Weekly Dish

March is a month of many celebrations in our little family. David and I were married on the 10th, and his birthday falls on the 25th. It’s also, in this part of the world, the beginning of my favorite season: spring.

This March felt especially monumental in our lives: David turned 30, and we celebrated 6 years of marriage, the last one where it will be just the two of us living in our house. It’s funny how the expectation surrounding the birth of a child makes everything seem like such a big deal; maybe it’s just the hormones, but I have felt a sense of urgency to mark occasions by celebrating with more fervor than usual (and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am even in my non-pregnant state an occasion kind of girl).

David was not thrilled about the prospect of turning 30, so I put that celebration on the backburner for a while and concentrated on our anniversary. Usually, I cook a romantic dinner and wear my wedding dress for the evening. Silly, I know, and not very possible this year due to this person protruding from the front of my body. And, I didn’t feel much like spending such a beautiful weekend inside cooking either, so we came up with a new plan. David orchestrated an afternoon picnic and afterwards, we decided to head out to see a movie (neither of us could remember the last time we actually watched one in the theater).

My only job was to come up with a dessert we could have when we got back home with our take-out, and it I knew it had to be an occasion-worthy one — one of the traditional gifts for six years of marriage is sugar, after all.

Over the Christmas holidays, we had the chance to meet and visit with our good friend Tee’s brother, Griff, who also loves to cook. Over Sunday lunch, we got on the topic of cookbooks. When I told him I had just been given Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, he immediately recommended her recipe for a dessert called a diplomatico. The suggestion stuck with me, and when I wanted something special to make for David, Hazan’s recipe is where I turned first. I altered it a little, adding a pronounced hazelnut flavor in with the chocolate, but I stuck with her basic formula.

The end result was both lovely and delicious; the chocolate filling is light in texture but heavy on flavor (especially if you use really good chocolate) and the cake turns velvety soft under the influence of its coffee-liqueur bath. You could make a fancy chocolate frosting to go on top, but a simple layer of whipped cream was all it needed, in my opinion. After you have the cake made and cooled, the dessert comes together very quickly; the set-up time it needs makes it the perfect thing to make the day before you need it.
In fact, it was so good that after it served as a celebratory sign of the six years I’ve been married to the love of my life, I convinced David to let me throw a small party in honor of the thirty years he has been alive. He agreed, as long as I promised to make this cake again, a sure sign that this was a dessert worthy of both occasions.

Chocolate Hazelnut Diplomatico

7 t. sugar, divided
4 eggs
6 ounces good, semisweet chocolate (extra, for garnish)
2/3 of a baked pound cake
1/3 cup frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
1 1/4 cups very strong coffee (I used hazelnut flavored coffee)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Toasted hazelnuts, for garnish

First, make the chocolate filling. Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with 1 t. of the sugar until pale yellow. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler. Pour the chocolate very slowly into the yolks, whisking constantly until thoroughly incorporated. Beat the whites on high until stiff peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten; then, fold the remaining whites in with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon very gently, being careful not to stir the air out of them. Set aside.

Next, line a baking dish or deep bowl with a damp dishcloth or cheesecloth, letting the edges hang over. Mix the coffee, frangelico, and 5 t. of the sugar in another shallow dish. Slice the pound cake thinly, and dip each slice quickly into the coffee mixture. Line the cloth-lined dish with a layer of cake slices, making sure to fill in all gaps (the wet cake smooshes well, so don’t be afraid to press small pieces into any holes). Spread a layer of the chocolate mixture on top of the cake. Repeat with remaining cake and chocolate, finishing with cake. How many layers you get will depend on the size of your container. I used a 4-quart round bowl and had 4 layers of cake (3 layers of filling). Cover the top of the dessert with the cloth and refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.

Just before serving, whip the cream with a teaspoon of sugar until soft peaks form. Turn the cake out of the container onto a platter or cake stand. Frost the sides and top with whipped cream; garnish with chopped nuts and shaved chocolate.

–Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

One of the most satisfying holiday seasons I’ve had — at least in terms of making things — was the first Christmas after I’d started graduate school. I am a task-oriented person: I get great pleasure out of checking things off of a list, of seeing them finished. Unfortunately, graduate school is a place where many things stay on the to-do list for months and months. Books I want to read linger under the weight of things that have to be read for class, ideas I have for creative writing get lost in the flurry of academic research papers, and even the simple task of figuring out what I want to write about takes a very, very long time.

After a semester of this delayed gratification, I was more than thrilled to get into the kitchen, start a complicated project in the morning, and have it finished by the afternoon. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for my cooking breaks, I am quite sure I would never, ever have completed a master’s thesis. The ho-hum activity of making dinner took on a new meaning: I would look at a pretty, delicious plate of food as I placed it on the table, and think, “See, I can accomplish something.”

Which is what eventually led me to writing this blog: the delight I gleaned from completed cooking projects I very much wanted from my writing. Now, when I read a finished post that I’ve had at least some time to compose thoughtfully, I feel like I can finish a piece of writing. And that feels good. It even motivates me to get back to work on the 25-page paper waiting on my desktop.

That first Christmas when I learned this about myself, my favorite project to complete were these truffles.

Now, I should warn you: these little gems do not come together in a couple of hours; making truffles is a process. It’s a process I love, especially during the holidays, at the end of a long semester, because you work on them for a bit and then you have an hour break to wrap presents, start another kitchen project, or sit down with a cup of tea and the paper you’ve been working on for weeks before you go on to the next step. And, the finished products are so pretty that by the time I’ve finished a whole batch, I really feel like I’ve accomplished something.

A little box of these makes a great hostess gift if you’re going to a party, or a lovely holiday happy to leave on a co-worker’s desk. I like to wrap them up in parchment paper and place them in a Chinese take-out box: a ribbon and a card, and they’re all set. You don’t want to leave them out if it’s warm, but in colder weather, I’ve found I can leave them in their packaging in my dark, cold laundry room until I’m ready to give them away.

Talk about a sense of accomplishment. When I’m rushing out the door to a holiday function, and I remember that I can open up my laundry room, pull out a gift that I made, and take it with me, I start to feel downright efficient. Unless, of course, I happen to glimpse the piles of laundry at my feet or the mess in the kitchen.

But, hey, a girl can only do so much, and I’ll take my victories when I can get them. Don’t forget to put away at least a few truffles for yourself: a bite of one of these chocolate treats and a hot cup of coffee is sweet victory indeed.

I should have posted these recipes a few weeks ago, when The Passionate Cook hosted a whole event dedicated to truffles, but that was the week of Thanksgiving, and I had too much else going on (but if you want to see a whole host of other truffle recipes, you can check out the round-up here).

This recipe gives endless possibilities: you can flavor the chocolate however you’d like and then proceed with appropriate coatings and decorations. The two versions pictured here, one almond and the other dark chocolate raspberry, get their subtle flavors from almond extract and raspberry liqueur respectively. I also usually make a plain dark chocolate one and coat it with white chocolate, and this year, I’m planning some peppermint ones, flavored with peppermint extract and rolled in crushed peppermint candy.

Chocolate Truffles

24 ounces semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips will work)
6 T. whole milk
6 egg yolks, beaten until pale yellow.
3/4 pound butter (3 sticks)

In the top of a double boiler, combine the chocolate and milk. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from heat, and add the egg yolks immediately, slowly streaming them into the melted chocolate, stirring constantly to keep the egg from solidifying immediately (you don’t want yellow flecks in your chocolate). Cut the butter into pieces, and stir it in until the mixture is shiny and smooth. At this point, you can divide the mixture into batches if you want to experiment with flavors, or use the whole batch to make the same kind of truffle.

For a flavored truffle, stir in one of the following*:
2 T. raspberry-flavored liqueur, like Framboise (Hershey also makes raspberry-flavored chocolate chips, which make a pretty good truffle)
1 T. almond extract (you can also add a spoonful of Amaretto if you have it)
1 T. peppermint extract
1 T. finely grated orange zest

*Depending on how many times you divide the chocolate, these quantities may need adjusting. Add and then taste to get the strength of flavor you want. 

Refrigerate the batches of chocolate for about an hour (you want the chocolate to be pliable enough to work with, but not so soft that it melts all over your hands). Form the chilled chocolate into small balls and place on wax paper-lined trays or cookie sheets. Now, if you aren’t going to coat the truffles in chocolate or white chocolate coating, you can roll them in crushed nuts, candies, or cocoa powder and be done. If you want the smooth, hard outer coating, you’ll need to refrigerate the formed balls for another half-hour or so.

To coat: melt candy coating in a glass bowl (I do it in the microwave). Dip each ball into the coating quickly with a spoon and place on wax paper to cool and harden. For drizzles, melt a different color coating and drizzle away (I used red food coloring and white chocolate coating to get the pink decoration above).

This recipe makes between 2 and 3 dozen truffles, depending on how big you make them.