This post is sponsored by La Crema Wines. All opinions here are my own. You can find the companion recipes over on the La Crema blog. 

Apologies for the quiet here this past month. Things have been busy, and cooking, writing, and reflecting have fallen by the wayside a bit. We’ve got 24 days to go until our wedding, which is both insane and kind of a relief. I’m feeling rock solid about marrying Trevor, which is 99.9% of the battle, but there’s still a lot of miscellaneous stress associated with hosting a party for 50 with all kinds of societal and emotional strings attached. I’ve got a lot of thoughts on weddings at this point, but I’ll save those for a later date.

Today, what I’m here to talk about is this Scandinavian dinner menu – my latest collaboration with La Crema wines. It’s inspired by my recent trip to Iceland: in July I finally took advantage of Boston’s relative proximity to Scandinavia and spent a long weekend there. Iceland has been at the top of my travel wishlist for years and I was so excited to finally be in the land of moss-covered lava and epic waterfalls. I have to do a real travelogue at some point, but suffice it to say that the Icelandic landscape is incredible (and here’s a few teaser shots!). One moment we were driving through an alien landscape of hardened lava boulders tumbling into the sea, the next there were pockets of geyser steam rising up all around us, and then, suddenly, we were in the midst of fields of lupine in front of massive glaciers.

Iceland is known for being pretty expensive. I certainly found this to be true, particularly when it came to food. The silver lining to this was that the price differential between cheap food and fancy food was much smaller than it is here in the US. While a gas station hamburger could set you back $20, a three-course meal with wine at a top restaurant only cost $60. So despite the expense, we managed to have some very good meals. Our most memorable culinary experience was a 3 course dinner at Forettabarinn in Reykjavik. It was our final night as a group (and a semi-bachelorette celebration) after a long weekend of adventuring in South Iceland. The food was creative and well-executed, the wine was abundant, and the company was unbeatable. That lovely dinner served as the inspiration for this one.

There are three courses to this menu. First, a super-simple Smoked Salmon and Rye Crackers appetizer. Everyone should have a few minimal-effort, but still fancy-feeling appetizers in their repertoire. This should be one of them. The only “cooking” is to whip up a little cream with capers, slice a cucumber, and assemble. It’s also very portable, so guests can easily grab one of these and a glass of wine while mingling. On that note, the wine to open for this course is La Crema’s Monterey Chardonnay. Its bright acidity and smooth texture stands up nicely to the fatty, smoky salmon and rich caper cream.

The main event consists of two parts – Mashed Potato Waffles with Horseradish Sauce and Mustard-Thyme Pulled Leg of Lamb. I don’t think I’ve ever had lamb served BBQ style before my dinner at Forettabarinn, but it’s so wonderful. Ideally, I would have liked to use a slightly more economical and fattier lamb shoulder for this recipe, but I couldn’t find one at my butcher. The result was still good – tender, falling apart lamb, completely imbued with the flavors of mustard and wine and paprika. It was delicious on top of the potato waffles with a bit of horseradish sauce and grainy mustard. For this course, I opened a bottle of La Crema’s Monterey Pinot Noir and it was so good together! Just tangy and juicy and yum.

For dessert, I whipped up a light Skyr Mousse with Wild Blueberry Sauce and Gingerbread Crumbs. If you’re not familiar with it, skyr is Iceland’s answer to yogurt, only it’s thicker and tangier. Similar to Greek yogurt, it’s rich in protein and very trendy here in the US. To turn it into mousse, I incorporated whipped cream and a hint of sugar. It was such a treat – light and airy with a distinct tang from the skyr. It was also so simple to put together. The only other recipes I saw for skyr mousse involved a fussy gelatin method, but I opted for a much simpler treatment here – whip cream, whip skyr, fold together, serve. With the maple-blueberry sauce and a sprinkling of gingerbead cookie crumbs it’s a more-than-the-sum-of-it’s-parts dessert.

You can find the recipes for the first two courses on the La Crema blog: Smoked Salmon Rye Crackers with Caper Cream; Mashed Potato Waffles with Horseradish Sauce; and Mustard-Thyme Pulled Leg of Lamb. The Skyr Mousse with Wild Blueberries recipe is below!

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Skyr Mousse with Wild Blueberries and Sweet Gingerbread Crumbs

A simple skyr-based mousse made from whipped cream and thick, yogurt-like Icelandic skyr. Served with wild-blueberry sauce and gingerbread crumbs.

Inspired by dinner at Forettabarinn

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup wild Maine blueberries, fresh or frozen
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 cup heavy cream, chilled
• 4 TBS sugar
• 1 cup plain or maple flavored skyr (Icelandic yogurt), chilled
• 1.5 oz. gingerbread cookies, preferably Anna’s Swedish Thins
• 1 TBS brown sugar

Instructions

1. Place the blueberries, maple syrup, and lemon juice in a small saucepan and stir to mix. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat. Simmer the berries until they have burst and released their juices and the sauce is slightly syrupy, about 8-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them to be sure they don’t burn. Remove from the heat, transfer the blueberry sauce to a storage container, and chill thoroughly.
2. To make the mousse, whip the heavy cream on high until stiff peaks have formed. Add the sugar and beat for a few seconds longer, just to incorporate the sugar into the cream. In a separate bowl, beat the skyr for 30 seconds until it is lightened slightly. Add half of the whipped cream to the skyr and use a spatula to gently fold together. Repeat with the remaining half of the whipped cream, folding just enough to mix the two together. Don’t overfold or your mousse may deflate. Chill the mousse until ready to serve.
3. Place the gingerbread cookies and the brown sugar in a small food processor and pulse several times to make crumbs. Set crumbs aside.
4. To serve the mousse, drizzle the chilled blueberry sauce on top of the mousse. Sprinkle with the gingerbread crumbs. Serve immediately

The post Scandinavian Dinner with La Crema: Skyr Mousse with Wild Blueberries and Sweet Gingerbread Crumbs appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

For the second year in a row, I let my birthday slip past without my customary celebratory blog post. Last year’s blog post is sitting somewhere in WordPress purgatory, photographed, partially written, but never published. It was a lovely pesto pasta salad with green olives and mushrooms that we ate at the beach on a sunny April afternoon. It was good, but not that memorable.

This year, I just didn’t get around to making my birthday dessert in time. I still celebrated my birthday with the usual enthusiasm, but had to take a last-minute trip to Portugal that week. The dessert I had planned – Portuguese Chocolate Mousse with Chocolate Salami – remained a plan. But it’s such a good dessert that I decided this was a “better late than never” situation. Plus, Trevor’s birthday is coming up on Friday so we have an excuse for having a fridge full of chocolate mousse.

This mousse is inspired by the Mercado de Ribeira, one of my favorite Lisbon haunts. Also known as the Time Out Market, it’s by no means a hidden spot. The concept is like an upscale food court, but all of the “stalls” are outposts of the best Lisbon restaurants and vendors. You can find tender grilled octopus doused in olive oil, bacalhau in all its forms, $5 wines, and rich eggy desserts. After 8pm it’s bustling with tourists and locals alike, and reserving a table requires some aggressive seat-saving. But it never fails to disappoint – the food is amazing, the vibe is energizing, and there’s something for everyone.

The chocolate mousse at Nos e Mais Bolos inside the market is amazing. It is rich and pudding-like and has bite-sized pieces of Portuguese Chocolate Salami as a topping. Don’t worry – there’s no meat in chocolate salami. The best way to describe it is as a no-bake fridge cookie. It’s made from cocoa powder, butter, a bit of rum or liquor, and chopped up cookies, then rolled into a log to look like salami. It’s a traditional dessert in Italy and Portugal, so common that I once found it in a vending machine in a 1,000 year old castle on top of a mountain. Really good hiking snack, by the way. It also takes chocolate mousse to the next level.

While researching mousse recipes, I stumbled upon something called “two ingredient chocolate mousse.” It’s an incredibly simple recipe by Heston Blumenthal, which requires nothing other than chocolate, water, and a bowl of ice. Because all Portuguese desserts are made primarily with a ton of eggs and a ton of sugar, I was pretty sure that this magical mousse could not be the answer. But I had to try it anyway, just to see. Because what if two ingredient mousse was really a thing? That would mean that I could have chocolate mousse at any time with only 10 minutes of effort. Dangerous, but also amazing.

So I made two batches of chocolate mousse. The first was the aforementioned two ingredient version. The second was a more traditional mousse, with eggs and butter and a touch of cream. The verdict? They were both really good. Different, but good. The super-simple mousse has a very pure, chocolaty taste and surprisingly creamy texture, but no richness. You want to use your very best chocolate for this, because it’s the only flavor. The mousse loaded up with eggs and butter and cream is obviously much richer, but doesn’t have that same purity. Tasted side by side, the winner kind of depends on my mood at that moment. But to be totally honest? I think most of the time I’ll prefer the two ingredient version. Crazy!

Whether you go the easy route or the rich route, the pieces of Portuguese Chocolate Salami on top add this amazing extra dimension. The chocolate salami is easy to make and super-chocolaty. It’s very rich – kind of the perfect thing to keep in the fridge at all times, as just a bite will satisfy an intense chocolate craving. As my trips to Lisbon are slowing down, I’m happy to have cracked one of my favorite dessert recipes at home. Now I just have about 8,000 pastries left to learn.

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Portuguese Chocolate Mousse with Chocolate Salami

Traditional Portuguese chocolate mousse served with crumbled “Chocolate Salami” – a sliceable chocolate fridge cookie. Inspired by the Chocolate Mousse at Nos e Mais Bolos.

Chocolate Salami recipe adapted from Easy Portuguese Recipes.

Note: this recipe is the traditional, rich mousse with eggs and cream. If you want to try the two-ingredient mousse, the recipe for that is below!

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 4

Ingredients

For the Chocolate Salami:

• 1 stick (4 oz.) salted butter
• 1/2 cup (4 oz.) granulated sugar
• 6 TBS (1 1/2 oz.) dark, high-quality cocoa powder, such as Valhrona
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 TBS port wine, rum, or fruity liqueur
• 7 oz. biscotti or vanilla wafer cookies
• powdered sugar for coating

For the Chocolate Mousse:

• 2 TBS butter
• 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips
• 2 TBS port wine or rum
• 1/4 c. heavy cream
• 4 large eggs, separated

Instructions

1. To make the chocolate salami: melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add approximately half of the the sugar and whisk to combine thoroughly. Add the cocoa powder and whisk thoroughly. Continue to cook for 1 minute longer, whisking the whole time – mixture should be smooth. Remove from the heat.
2. Place the egg yolks and the remaining sugar in a medium, heat-proof bowl, and whisk until thick and creamy, about 1 minute. Slowly pour in the hot cocoa mixture, whisking the egg yolks vigorously as you do so. Stir in the port wine or rum and whisk to combine. Mixture should be thick, smooth, and glossy.
3. Cut the cookies into small pieces using a serrated knife. Add the cookies to the warm chocolate mixture and stir gently to thoroughly combine. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Once cool, place a sheet of wax paper on the counter. Scrape the mixture onto the wax paper and shape it into a log roughly 8 inches long. If the mixture is too runny to do this, place it in the fridge for 30 minutes before shaping into a log. Wrap the log in waxed paper and then again and tinfoil. Place in the fridge and chill until firm, at least 2 hours.
4. To make the chocolate mousse: add the butter, chocolate chips, port wine or rum, and heavy cream to a medium metal bowl or double boiler. Bring a small pot of water to a simmer – the bowl should fit snugly on top of the pot without the bottom of the bowl touching the top of the water. Place the metal bowl over the simmering water and melt the chocolate, stirring continuously with a rubber spatula. As soon as the chocolate mixture is fully melted, remove it from the heat. The chocolate should be thick and glossy.
5. In a medium, heatproof bowl, vigorously whisk the egg yolks for 30 seconds, then pour the hot chocolate into the egg yolks, whisking as you do so. Beat thoroughly to combine. Mixture should be thick but run freely from the whisk when lifted. Set chocolate aside and let cool to room temperature.
6. Use a stand mixer or handheld mixer to beat the egg whites until they form soft, shiny peaks. Add half of the beaten egg whites to the cooled chocolate mixture and use a spatula to gently fold the two together. Repeat with the remaining egg whites, doing your best not to deflate the whites. When the two mixtures are fully combined, pour the mousse into four wine glasses or coupe glasses. Refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours.
7. To serve, cut the chocolate salami into slices, then cut the slices into cubes. Place on top of each glass of chocolate mousse. Serve chilled.

Magic Two-Ingredient Chocolate Mousse

This incredible chocolate mousse has only two ingredients – chocolate and water – with a deep chocolate taste and a smooth, fluffy texture.

Recipe by Heston Blumenthal via Eat Live Run.

Note: this recipes is all about the chocolate you use, so use the good stuff. If you don’t love the flavor of the chocolate, you won’t love the flavor of the mousse. If the mousse becomes grainy as you whip it, return it to the heat and re-melt, then try again.

• Author: Katie at the Kitchen Door
• Yield: 2
• Category: Dessert

Ingredients

• 4.5 oz of bittersweet chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate, the best you can afford
• 1/2 cup water
• ice

Instructions

1. Fill a large metal bowl with ice and cold water and set aside.
2. Place the chopped chocolate and the water in a metal bowl. Bring a small pot of water to a simmer – the bowl should fit snugly on top of the pot without the bottom of the bowl touching the top of the water. Place the metal bowl over the simmering water and melt the chocolate, stirring continuously with a rubber spatula. The water should get incorporated into the chocolate as you stir. As soon as the chocolate mixture is smooth and fully melted, remove it from the heat. Place the bowl with the chocolate in the bowl with the ice water, and whisk the chocolate constantly for 2 to 3 minutes, until the chocolate has thickened slightly and the color has become a bit more pale.
3. Divide the mousse into 2 wine glasses or ramekins and chill for at least 30 minutes, then serve.

The post Portuguese Chocolate Mousse with Chocolate Salami appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

Update: The giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Amy of U Try.It on winning! And thank you everyone for sharing your perfect Valentine’s Day dreams… so fun to read.

If you live in Somerville, MA, you’ve almost definitely heard of Taza Chocolate.  If you live elsewhere in Greater Boston and have ever gone to any event remotely food-related, you’ve probably heard of Taza Chocolate.  But if you’re further afield, you may never have had the delicious experience of eating their stone-ground Mexican chocolate, and so I’m here to share the love, because I really do love Taza’s chocolate.  It’s different – gritty, not super sweet, and infused with flavors like chipotle and cinnamon and orange – but it’s addicting.  Trevor introduced me to it a few years ago and I’ve gotten more and more excited about it ever since.  Visiting the Taza factory in Somerville has been high on my “to-do in Boston” list since I moved back, and when I finally got around to it (which, admittedly was kind of a while ago at this point…), it was well worth the trip.

I’ve been on a decent amount of food tours – to breweries, cheesemakers, cider houses, farms, and restaurant kitchens – and they can definitely be hit or miss.  The Magic Hat Brewery Tour was a disappointment and I learned very little.  Visiting Prodigal Farm in North Carolina was truly fascinating (you can read more about it here).  The Taza tour was way up on my quality scale – honestly, it was one of the most interesting and informative tours I’ve ever been on, and I’m not just saying that because there was a constant supply of chocolate samples during the tour.  It probably helped that I knew very little about the chocolate making process to start.  Did you know how huge cocoa pods are?  Or that they grow straight from the trunk of the tree?  Or that they turn beautiful colors in the fall?  Just the images of the cocoa trees themselves fascinated me.  Then we moved onto the harvesting, shipping, roasting, winnowing, and grinding processes, and every piece of information was new and exciting.  I don’t want to give away their whole tour, in case some of you would like to actually hear it from the Taza people themselves rather than in an overly-excited and garbled form from me, but I will share some of the highlights.  Like that one of the co-founders of Taza spent a year in Oaxaca learning to properly dress the traditional millstones used to grind the chocolate.  Or that their winnowing machine is an old Italian giant they found on a cocoa sourcing trip.  Or that they travel to the countries from which their cocoa beans come every year to pick the best quality beans and make sure the farms they come from are fair.  Or that the difference between European and Mexican chocolate is the addition of milk and a thorough mixing process to smooth it out.

I highly recommend a trip to the factory if you live in the area or are ever visiting. And if you’re really looking for the full chocolate experience, Taza offers a week-long trip to Belize every March in which you go through the entire process of making chocolate, from picking cocoa beans to making your own bars (sometimes I really wish I was richer). If a quick jaunt to make chocolate in the jungle isn’t in the cards for you this year, either, I have two other things you might enjoy – one, a delicious chocolate mousse recipe, and two, a Taza chocolate giveaway.

Typically I just eat Taza chocolate straight – my favorite flavors are the salt & pepper and the cinnamon – but since we’re getting close to Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d step my game up and make a Mayan Chocolate Mousse, inspired in equal parts by Food & Wine’s Mayan Chocolate Pudding, and Bon Appetit’s recent article on the perfect chocolate mousse. I went all out with the cinnamon, using two packs of Taza cinnamon chocolate discs, replacing the espresso with my favorite cinnamon tea, and topping it off with a sweetened cinnamon whipped cream. It came out amazing, if I do say so myself. I really loved that the mousse still held the essence of Taza chocolate, it didn’t just taste generically chocolatey. I don’t know if I’ll even be able to wait until the 14th before making it again…

Giveaway Details: Interested in trying Taza chocolate? Enter to win the Chocolate Mexicano Classic Collection, and you can try six of their flavors (a cinnamon disc is included, leaving you just enough to make a portion of this mousse for two…). To enter, leave a comment below telling me how you would spend your ideal Valentine’s Day if money wasn’t an option. For a second entry, follow both me (@Kitchen_Door) and Taza (@TazaChocolate) on Twitter, and tweet to both of us about the giveaway, then come back and leave me a second comment letting me know you tweeted. The giveaway will close at midnight on Tuesday the 5th, at which point I’ll randomly choose a winner. Open to U.S. readers only. If the winner doesn’t respond to me within 48 hours of me notifying them they’ve won, I’ll have to pick an alternate winner

P.S. I LOVED reading all your comments about your most memorable Valentine’s Day on my last giveaway. It was so fun to hear all the stories!

Disclaimer: Taza is hosting this giveaway, but I discovered the product myself and truly love it, and have not been compensated in any way for writing this post.

Mayan Chocolate Mousse

Adapted from Bon Appetit and inspired by Food & Wine. Serves 4.

Note: Chocolate Mousse can be a little bit finicky – I accidentally scrambled my first batch of egg yolks! – so carefully follow the instructions provided and make sure your ingredients are at the correct temperatures. If you mess up, don’t fret – the end result will be worth trying again!

• 3/4 c. chilled heavy whipping cream, divided
• pinch cream of tartar
• 2 egg whites, room temperature
• 4 TBS sugar, divided
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 c. strong cinnamon tea, at room temperature
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 packages of cinnamon Taza chocolate, or 5.4 oz. dark chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/8 tsp cayenne chili powder
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon if using regular chocolate + 1/4 tsp cinnamon for whipped cream

1. Measure out 1/2 c. of the heavy cream into a medium bowl. Whisk vigorously until foamy, sprinkle with the cream of tartar, then whisk until stiff peaks firm. Cover and chill.
2. Beat egg whites vigorously until soft peaks form. Sprinkle 1 TBS of the sugar over the top, and continue beating until stiff, shiny peaks form. Set aside.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a gentle simmer. In a medium metal bowl, or a smaller metal-bottomed pot, whisk together the egg yolks, 2 TBS of the remaining sugar, room temperature tea, and salt. Set the bowl over the simmering water and whisk vigorously until mixture is pale yellow in color and doubled in volume. This will only take about a minute – remove immediately when it’s ready (or a second before you think it’s ready, as this is where it’s easy to accidentally scramble your eggs). Add the finely chopped chocolate and stir until it’s melted. If chocolate is not melting, it’s OK to set back over the simmering water for intervals of 5-10 seconds while whisking the mixture, but finely chopping the chocolate should remove the need for this. Once chocolate is melted, add the cayenne, allspice and 1/4 tsp cinnamon (if not using cinnamon chocolate) and whisk to incorporate. Let cool to room temperature.
4. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture in two additions, only folding until just incorporated. Fold in the whipped cream until just incorporated. Divide between four dishes and chill for at least 1 hour.
5. Just before serving, beat remaining 1/4 c. of heavy cream and 1/4 tsp cinnamon until soft peaks form. Sprinkle with remaining 1 TBS of sugar and whisk to incorporate. Dollop a bit of whipped cream on top of each portion, and serve.

The post Taza Chocolate Giveaway and Mayan Chocolate Mousse appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

Update: Giveaway is now closed. Congrats to Corinne of Sparecake for winning! I really loved hearing all your stories about Valentine’s Day – thanks for sharing! And keep an eye out for another chocolate-y giveaway this week…

Between 6th grade and 9th grade, I spent 3 summers at Brown Ledge sleep-away camp on the beautiful Lake Champlain in Northern Vermont. (Actually, I spent 1 summer at Camp Kiniya, then went to Brown Ledge, but BLC is where my fondest memories are from). While 3 summers doesn’t exactly qualify me as a summer camp junkie like some of my friends, I did love those long months, spent swimming in the lake, going on daily 5am horseback rides with the drill team, staying up giggling and swapping stories with my bunkies, singing songs and holding hands in the theater, savoring care packages from my parents and letters (signed “love”!) from my middle-school crush. Sometimes I was homesick, but it was such a positive experience overall – I hope my future kids are able to enjoy it someday.

On drop-off and pick-up days, my parents and I used to spend time in Burlington, getting Ben & Jerry’s and doing other things I can’t really remember. But I do remember eating Lake Champlain Chocolates, and being excited several years later when I found them in Wholefoods. I’ve always associated them with those sunny days at camp. So I was thrilled to see that LCC was one of the sponsors for the Blog Better Boston conference I went to at the end of October, and even more excited when, after the conference, I was able to connect with them to arrange a recipe development/giveaway post.

I knew I wanted this recipe to be something special – something decadent and Valentine’s Day worthy. I’ve had the combination of chocolate and hazelnuts floating around in my mind for days (inspired by a truffle I ate recently), so I knew where to start with the flavors. Lake Champlain sent me three of their select origin dark chocolate bars – a single-origin bar from Tanzania, one from Sao Thome, and an African blend. Before I dove into baking, of course, I had to taste all of them – I wasn’t too thorough, but they were definitely all different. I liked the bar from Sao Thome the best, as it had a round, fruity flavor. The Tanzania bar was smoother, lighter, and sweeter, even though it had a higher cocoa content. The African blend bar was darker and more bitter with coffee-like-notes. I decided that the Sao Thome (70% cocoa) and African blend (80% cocoa) bars would form the base of a dense, almost-flourless cake. The sweeter Tanzania bar (75% cocoa) would be used two ways – in a mascarpone-frangelico-chocolate mousse, and as a chocolate ganache. I’d make individually sized cakes that would be just the sort of dessert you could share on a romantic, Valentine’s Day date.

The cake, which was inspired by Pastry Affair’s (actually) flourless chocolate rum cake, came out dark, dense, moist, and not too sweet. By itself it’s very intense, but topped with the absolutely dreamy, boozy, mascarpone-based chocolate-frangelico mousse (which, if you can’t tell, I was SO happy with), and drizzled with a little chocolate ganache it was perfect. Rich, chocolaty, indulgent – just the sort of thing to impress a date… or to eat too much of by yourself when you’re feeling needy.

Giveaway Details: Never tried Lake Champlain Chocolate? No worries! Lake Champlain has generously offered to giveaway a giant heart-shaped box full of chocolate truffles to one lucky reader. To enter, leave me a comment below telling me about your most memorable Valentine’s Day. For one extra entry, follow me (@Kitchen_Door) and Lake Champlain Chocolates (@LCChocolates) and tweet about the giveaway, then come back here and leave me a second comment letting me know you tweeted! The giveaway will close at midnight on Saturday the 26th, at which point I’ll randomly choose a winner. Open to U.S. readers only. If the winner doesn’t respond to me within 48 hours of me notifying them they’ve won, I’ll have to pick an alternate winner.

Disclaimer: Lake Champlain Chocolates sent me some sample products free of charge to develop this recipe, and is hosting the giveaway. I received no compensation for writing this post, and was a fan of Lake Champlain Chocolates way before I started blogging!

Individual Chocolate-Hazelnut Mousse Cakes

Original recipe overall, but cake recipe was inspired by Pastry Affair. Makes 4 individual cakes; each cake can easily be shared by 2 people.

For the cake:

•  6 oz. high quality chocolate with at least 75% cocoa content, roughly chopped (I used a blend of Lake Champlain Chocolate’s Sao Thome bar (70%) and African Blend bar (80%)
• 1 stick salted butter, cubed
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/4 c. rum
• 6 TBS flour
• 6 TBS high quality cocoa powder (I used Lake Champlain Chocolate’s organic cocoa)
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line an 8×8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper. Set prepared pan aside. Add the chocolate and the butter to a small saucepan and heat over very low heat until fully melted, stirring the whole time. Set aside and let cool slightly.
2. Beat together the eggs and sugar until thick and pale yellow, at least 3-4 minutes. Stir the rum into the chocolate mixture, then slowly fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Fold into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula so that the batter rests evenly in the pan (it won’t spread much). Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean, with only a few moist crumbs attached. Set cake aside.

For the frangelico chocolate mousse:

• 1/4 c. mascarpone cheese
• 1/2 c. heavy cream
• 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 TBS sugar
• 5 TBS frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
• 1 1/2 oz. dark chocolate (I used LCC’s Tanzania bar (75% cocoa))
• 1 TBS butter

1. Whisk together the mascarpone and heavy cream. Sprinkle with the cream of tartar, then beat until cream has stiffened enough to hold soft peaks. Sprinkle with sugar, and whisk in. Beat in the frangelico one TBS at a time.
2. Over very low heat, melt together the chocolate and the butter in a small saucepan, stirring the whole time. As soon as it is fully melted, remove from heat, and let cool slightly.
3. Pour warm chocolate over the whipped cream. Whisk in to incorporate. Mousse should be thick and spreadable. Refrigerate until needed.

For the chocolate ganache:

• 2 oz. dark chocolate (I used LCC’s Tanzania bar (75% cocoa))
• 2 TBS heavy cream

Add the dark chocolate and the heavy cream to a small saucepan and heat over very low heat, stirring until melted. Remove from heat and set aside

To assemble:

• 1 recipe chocolate-rum cake (above)
• 1 recipe frangelico-chocolate mousse (above)
• 1 recipe chocolate ganache (above)
• 2 TBS chopped, toasted hazelnuts

Use a biscuit cutter to cut four 2-inch rounds out of the cake – save the extra pieces for snacking. Place the four cake rounds on four plates, and divide the mousse amongst the four plates, spreading it evenly on top of the cake. Place cakes in the freezer for 10 minutes to allow mousse to firm up slightly. Remove from freezer, and drizzle with the ganache (rewarmed slightly if necessary). Sprinkle with the toasted hazelnuts, and serve!

The post Lake Champlain Chocolate – Individual Chocolate-Hazelnut Mousse Cakes and A Giveaway appeared first on Katie at the Kitchen Door.

Oh, May.  What a month you were.  I flew six different times in May.  That’s a lot of planes.  I also graduated, moved, spent at least 5 hours on hold with U-haul trying to orchestrate said move, hung out in Miami with my dad, hung out in Denver with my cousin, hung out in Boulder with some stellar Ultimate players I know, hung out in Grand Junction with my baby bro, and got pedicures/shot guns with my grandmother within 4 hours of each other.  Busy times, yo.  Hence, not a lot of blogging.  Or cooking for that matter.  Eating, yes.  Cooking, no.

However.  I did take some time to make these super delicious nutella-raspberry mousse hybrid whoopie pie-ice cream sandwich things.  They were kind of an experiment, and an experiment gone right.  See, Ryan and I are still chilling in Colorado, where my Aunt Deanne has very graciously allowed us to use her house (and her car.  I’m totally staying here: everybody spoils me and I have a car to drive with a working suspension system.  Plus my skin loves it here and I can go hiking every day.  Win, win, win.)  So, in a few hour break from Aunt Lynn’s wonderful social calendar (God, Lynn, a gap?  You slacker), I decided to make some dessert to bring along to fajita night at Grandma’s.  Because spending a few hours baking is super appealing if you happen to be me on vacation.

The reasons that the nutella-raspberry combination came about?  One: Ryan and I spent a lot of last week hoofing it from point a to point b with lots of stuff on our backs, and in order to minimize fainting spells due to lack of nutrients as well as overdrafting our bank accounts, we needed snacks.  Portable, cheap snacks.  But, lame, he’s allergic to peanut butter, my favorite snack.  So nutella it was.  (As a side note, I just realized that not once in my two years living in my own apartment at Duke did I buy nutella.  Not because I don’t love nutella, just because I was terrified of how quickly I would eat it if it appeared in my cupboard.  Is that self-control or complete lack of it?)  Two: raspberries cost $1 here.  This is miraculous to me.  I’m tempted to eat raspberries for every meal just because I will probably never be able to afford this many again.

Not to brag, but these were really pretty awesome.  The cookies themselves – decent.  The mousse – pretty tasty.  Together?  Way better than the sum of their parts.  I love it when that happens.  All of the family members present seemed to heartily approve, although to be fair, half of them were teenage boys.  In any case, I would absolutely make these again.  And again.  They’re pretty quick, easy to store in the fridge or freezer, and a good summer crowd pleaser.  And don’t worry, Deanne, I stuck four in your freezer as a tiny thanks for your generosity this week.  Also, we didn’t kill your fish, so there’s that too.

Nutella and Raspberry Mousse-wiches

Nutella cookie recipe from Rock Recipes.  Mousse recipe original.  Makes about 14 sandwiches.

For nutella cookies:

• 2 sticks salted butter, room temperature
• 2 c. sugar
• 2/3 c. nutella
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 3 c. flour
• 2/3 c. cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2/3 c. milk
• 6 oz. chocolate chips
• sea salt

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