Ina’s All Time Best Chocolate Recipes Plus Personifying Ingredients
Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten
Wow! That’s a lot of chocolate recipes. How will Ina get all these done in one half hour episode? It turns out she has no problem, since quite a few are no more complicated than melting chocolate and adding things to it. (I’m not complaining. Just because something doesn’t take a long time to make doesn’t mean it’s not good.)
Ina starts with chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. I have to admit I’m not sure we NEED to see her making cupcakes, but let’s see if we learn anything. And they DO look REALLY good. Ina puts 1 1/2 sticks of butter in the mixer. Room temperature, of course.
Ina always says that she leaves her butter out overnight. I wish I had that kind of nerve. But maybe she has someone standing guard in her kitchen to make sure nothing gets into the butter. I’m not sure why I feel it’s a problem to have something out on the counter from, say, 1 am to 8 am, when I wouldn’t mind if it were 10 am to 4 pm, for example. It’s the leaving an ingredient out overnight, unsupervised, that gets to me. I always want to have a handle on what’s going into my cupcakes and who knows what mischief a stick of butter could get into.
Ina adds brown sugar (for its molasses flavor) and white sugar (to make it “lighter”). All brown sugar would make the batter “too dense”. Ina has two room temperature eggs already cracked into a bowl ready to go. That IS smart to pre-crack them, so no shell goes into the mixture. I have to admit I mostly don’t do that. Her eggs look particularly extra large today. Those yolks are HUGE. She beats in the eggs then adds vanilla. She uses 2 teaspoons, which is quite a generous amount.
Ina gets her wet ingredients ready – 1 cup of buttermilk (shaken first), ½ cup sour cream - to make a thicker batter - and 2 tablespoons of coffee (actual coffee, not powder). She sifts 1¾ cups of flour with 1 cup of cocoa powder (that’s A LOT) and baking soda and salt. Ina says, “Salt is surprisingly important when you’re baking”. Maybe one of these decades I’ll agree with her about that, but not anytime soon.
Now this next step is different. Ina adds ALL of the dry ingredients at once and then adds the wet ingredients. She uses a spatula to make sure everything is well mixed. She scoops the batter into paper-lined muffin tins. They get baked at 350°F. for 20 to 25 minutes. That’s an interesting looking pan that she’s using. It looks more like a popover pan with the individual cups sticking out at the bottom and attached only at the top with a thin frame. She sits the pan on a baking sheet, which I’ve never done for cupcakes.
After they’re baked, Ina immediately takes the cupcakes out of the pan and cools them (in their papers) on a baking rack.
For the icing, Ina uses her friend Kathleen King’s recipe from Tate’s in Southampton. Ina says, (as I’ve heard her say before, but I like it), that the cupcakes are really just a delivery system for the fabulous icing.
Ina mixes 1 cup of icing sugar with 1 cup of peanut butter and 5 tablespoons unsalted butter. "Good" vanilla goes in with 1/3 cup of cream. She’s mixes it until it smooth, but not light and fluffy. She wants a thicker texture. That does sound really fantastic, but I’m surprised she doesn’t use a more natural peanut butter. I guess Skippy makes it smoother…
Ina mixes 1 cup of icing sugar with 1 cup of peanut butter and 5 tablespoons unsalted butter. "Good" vanilla goes in with 1/3 cup of cream. She’s mixes it until it smooth, but not light and fluffy. She wants a thicker texture. That does sound really fantastic, but I’m surprised she doesn’t use a more natural peanut butter. I guess Skippy makes it smoother…
Ina tops each cupcake with some icing, leaving the edges unfrosted. It gives them a homemade look, which Ina always likes. They do look really good, but I’m not sure it was worth Ina’s precious time (or MINE, for that matter) to show us how she made them. She finishes them with a sprinkle of chopped peanuts. Pretty, but pretty basic…
Now this next recipe will surely be worth a view. It’s Jeffrey’s favorite Chocolate Gelato. (Why do I think most of Ina’s recipes are favorites of Jeffrey’s? He’s way too smart for that NOT to be the case…)
I don’t want to get into a whole gelato versus ice cream discussion here, but I’m thinking Ina’s recipe will probably NOT contain eggs. Gelato often doesn’t, except for the zabaglione-type flavors. (I know there are exceptions to every dessert rule.)
The other very obvious difference between the two is that American Ice Cream has a lot more air added to it than Italian Gelato, and often more fat than its Italian counterpart. Actually, Gelato has NO air added, but when I’m making ice cream at home, the only air I add is my heavy breathing over the machine, panting in anticipation of the fabulous stuff.)
The other very obvious difference between the two is that American Ice Cream has a lot more air added to it than Italian Gelato, and often more fat than its Italian counterpart. Actually, Gelato has NO air added, but when I’m making ice cream at home, the only air I add is my heavy breathing over the machine, panting in anticipation of the fabulous stuff.)
Ina stirs together 2 1/4 cups of milk, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of cream in a pot and brings it just to a simmer to dissolve the sugar. She whisks in 1 cup of cocoa powder and 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate. She stirs it until the warm milk melts the chocolate. She pours it into her measuring cup.
OH! Lookie here! Ina IS adding eggs! She adds 4 (again) HUGE egg yolks to a mixer bowl with ¼ cup sugar and beats it until light and fluffy. She adds the cooled chocolate mixture and beats that together. She cooks it over low heat and then sieves it to be sure it’s super smooth. So her gelato has a custard base. I still stick by my general rule of no eggs in gelato.
Ina adds 2 tablespoons of coffee liqueur and 2 teaspoons of “good” vanilla and a pinch of salt, which she says it brings out the brightness in the flavors. (Never heard that.) She covers the “gelato” directly with plastic wrap to prevent a skin, (that’s my favorite part) and places it in the fridge to chill.
Meanwhile Ina chops up 8 Baci candies. She pours the cooled chocolate mixture into an ice cream machine and lets it go until it’s really thick. Then Ina adds the chopped-up Baci at the end. (I can’t decide if that’s unnecessary or really good.) She pours it into a quart container and freezes it just until it hardens. She serves it in a chilled stemmed glass.
Ina says she “doesn’t know anybody who’s disappointed when a meal ends with chocolate”. She has 3 more ideas for us. First is Chocolate Orange Fondue, which would be great without the orange. (I have a thing about chocolate with orange. I don’t think they belong together.) The recipe is your standard, but what Ina likes is that it can be served family style for people to help themselves. Ina’s favorite things to dip are thick sticks of salty pretzels. She doesn’t warn against double dipping, but I will.
Her next idea is to serve Chocolate Bark after you’ve left the table and gone into the salon for after-dinner coffee. She actually calls it the living room, but you get the idea. I guess that’s okay if you don’t mind chocolate all over your furniture. OR unless you’re making White Chocolate Bark, which it turns out Ina is. (I think of Chocolate Bark more as a gift than an after-dinner treat.)
For the bark, Ina heats some of the white chocolate in a microwave in 30 second increments until it’s melted. (Ina has a REALLY tiny, WHITE microwave. It seems a bit out of step with the rest of her high class gear.) She chops up the rest of the chocolate and adds it to the melted chocolate to lower the temperature. After it’s nice and smooth, Ina pours it out onto a piece of parchment paper in the shape of a rectangle. She sprinkles over lots of stuff like pistachios, dried apricots and cranberries and lets it harden. She cuts it into pieces and voila, there’s your chocolate bark. Ina says you can also make chocolate lollipops by spooning the chocolate into a circle and placing a stick in before you start decorating. She also likes dark chocolate bark topped with cashews, cranberries and apricots. Dried cherries would also be awesome.
Ina’s penultimate suggestion is Chocolate Truffles. She heats ¼ cup of cream over simmering water with 7 ounces of chopped white chocolate. She whisks it until smooth and whisks in 2 tablespoons of Irish cream (use any you like) and ½ teaspoon vanilla. She chills it for an hour and then scoops out little balls. They get chilled again, then drizzled with extra melted chocolate.
Ina has one last dessert that requires no cooking. Ina says this is her favorite dessert because “it makes grown men weep”. (She’s probably talking about her bridge partners that we’ve gotten to know so well over the years.) She says it’s REALLY easy to make. I predict this is going to be those chocolate wafer cookies layered with lots of cream. Let’s see.
Aha! It’s CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES layered with MOCHA WHIPPED CREAM which sits in the fridge overnight. I was close!
Ina whips together 2 cups cream with 12 ounces of mascarpone, 1/2 cup sugar, ¼ cup of coffee liqueur, cocoa powder, espresso granules and vanilla. That does sound like a really good whipped cream. She says the only trick is to get the layers of cream even between the layers.
Again, Ina uses her friend Kathleen’s thin chocolate chip cookies. In an 8 inch springform pan, she layers cookies on the bottom, breaking some to fit in.. Then she spreads a fifth of the whipped cream over and continues the layering. She says she uses a pound to a pound and a quarter of cookies. (I have no idea how many that would be.) Ina finishes her creation with a final layer of mocha cream and covers it with plastic wrap. It gets refrigerated overnight.
Ina unmolds the cake and grates some chocolate over the top. She slices it and gives it a taste. I'm not saying it wouldn't taste good, but isn't it a little junkie? Poor Ina sounds like she has a cold, so how can she taste anything?
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