Scotch-Peanut Chocolate Truffles for Valentine's Day!

My father is a Scotch connoisseur.  Lucky for him, Robert occasionally makes a trip to Scotland, and when he can, brings back a drop or two of that country's finest drink.  Dad's favorite distiller at the moment is Deanston, which makes (according to Dad) some wonderful single malt Scotches. When I saw this recipe for Scotch Peanut Chocolate Truffles by Florence Fabricant on the NY Times Cooking website and noted that they used a bit of honey, too, I knew I had to give them a try. We're not as taken with Scotch as Dad is, so I had to borrow a few tablespoons from him to make these chocolates. (Don't worry, Robert! I didn't use the good stuff!)  If you don't have Scotch, a liqueur or other distilled drink would probably work--Grand Marnier or amaretto or Chambord? Bourbon?  You might also swap out the peanuts for another kind of nut like almonds or cashews.  A slight and lovely hint of the Scotch does come through and marries well with the peanuts in the chocolate. I used milk chocolate to coat the truffles instead of the bittersweet chocolate called for in the recipe. This made what seems like a ton of truffles--about 48--that I'll be sharing with Dad and Mom. Next time I make them,  I'll likely cut the recipe in half, though.  If you have some grown up valentines, these unique truffles would be a lovely, homemade gift!

Scotch Peanut Chocolate Truffles
8 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons honey
3 tablespoons Scotch
6 tablespoons salted peanuts, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 lb 4 ounces good quality milk chocolate, chopped into small pieces

Place the bittersweet chocolate into a heat-proof bowl.  Heat the heavy cream to a simmer and pour over the chocolate, stirring to melt.  If you need to, briefly place the bowl over a post of simmering water to melt all of the chocolate.  Stir in the honey, Scotch, nuts and vanilla.  Chill until firm.

Using a scant teaspoon, roll the chocolate into small balls about an inch in diameter.  Place them on a lined cookie sheet and then freeze for about 30 minutes, or until nice and firm.

Melt 16 ounces of the  milk chocolate (either in a pan over very low heat or in the microwave for a minute or so--being careful not to burn it).   Add the remaining 4 ounces of milk chocolate and stir to melt.  Dip the truffles into the chocolate to cover completely and place on a lined sheet. (The directions in the original recipe called for spearing the truffles with a fork and dipping them into the chocolate to coat.  That didn't seem to work for me. I plopped a few a time in the bowl, tossed them around, and then used a fork to scoop them out.)  In about 15 minutes, they'll be ready to eat.  Store in the refrigerator.
 

Chocolate Crispy Rice Treats

 

These couldn't be simpler--or more delicious!  There are lots of ways you can play around with them, too. The original recipe came from the Vegetarian Times.  I followed it pretty closely, adding just a sprinkle of kosher salt when I mixed in the rice cereal.  Next time, I might add an extra cup of cereal and, perhaps, a teaspoon or so of vanilla extract to bump up the flavor.  I also put the dish in the fridge for awhile to harden a bit.  The recipe calls for almond butter, which I think makes them very special.  Peanut butter or another nut butter would work as well.

Chocolate Crispy Rice Treats
1/2 cup almond butter
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3 cups crispy rice cereal (I used brown rice cereal--and next time I'll add at least 4 cups)
pinch of salt

Grease an 8x8 square baking dish with cooking spray.  In a large pan, combine the almond butter, honey and chocolate chips over medium low flame, stirring constantly until the chocolate is melted--about 3 or 4 minutes.  Add the cereal and a pinch of salt and stir to thoroughly combine the cereal with the chocolate mixture. Press the mixture into the prepared pan. Let cool for at least 15 minutes before cutting into squares. (I found it helped to refrigerate them for about 30 minutes after they cooled.)

Honey Chocolate Brownie Bites

With back to school upon us, I thought a cookie for lunch boxes or after school snack might be in order. These cookies are about as close as you can get to eating a "raw" cookie dough cookie (without it actually being raw). They are very soft and have the consistency of a chewy brownie.  They were a big hit among potluckers dining here a few weeks ago.  The recipe comes from the July 2011 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. The original recipe, called "Double-Chocolate Brownie Bites," includes 7 ounces (1 1/2 cups) of semisweet chocolate coarsely chopped, but as I've mentioned on the blog before, Robert hates chocolate chips, so I left them out.  No one missed them and truth be told, I think the chips would have taken these cookies over the top (and not in a good way).   The cookies puff up and their tops crackle--a sign they're ready to pull out of the oven.  When they cool, they flatten back down again.

Honey Chocolate Brownie Bites
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 325.  In a medium size bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa, soda and salt and set aside. Beat the butter and brown sugar on medium speed until very fluffy--about 3 or 4 minutes.  Add the honey and beat again until fluffy and light.  Lower the speed and slowly add the flour/cocoa mixture until very well combined.  If you're adding chocolate bits, now would be the time to do that.  Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes (this will make them easier to form into small balls).

Take about a teaspoon of dough and roll it into a ball--aiming for a little less than the size of a walnut.  Drop the balls into the granulated sugar and roll again.  Place the sugar-coated balls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, spacing about 1 inch apart.  Bake for about 9 minutes until the tops are puffed and cracking and just set.  Cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or so then transfer to a cooling rack.  Makes about 30 and the cookies will keep at room temperature in an air-tight container for about three or four days.

Chocolate Coconut Honey Ice "Cream"--Dairy Free!

Chocolate Coconut Ice "Cream"

This is another great recipe from our favorite vegan, Emily.  (Thanks, Emily!)  It's delicious, creamy and couldn't be simpler, made as it is with just coconut milk, cocoa and honey.

Instead of honey, Emily uses agave syrup--a nice alternative for those vegans who eschew honey.  There is, in fact, a great debate about whether honey can be included in a vegan diet. For more on that debate, check out this Slate article as well as this page on the Vegetus website. For the record, the Vegetus site argues that beekeepers exploit honeybees, a point we obviously dispute.  We can appreciate someone making a decision not to consume any animal or animal-created foods (like honey or milk) on principle, and Vegetus author offers a thoughtful and thorough discussion. Yet most of the foods that vegans enjoy are available because of the industrious (and indeed at times exploited) honeybee. As backyard beekeepers, we prefer to think that instead of exploiting them, we're helping them to thrive.

Whew! After that lengthy detour, it's time to enjoy some delicious ice "cream," don't you think?

Chocolate Coconut Honey Ice "Cream"
As Emily notes, the recipe comes from the Detoxinista website, with helpful directions for how to make it if you don't have an ice cream maker.  I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to give the flavor a little bump.

Just poured into the ice cream maker

1 14-oz can coconut milk
1/4 plus 2 tablespoons cocoa (I used Hershey's dark cocoa)
1/4 cup honey (or agave or maple syrup if you insist!)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Whirl all of the ingredients in a blender and pour into an ice cream maker.  If you've made other more traditional ice creams before, this will look a bit more runny than most ice cream bases.  Have faith! Process in the ice cream maker for about 20 minutes until it is the consistency of soft-serve ice cream.  You can spoon it out into bowls right then and enjoy. Or, if you want the ice cream to be a bit firmer, place in a freezer-safe container and freeze for a few hours. This is best eaten within a day or two (I could barely stop myself from eating the whole thing in one sitting!.)

What it looks like when it's done

Ready to eat!

Flourless Chocolate Coconut Cookies

When my sisters and I were little, we'd beg my mother to make boiled chocolate cookies, which were more like candy than cookies and made with cocoa and oats.  They were the perfect way to satisfy a sweet tooth when we didn't want to wait for cookies to bake.  These flourless chocolate coconut cookies remind me a bit of them--though these are baked and not boiled.  They're rather candy-like in a chewy way and they come together very quickly.  I did have to wait 10 minutes for them to bake, but it was worth it!  I'd make one tweak to the recipe:  the cookies were a bit too big and they'll be smaller the next time I make them.

I found this recipe on a blog called Healthful Pursuit, which is the creation of Leanne Vogel, a holistic nutritionist.  Though I wouldn't make a meal of these, the basic ingredients--cocoa, honey, coconut, eggs and vanilla extract--make them at least seem like they're good for you. Make up a batch for your Easter basket!

Flourless Chocolate Coconut Cookies

1 cup coconut (I used unsweetened, but you could use sweetened if that's all you have)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Combine the ingredients in a bowl and mix well to combine.  Using a teaspoon, drop cookies onto a cookie sheet, forming cookies that are about the size of a walnut.  Bake for about 8-10 minutes until the cookies are firm to the touch and can be easily lifted from the sheet.  Makes about 12-15 cookies and the recipe is easily doubled.

BONUS RECIPE!  MOM'S BOILED COOKIES!

Well, I couldn't mention Mom's Boiled Cookies and not give you the recipe. These cookies don't have a lick of honey in them, but they're very good!  (Mom's secret ingredient is peanut butter.)

2 cups sugar

4 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 cup milk

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cut into chunks

3 tablespoons peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/2 cups rolled oats

In a sauce pan, mix sugar, cocoa and milk until well combined. Add butter.  Place pan over medium heat and bring the mixture to a rapid boil, stirring to mix in butter as it melts.  Boil rapidly for one minute.  Remove from heat.  Add peanut butter and vanilla and stir.  Add oats and mix until well combined.  

Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper. Cool.  Makes enough for three sisters and a mom! :)

Honey Chocolate Shortbread Ribbons

I'm still in the midst of my cookie baking extravaganza here.  The recipe for these honey chocolate shortbread ribbons is from the National Honey Board, where I get a lot of great recipe ideas.  I have to confess that these aren't Robert's favorite.  The recipe calls for orange peel, which adds a tang to the dough that Robert isn't that fond of (he ate a few of 'em though!).  You could skip the peel if you'd prefer.  In that case, I might be tempted to add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the dough, just to kick up the flavor a bit.

Honey Chocolate Shortbread Ribbons
1 cup butter, softened
2/3rd cup  honey
1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted

Cream the butter and gradually drizzle in the honey, beating until light and fluffy.  Add the orange peel and beat to incorporate thoroughly.  In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, salt and baking powder and then stir into the honey-butter mixture, combining well.  Remove about 1/3 of the dough to another bowl and add the melted chocolate to it, combining well.

Line one 9 inch square pan and one 9x5 inch loaf pan with waxed paper, letting the paper hang out of the sides so that you'll be able to lift the dough out once it hardens. Flatten the chocolate mixture into the loaf pan and the remaining dough into the square pan. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Remove the dough from the 9 inch pan and cut in half.  Place the chocolate dough in the middle of the two halves and press lightly but to be sure the layers hold together.  With a large, sharp knife, cut the block lengthwise to make two logs.  Wrap each with wax paper and then with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least four hours (or freeze up to three months).

Preheat oven to 375.  Slice the logs about 1/8th to 1/4th inches wide and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Bake for about 7 to 8 minutes until lightly browned.  Makes about four dozen cookies.

And stay tuned!  The recipe for Robert's favorite honey cranberry pinwheel cookies coming soon!

When life hands you a big zucchini...

Make Honey Zucchini Bread & Cake!  

That's a big zucchini!

It happens every year.  A zucchini hides  from us for most of the summer and slowly but surely turns into baseball bat.  Usually it just gets tossed on the compost pile and we move on. But this year for some reason, I felt compelled to try to put at least some of this beast to use.  It sent me to my cookbooks and the internet searching for some zucchini bread and cake recipes.

I'm happy to report that I have two delicious zucchini recipes to share, both of which use honey as part (or all!) to sweeten.

The first recipe, Chocolate Honey Zucchini Bread, is adapted from one on the King Arthur Flour website, which is always a great source for bread and cake recipes. The King Arthur recipe calls for chocolate chips, which are not included in mine because Robert is adamantly opposed to chocolate chips. (He hates chocolate chip cookies! No lie!) Ah, but he loves this Chocolate Honey Zucchini Bread, and ate half of it before I could take a photo of the finished product. There's no better compliment, actually.  Thanks, Rob!

The second recipe, a Honey Zucchini Bundt Cake, is adapted from a honey zucchini bread recipe on cooks.com.  It's also quite good and would be lovely with a little cream cheese, too.

I'll be making more of both recipes to freeze, because I still have half of that zucchini sitting on my counter! (Robert says he wouldn't be surprised if it doubles in size overnight.  He suspects that even when you take them off the vine, they keep growing.)

Chocolate Honey Zucchini Bread

2 large eggs
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder (optional -but nice!)
1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa
1 2/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 cups shredded, unpeeled zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a loaf pan (mine was 9x5--an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 will also work)

Beat the eggs, honey, oil, brown sugar and vanilla in a large bowl.  In another bowl, whisk together the salt, soda, baking powder, espresso powder, cocoa and flour.  Add this to the honey/egg/oil mixture and mix until well combined.  Stir in the zucchini.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool for about 10 minutes and then remove from the pan.  If you can keep your peeps away, let it cool completely before slicing.

Honey Zucchini Bundt Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Oil and flour a Bundt or fluted cake pan.

3 cups unbleached white all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 cups graded raw, unpeeled zucchini
3 eggs, slightly beaten
2/3 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)
1 2/3rd cups honey
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and ground cinnamon in a large bowl.  In a medium bowl, thoroughly combine the eggs, oil, honey & vanilla and zucchini.  Add this to the dry ingredients and stir just to combine.  Stir in the walnuts to distribute.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool for about 15 minutes and then remove from pan.

Looking for even more zucchini bread options?  Check out Allie Smith's blog "Allie's Life" for a recipe for banana zucchini bread, which includes the option to honey as a sweetner.

Chocolate Honey Snacking Cake

I can't let the advent of Valentine's Day go by without some kind of chocolate honey concoction!  This is not a strongly flavored chocolate cake, so the taste of the honey in the batter really comes through.  I used our summer (clover) honey in this recipe.  More richly flavored fall honey would also be a good choice. We plowed right into the cake after it came out of the oven, but if you want a more strongly chocolate flavored cake--and a prettier presentation to impress your valentine--you can add a chocolate honey glaze once you take the cake from the pan. I'm including a glaze recipe below.

FOR THE CAKE:
1 10-inch spring form tube pan at least three inches deep; you could also use a 9-inch regular round cake pan if you'd like.Oil and flour the pan.  If you're using a regular cake pan, it'd be wise to line the bottom with parchment paper.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt.
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup summer or fall honey
2 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)
1 1/2 cup milk soured by adding 1 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice. (You could also use butter milk.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.  Using a standing or hand-held mixer, blend the sugar and honey for about 2 minutes, beating really well.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix for another minute to blend well.  Add oil and mix again for about 30 seconds to a minute until the ingredients are fully combined.  Add one half of the flour mixture and mix until there are no pockets of flour left (there may be some lumps).  Add the milk and mix carefully, as the batter will be very soupy at this point.  Add the rest of the flour and combine well.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake about 50 to 55 minutes.  The top should be highly domed and spring back when lightly touched with your finger.  Alternatively, insert a toothpick in the center and remove.  If it's dry, the cake is done.  Take care not to over-bake.  Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan.  If serving plain, serve warm!  You can glaze the cake when it's still warm if you'd like.

HONEY CHOCOLATE GLAZE
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup summer or fall honey
10 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate,(NOT baking chocolate), chopped or broken into small pieces
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
toasted pecans, almonds or walnuts--about 1/2 cup (optional)

Bring whipping cream and honey just to a boil in a sauce pan, stirring to blend and watching carefully so that it doesn't boil over.  Place the chocolate in a bowl and pour the hot cream and honey over it, stirring to melt the chocolate until all is smooth.  Add the vanilla and a pinch of salt and let sit for about 5 minutes.

Place a cooling rack on some waxed paper on the counter and put the cake on the rack.  Pour the glaze evenly over the cake, spreading if necessary so that the glaze drips down the sides.  Sprinkle the toasted nuts on top if using.  Place the cake in the fridge for about 30 minutes to an hour to set the glaze.

This cake keeps well, so you could bake it a day ahead if you'd like.  Just tightly cover it overnight.