Tag: chocolate

More Zucchini Please

Marie HaighLeave a comment

Article first published as More Zucchini Please on Blogcritics.

Beginning last week, the zucchini plant in my garden started bearing fruit. Thus far I’ve made sautéed zucchini rounds, zucchini bread and zucchini chocolate cake. That might be enough zucchini for some folks, but I was hoping for much more.

I’m the sort of person who likes to buy several pounds of a fruit or vegetable that is in season -much more than Dan and I could possibly eat before it all spoils. Then, I sift through my pile of cookbooks searching for ways to use it all up.

I had come across some zucchini recipes I was excited to try: soup, a walnut bread, etc. Mostly, I just want an excuse to bake another Zucchini Chocolate Cake. My, it was so good. The zucchini made the cake incredibly moist. I didn’t even bother to ice it. Though Dan turned his nose up at the idea of putting zucchini in a chocolate cake, he was impressed by the results. Unless you grated the zucchini by hand or someone you trusted swore she put it in the cake, you wouldn’t believe it. You don’t taste the zucchini at all.

The recipe I used can be found here. Though the instructions didn’t specify, I finely grated the zucchini and drained off the excess liquid.  I also made a change to the list of ingredients by adding 1 teaspoon of espresso powder. I learned that little trick from Ina Garten. She always adds coffee to her chocolate recipes to enhance the flavor of the chocolate.

Well, here’s hoping the current orange blossoms on the plant bear more squash.

Chocolate in my Homemade Bread

Marie Haigh3 Comments

Article first published as Chocolate in my Homemade Bread on Blogcritics.

Never in my life have I eaten babka. So naturally I never had a desire to bake babka bread. Not until I stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen’s blog post about it that is. Her description sounded devine. How could something that called for over 2 pounds of chocolate be bad?

Of course, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. Repeat after me: recipes are recommendations.

I made a few changes to the filling portion. The original recipe recommended using semi-sweet chocolate along with a cup of sugar. Semi-sweet chocolate is just too sweet for my taste even without adding more sugar. I prefer bittersweet. So, that’s what I used: 3 packages of bittersweet chocolate chips, ground up in the food processor. I ommitted the sugar altogether. I also increased the butter in the filling to 1 cup or 2 sticks partly because Elly mashed the stick of butter making it impossible to cut in half equally (it’s amazing how high she can reach now!) and partly because I love butter.

Here’s my version of the filling:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 packages of bittersweet chocolate chips (11 oz), chopped finely in a food processor
2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Stir together until smooth.Then, taste it. If you think it’s too bitter, add some sugar or don’t use bittersweet chocolate. You’re the one who has to eat it. I already have my bread and I’ve eaten it too.

Though we tried to eat it for breakfast, it quickly became a dessert bread. 2 pounds of chocolate really IS a lot of chocolate. That’s not a complaint. I couldn’t be more pleased with my babka.