with Dorie group is making from Dorie Greenspan's new book, Baking Chez Moi, Recipes from My Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere. When I first found out about this book, I preordered it, sight unseen. I am such a fangirl. In this book, Dorie Greenspan has compiled a collection of simple dessert recipes that represent the various regions of France, where she has lived for almost 20 years.

As always, Dorie makes what might seem complicated completely accessible.

Palets de Dames are a favorite cookie in the patisseries in Lille, a city in northern France, according to the book. They also have various iterations across the country, but the ones in Lille have this lovely pale icing.

These little two-bite cookies are so easy to make and so worth it. Perfect for afternoon tea.

The recipe can be found here.  To check out how other Tuesdays with Dorie participants liked the recipe, visit here. You can buy the book here.

Salted Chocolate Caramel Tartlets

This recipe for Salted Chocolate Caramel Tartlets makes just two 4 inch tarts, but they are so decadent that just a quarter or half of a tart is plenty to satisfy your sweet tooth. The bits of sea salt sprinkled on top are a perfect balance to the chocolate and caramel. The flavor reminds me of the salted caramels from Fran's Chocolates in Seattle. So good!

Chocolate-Hazelnut Madeleines

Madeleines with cocoa, chocolate chips, Nutella, and Frangelico. Little chocolaty cakes with the wonderful flavor of hazelnuts. I had to bake these.

Mini Chocolate-Espresso Pots de Creme

These mini chocolate espresso pots de creme are the perfect ending for a dinner party. Each serving is only 1/4 C, so there is no reason for feeling guilty for having dessert, yet their flavor is amazingly rich. They are perfect served with a cup of coffee or a digestif.

They are as dark as espresso and full of bittersweet chocolate. There is only 1 tablespoon of sugar added to the mixture beyond what is in the chocolate.

I like to serve them with a bit of whipped cream on top and a demitasse spoon. If you really want to be elegant, you can serve this in espresso cups and saucers. How fancy is that?

Chocolate-Espresso Pots de Creme

Adapted from Bite-Size Desserts: Creating Mini Sweet Treats, from Cupcakes to Cobblers to Custards and Cookies by Carole Bloom.

Equipment needed: 8 2 1/4 inch ramekins or espresso cups.

Ingredients

1 1/4 C heavy whipping cream

2 tsp. instant espresso powder

3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (about 65% to 75% cacao) finely chopped

3 extra large egg yolks

1 T granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

2 to 3 cups of boiling water for the water bath

Instructions

1. In a 1 quart saucepan, bring the heavy cream and espresso to a boil, whisking to dissolve the espresso. 
2. Remove the pan from the heat, add the chocolate, and whisk until all of the chocolate is fully incorporated. It sometimes will take a while. 
3. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F with a rack in the middle. 
4. Using a stand mixer, hand mixer, or a whisk, mix the egg yolks to break them up. Add the sugar, vanilla, and salt and continue whisking until well blended. 
5. Slowly add the chocolate cream mixture while whisking/mixing constantly to thoroughly blend the ingredients. 
6. Strain the mixture into a 2 cup measuring cup. 
7. Divide the mixture evenly among the 8 ramekins. 
8. Place the ramekins into a quarter sheet pan or a 2 quart casserole and bring 2 to 3 cups of water to a boil. I usually do it in a large Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave. It makes it easier to poor into the pan. 
9. When the water is boiling, pour it into the baking pan so that it comes about half way up the sides of the ramekins. Cover the pan tightly with foil and carefully place it in the oven.
10. Bake for 25 to 27 minutes, until the sides are done but the middle is still slightly soft. 
11. Cool the ramekins on a cooling rack. At this point, you can serve them warm if you like for a soft dessert.
12. To serve cold, once they have cooled, cover loosely with wax paper and then cover tightly with plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours. They are great for making ahead of time. 
13. Serve with a tiny spritz of whipped cream. 

Chocolate Covered Cherry Almond Tarts

These little chocolate covered cherry almond tarts are comprised of a flaky crust and a creamy almond filling topped with fresh cherries that are coated with a chocolate ganache.

Flaky crust... Almond pastry cream... Fresh cherries...  Chocolate ganache.... All baked into two 4 1/2 inch tartelette pans.  The combination of flavors works beautifully and makes a wonderful summer dessert for two... or four if you don't mind sacrificing the style factor and serving them cut in half. You could always add a dollop of vanilla ice cream. Summer!

While the tart is inspired by chocolate covered cherries, in this tart, the cherries are fresh and not coated with a sugary syrup.

For the crust, I used some leftover dough I had in the freezer. The recipe for the dough is the same as the one from this apple tart. Any recipe for your favorite pie crust will do. Just make enough for a crust bottom. I love this one because it is amazingly tender and flaky. It's my favorite crust recipe.

Recommended tools/equipment for these tarts: 

1. Two 4 1/2 inch to 4 3/4 inch tartelette pans with removable bottoms. If you're good at geometry, you could substitute one or three different sized pans. 
2. A food processor, ideally a mini food processor.You'll need this to mix up the almond cream filling. 
3. A cherry pitter. You can make this dessert without one.. and who needs another single use kitchen gadget? In this case, me. I love my little cherry pitter, even if it's single use. It doesn't hurt that one of my grandkids is a cherry lover and helps me pit the cherries with this gadget. I can't seem to find the one that I use available on line, but I'm sure that the multiple ones that are available are all good. Just check the reviews. 

Strawberry Chocolate Anniversary Cake

You know how when people celebrate their one year anniversary, they are supposed to bring out the top of the cake from the freezer and share it with each other? I'm pretty sure that top tier cake ends up in the trash (well, maybe it is Instagrammed and then dumped in the trash).

Why not make a new little anniversary cake?

This little cake is baked in two 5 inch cake pans, perfectly sized for a first year anniversary celebration. I have made the chocolate cake many times, sometimes with chocolate, and sometimes with vanilla frosting. This time I wanted something a bit fresher to go with the Chocolate Party theme for this month, strawberries. Why not whipped cream? Strawberries and cream on a little devil's food cake.

This cake is layered with a lightly sweetened whipped cream and a fresh strawberry reduction. It's light and seasonal. If you like, you can prepare the cake layers and the strawberry Cointreau reduction in advance. When you are ready to serve the cake, whip the cream and assemble the layers.

This cake also is in celebration of the one year anniversary of my blog. Happy anniversary, happy anniversary, happy anniversary, haaaaa-ppy anniversary.

What especially touches my heart about this cake is that I have baked variations of it several times with my grandson. He decorates it with as many candies and sprinkles as he likes. I keep a large assortment on hand of course. You can't have too many sprinkles in life.

Genoise Madeleines | Tuesdays with Dorie

This week, the Tuesdays with Dorie group is tackling Madeleines. For something that had intimidated me, these Madeleines were pretty easy.

Boca Negra Cake | Tuesdays with Dorie - Baking with Julia

This cake looks innocent enough sitting here on this plate. It's not.

Ovaltine Macarons

I've had my ups and downs with macarons. I had beginner's luck with my first and second batches, which gave me a sense of false confidence. Then my third batch cracked... baking sheet after baking sheet cracked.. and cracked... and cracked.

I am competitive (it runs in my family). This sort of thing becomes an obsession. I ended up taking a class at Sur la Table, which was both confidence building and a lot of fun. I highly recommend it.  I got to ask a billion questions as well as practice "macaronnage," the technique of mixing almond flour and meringue. I still approach baking macarons with a little bit of fear, but the class really helped.

I still park myself in front of the oven with the light on while the first batch bakes, just to see if I get "feet" (the crinkly part) and un-cracked shells.

I love the flavor of chocolate malt, so when I saw this recipe, I had to give these a try. These are filled with chocolate ganache, which goes nicely with the malt and almond flavor of the shells.

Ovaltine Macarons

Inspired by Daydreamer Desserts

Note: Using a scale is essential for making macarons. They are not very expensive. If you bake, get one. You won't regret it. And it will save you a lot of time in dishwashing. 

Second note: On a piece of parchment paper, draw 1 1/3 inch circles to use as a pattern template. Place this paper under the parchment paper that you will use to bake the shells. Slide it out from under the top piece of parchment prior to baking the shells. 

Ingredients

Shells

175 grams powdered sugar

25 grams Ovaltine

110 grams almond flour

90 grams egg whites (from three to four eggs)

Pinch of cream of tartar

25 grams granulated sugar

Filling

Your favorite chocolate frosting will work here. I used a ganache filling. 

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
• In a food processor, pulse the powdered sugar, Ovaltine, and almond flour together. 
• Sift the dry ingredients through a sieve into a bowl. Discard any large pieces.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the wire whip attachment, whisk the egg whites and the cream of tartar on medium speed until foamy. Gradually add the granulated sugar. Once the sugar has been added, scrape the bowl, and increase the speed to high and whisk until the egg whites are stiff and form glossy peaks.
• Sift the almond flour mixture 1/3 at a time over the egg white mixture and fold it in using a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth and shiny and drips slowly from the spatula. 
• Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch plain round pastry tip and pipe into 1 1/3 inch rounds onto parchment lined baking sheets. Slam the sheets onto the counter to release any trapped air. Let the rounds sit for 30 minutes, or until no longer sticky on the surface. 
• Stack the baking sheet on top of another baking sheet and bake, one sheet at a time, about 15 to 18 minutes, rotating half way through. 
• Let the macarons cool on the baking sheets for a couple of minutes. Transfer the shells to a wire rack and cool completely. 
• Pipe the filling onto one of the shells, and top with another shell. 
• Store in an air tight container in the refrigerator up to one week. 

Toffee & Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies | Heath Bar Cookies

These Toffee and Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies are made from a not too sweet shortbread dough (only 1/2 cup sugar per three dozen cookies) and then studded with mini chocolate chips and toffee bits. Then they are dipped in semi-sweet chocolate.

The subtle hint of espresso in the vanilla shortbread, along with the chocolate chips and salty Heath Bar toffee chips combine together to make a cookie that both kids and grown ups in you life will love.