I’ve had this chocolate mousse bookmarked since Food52 first posted it, but I’ve never had a great excuse (not that I needed any, I suppose) to make it until now. Gil was out of town for our sixth anniversary earlier this week, so I wanted to make something special for the weekend. I mean, there’s a beef heart thawing in the sink, but that’s maybe just a tiny bit less romantic than chocolate mousse.

This an incredibly easy and forgiving recipe with only two ingredients — chocolate and water — so how can you mess that up? Just be sure to use the best chocolate you can, since it really shines here.

My first batch didn’t really set (which is where the forgiving part of the recipe comes in), so I added a little more chocolate to the mixture then put the pot back over a low burner to melt. Starting over gave me the opportunity to test old-fashioned whisking vs. a hand blender vs. an immersion blender. I have to say that the immersion blender was BY FAR the easiest and least messy of the three methods. Oh, the things I do for you.

Once the mousse has thickened (which happens very quickly with the immersion blender), it sets almost immediately, so be prepared to spoon it into cups right away.

I sprinkled the mousse with chocolate shavings, but you can add a dollop of whipped cream or just leave it plain for full-on chocolate sensation.

Get the recipe here.

I saw this chocolate-sour cream cake on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn last week and simply could not get it out of my mind. A two-layer chocolate-sour cream cake! I had to make it. HAD TO. Because Gil’s birthday was just a few days ago, it gave me the great excuse I didn’t really need (because I have this here blog, you see).

So I got to work as soon as Gil left for for the office this morning, and it still took most of the day because I’m not much of a baker. Nor am I much of an icer, from the evidence presented above. Still, a crumb coat must be applied, no matter how messily.

I think it looked pretty nice once I was finished. And even though powdered sugar-based frostings aren’t really my thing, I couldn’t stop sampling. I think it was the sour cream that made it so irresistible.

Just to be safe, though, I decided to add a layer of poured ganache. What could it hurt?

You really should’ve seen my absurd setup for this shot: Seated on the floor, camera balanced on my right knee with auto focus engaged (I hoped), while my left hand stretched as far as possible to get the ganache close to the center of the cake. Oh, and let’s not forget the big reflector balanced on my left shoulder. It’s a wonder I ever get anything in focus at all. The things I do for you!

Naturally, I allowed the ganache to cool just long enough lose the completely smooth surface I made it for IN THE FIRST PLACE, so I rummaged around in the fridge till I found a visual distraction — pecans. PECAAAAANS! (Have I mentioned that I’m not much of a baker? Because I’m not. At all.)

See? All you notice is the pecans, right?

I’m heading to Louisiana tomorrow for an extra-long (and warm-weathered) Christmas visit with my family! (Cue happy dance.) Gil has to work this week, so he’ll join us after spending a few days alone with the dogfaces. Since I won’t be around for the start of Hanukkah, I thought I’d make Gil a batch of chocolate-drizzled macaroons to remember me by.

I was still working on my drizzling technique with these first few, but they’re charming in a jolie laide sort of way, right?

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate it! Next up: something savory to balance all of the sugar I’ve been posting…

recipe after the jump

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That’s right: Nutella pudding.

I was perusing Food52 a few days ago and noticed a little “We Think You’ll Like” section in the corner with this recipe leaping from the screen. Oh, Food52, you know me so well.

Strictly speaking, it’s a gianduja pudding because there’s no Nutella product in there, but that doesn’t matter — if you love hazelnuts and chocolate, you’ll fall hard for this dessert.

Oh, and the recipe taught me something new — Dorie Greenspan’s method of aerating the pudding before it chills to get an even silkier texture.

Because of that little step, this pudding is light and airy, while Nutella is dense and perhaps too rich to eat much of in one sitting. Not a problem here.

In fact, it’s gone far too soon. Get the recipe here and see if you can’t manage to scrounge up more will power than we did.

Note: I changed only one small thing in this perfect recipe, and topped the pudding with chocolate shavings just before serving. Not a crucial step by any means, more along the lines of eye candy than anything.

Summer’s over and so is the photography portion of the cookbook project I spent my weekends on. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate 1) completing the work, 2) the unofficial start of fall and 3) football season than with a big pot of beef & lamb chili and an over-the-top dessert. It’s a retread of the Vanilla Roasted Pears with Amaretto Mascarpone I made earlier in the year, but made this time with the courage of my convictions. And let me tell you, espresso cream is in no way a bad (or overpowering) thing.

I had no real plans to go with such a fall feast, but the pears at the farmers’ market called to me Saturday.

I was powerless against them.

Wicked, wicked pears.

Now please pardon me while I shovel more of this into my piehole.

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Not me, that’s for sure. Especially during a heatwave. Especially when that heatwave comes on the heels of a winter that lasted a record-breaking two years and four months. (Well, that’s what it felt like, but I’ll be honest and say I’ll take summer and all of its stankiness over winter’s misery any day and twice on Sunday.)

But we were discussing parfait, right? When a dessert’s based on a premise of perfection, it’s tough to mess up. You can get pretty creative with it — just do a quick Google search to see what I mean — but there’s nothing wrong with keeping it simple, either. For these, I just layered dairy-free coconut ice cream with a rhubarb and strawberry topping I threw together in about 10 minutes, then topped it with toasted slivered almonds. And you know what? It really was perfect.

I don’t keep anything like a dairy-free diet, but there was no milk or cream in the house and I wanted needed to make ice cream. Since I usually have coconut milk in the pantry, I gave that a go with this recipe and loved the outcome — very coconutty/custardy with a rich, creamy texture. The fruit topping recipe came from here, and it’s very bare bones, but when you’ve got stunning strawberries and juicy rhubarb from the farmers’ market to work with, why gild the lily?

recipe after the jump

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Aaaaaah, cinnamon-sugar popovers. Remember them? I thought they’d remain nothing more than a pleasant memory, but I had a craving and decided to test the claim that Jules Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour can be subbed one-for-one with standard wheat flour.

I tried it once before with biscuits, and wasn’t entirely pleased with the results, but these popovers sure looked like the real thing:

But the flavor, the texture? How did they taste?

Indistinguishable from the real thing, which is to say, eggy, moist, light and springy.

I suspect the problem with the biscuits was just a lack of moisture. Popovers are made of a fairly thin batter, so that wasn’t an issue here. But I’ll test my biscuit theory again sometime soon and let you know.

recipe after the jump

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