chocolate recipes

Chocolate-Chip Biscotti

The Italians are kind of liberal with the word biscotti, considering they call any type of cookie biscotti. Meanwhile, in North America, the term biscotti refers to cookies that are long, dry, hard, and twice-baked with a curved top and flat bottom designed for dunking into coffee or even wine. The term ‘biscotti’ is derived from 'bis' meaning twice in Italian and 'cotto', meaning baked or cooked.

Biscotti can supposedly be traced back to Columbus's time, specifically to an Italian baker who is said to have served these treats with Tuscan wines. As Biscotti became massively popular almost all the provinces developed their own flavored version. Since their shelf life was quite long, they were an ideal food for sailors, soldiers, and fisherman.

Enough with the information overload, here's the recipe!

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Chocolate Meringue Bars

These Chocolate Meringue Bars are so light and airy, at the same time sweet and crisp. It's melt-in-the-mouth goodness is to-die-for. The insides of these bars stay sumptuously soft and puffy. They can be mistaken for mini-Pavlovas.

You can enjoy them as is, or you can whip up a fancy plated dessert and top them with whipped cream, sorbet, ice cream, fresh fruit, you name it.

These treats will be nothing like others you have tasted. They're rich, irresistible, and make no mistake about it, you will hear "oohs" and "aahs". You might even be asked for an encore. (Next batch please!!)

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Chocolate-Champagne Trifle with Passion Fruit Curd

Passion fruit, chocolate and champagne. Hearing even just one of those ingredients would instantly make you think of anything romantic. They’re just dreamy in their own right.

This recipe may entail a lot of work, considering you have to prepare the cake, the passion fruit curd, and the champagne cream separately. But they’re actually a breeze to make, and they will combine to be the most decadent and glamorous dessert.

You can find passion fruit puree in your favorite supermarket. For the most part, they're in the aisle with other Hispanic ingredients.

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Chocolate Almond Pound Cake

You should know that this cake is, as a matter of fact, weighty. Deeply sorry I had to use such word play. In any case, the cake was named for the ratio of ingredients it is made of: 1 pound butter, 1 pound eggs, 1 pound flour, 1 pound sugar. But we won’t stick with those measurements!

Long story short, despite the original pound cake's sparse number of ingredients, it is packed with flavor. Pound cake is described as a dense cake with a compact, buttery crumb. The butter and eggs are to be thanked for its richness.

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Bourbon Balls

I love hot chocolate, and any chocolate drink, for that matter. I can't stress it enough. Not gonna lie, I also have this intense love of alcohol drinks. Among the top of my list: bourbon drinks. I love bourbon with citrus, bourbon with ginger, bourbon with...well, just about anything.

According to Wikipedia, bourbon whiskey is a type of American whiskey – a barrel-aged distilled spirit made primarily from corn. The name derives from the French Bourbon dynasty, although it is disputed whether its namesake Kentucky county or New Orleans street is the source of the whiskey's name.

Turn it into a dessert, and I'm a happy camper!

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Swedish Chocolate Balls

Kids in Sweden understand that the chocolate ball, known as "Chokladbollar", is an amazing treat.

Not only does it taste great, but it can be made by kids too, without the use of knives or hot pans and ovens.  That's right, no baking or cooking needed. Just mix then ingredients, and then roll into balls. What kid wouldn't want that for dessert?

Chokladboll (literally "chocolate ball") is a popular Swedish confectionery. It is a type of fridge cake. Historically, the original name was negerboll (literally "negro ball"). However, nowadays, this older name is deemed controversial due to its association with a potentially racist term. 

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Mini Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Cakes

Aside from chocolate chip cookies, I have this deep undying love for thin mint cookies! These are thin, mint-flavored chocolate wafers dipped in a chocolate coating. I tend to exclusively associate them with the cute little Girl Scouts, so when I happened to come across this recipe, I was delighted! I couldn’t wait to share it with you guys.

This is how it was diligently described: "Like a Thin Mint cookie and an ice cream cake had a delicious baby, these single-serving cakes are a delight to the eye and to the mouth! Fluffy dairy-free chocolate cake is sandwiched around creamy mint chip coconut milk ice cream, coated with crunchy peppermint-infused chocolate, and topped with whipped coconut cream. A bite-sized treat perfect for parties, no one will believe you when you say they’re dairy free."

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Peppermint Chocolate Granola

Granola is something else! Always has been, always will be. And it can be delicious, especially if it's not made up of too much mysterious organic stuff that some dude tripped over while hiking some prairie lands.

Here's a yummy twist on the Granola concept that you can use to get rid of some of those extra candy canes lying around after Christmas.

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Chocolate Coconut-Filled Almond Cupcakes

Ah, Christmas. 'Tis the season to reunite with family and friends. Time to catch up with all the loved ones. And then suddenly, it's the new year!

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Hot Chocolate Eggnog

I'm a sucker for drinks. I always have something in hand to sip.  And it so happens that I'm a big fan of the eggnog drink.

A lot of people still believe that eggnog doesn’t go well with chocolate. For the most part, they think chocolate kind of overpowers the eggnog flavor. I beg to differ. I firmly believe that the ultra-creamy texture of eggnog is a great match for chocolate. One sip of the Eggnog Hot Chocolate and you’ll be on board in no time.

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