Friday, December 29, 2006
Baking for the Family
I think I overdid it! For our family holiday party tomorrow night, I offered to make the dessert. I started with Bread & Butter Pudding with a side of Vanilla Creme Anglaise and Caramel Sauce then I made Pot de Creme, Vanilla Earl Grey Tea Creme Brulee, Blueberry Crumble and Mixed Nuts Chocolate Fudge Brownie. I am also going to whip the Chantilly Cream before serving all the desserts. At least it's a lot of variety for everyone to choose what they wanna eat! It felt really good to be baking. I need the practice as well. I am looking forward to working again and esp. in the kitchen. I can't believe I actually miss working with chocolates.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
here is something for you all out there troubling what to buy or eat on Vatlentine's Day
Valentine Dilemma: What's the Right Wine to Go With Chocolate?
2007-02-08 00:34 (New York)
Review by Elin McCoy
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- The heart-shaped, shiny red satin box
with gooey-centered chocolates has been the classic gift on
Valentine's Day for as long as I can remember. The urge to pair
it with a bottle of wine is a recent phenomenon.
On one side of the conundrum over what wine goes with
chocolate are those who still believe that it's a notorious
killer of fine wine, as deadly as artichokes or as tricky as
asparagus.
On the other are the growing number of wine-drinking
hedonists like me, who'd like to combine two sexy pleasures at
one go -- certainly on Valentine's Day, which is all about
romance and passion and perfect matches.
The quest for the right bottle to add a seductive touch to
the traditional sweet gesture has gained momentum in the U.S.
That's thanks to a sharp rise of artisan chocolate makers
(Scharffen Berger, Cocoa Pete's, Guittard) and an influx of
shops (and Web sites) of great European chocolatiers such as
Richart, Leonidas and Teuscher. Their high-end creamy truffles
and dark, rich, bittersweet products with high cocoa content
($50 and up per pound) have upgraded the taste buds of hard-core
chocoholics raised on Hershey's kisses. Some claim they go much
better with wine, especially dry reds like cabernet sauvignon.
Really? Time for serious research. I head to Belgique, my
local chocolaterie run by Belgian-trained Pierre Gilissen in a
cute red and yellow carriage house.
Armed with an array of chocolates and a few seductive
desserts, I grab a variety of sweet wines from my cellar and
throw in a couple of dry reds.
Sweeter Than Sweet
I quickly reaffirm one key pairing rule: Make sure the wine
is sweeter than the chocolate. Otherwise, the chocolate sucks up
the wine's fruit and the wine tastes thin and sharp.
I also discover that the type of chocolate -- white, milk,
semisweet, bitter or flavored -- matters a lot.
Sweet milk chocolate, the kiddie favorite, is trickiest.
The milk coats your tongue and kills just about any wine's
flavor. White chocolate is almost as bad.
Which explains why all the gourmet attention is on dark
chocolate, whose bitter roasted character and higher tannin
enhance certain wines.
Even so, be warned: All chocolate has a smooth, thick,
taste-bud-smothering texture that dominates all but the most
full-bodied (and a few sweet sparkling) wines.
Recommendations? Skip sweet whites like Sauternes and late
harvest riesling -- they have too much acidity to be good
matches. Reds are almost always more satisfying.
With chocolate-dipped strawberries, I'd pick fizzy, sweet,
fresh-berry-flavored 2005 Coppo Brachetto d'Acqui ($30) from
Italy's Piedmont region. The bubbles contrast with the
chocolate's texture; the dark pink color is highly romantic.
(Not bad with a creamy chocolate truffle, either.)
Powerful Port
The traditional choice, port, is always reliably chocolate-
friendly because of its sensuous, ripe-fruit sweetness and high
alcohol. Think of it as matching power with power. Go for an
intense, plummy 2000 Late Bottled Vintage from Taylor Fladgate
($20).
Two red vins doux naturels from the south of France, 2003
Domaine du Mas Blanc Banyuls Rimage La Coume ($50) and 2003 Mas
Amiel Maury ($25), are good all-rounders. Made primarily from
the grenache grape, they're less sweet and slightly lower in
alcohol than port, have lovely plump red fruit flavors and are
heaven with chocolates with higher cocoa content and crunchy
chocolate-covered espresso beans.
Unctuous, scented and seductive muscats from Australia
(``stickies,'' as they say Down Under) are a great choice. Try
the non-vintage Yalumba Museum Reserve Muscat ($18 for a half-
bottle) with its spicy, raisiny flavors, or powerful, velvety-
textured non-vintage Quady Elysium black muscat from California
($12 for a half-bottle).
Dry Reds
On to the dry reds. As in love, a match can bloom when you
least expect it. New World high-alcohol fruit bombs are not my
favorite type of wine. But with one of the least-sweet
chocolates, the lavish, youthful cherry-berry fruit in the 2003
Girard Artistry California cab blend ($45) was pure delight.
Wineries, seeing an unmissable marketing possibility this
Feb. 14, are working overtime to encourage promiscuous pairings.
Over the next two weeks you can pick your own favorite
combos at dozens of chocolate-and-wine fests nationwide, from
Napa Valley's Copia Center (``A Match Made in Heaven!'' and
``Death by Chocolate'') to New York City's bubbly bars Flute
(``Dessert Champagne and Chocolate'') to wine country
extravaganzas like Seneca Lake Wine Trail's 31-winery-stop
``Wine and Chocolate'' weekend in Upstate New York.
(Elin McCoy writes on wine and spirits for Bloomberg News.
The opinions expressed are her own.)
--Editors: West (jjb).
Story illustration: For more information on wine events, see
http://www.localwineevents.com, http://www.copia.org,
http://www.flutebar.com and http://www.senecalakewine.com.
so what is the verdict? what is the best choc/wine combination for V Day
Post a Comment