CHOCOLATE CAKE EXPRESS

CHOCOLATE CAKE EXPRESS

Tip top choco­late express for those choco­late crav­ings past mid­night. Ready in 20 min­utes top chrono!

Ingre­di­ents:
  • 1 cup 70% cacao choco­late chips
  • 2/3 cup (5 oz) salted butter
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs + 1 egg yolk
Instant Grat­i­fi­ca­tion:

Pre­heat the oven to 360 degrees.

Add the choco­late and but­ter into a ceramic bowl that you will have set inside a larger pot on the stove­top (twice the size of the bowl or so)  filled with about 1 to 2 inches of water. Bring the water to a boil stir­ring the mix­ture until it has melted com­pletely. Make sure the water doesn’t spill over into the ceramic bowl and adjust the heat accord­ingly. (this tech­nic is called “bain-marie”, lit­er­ally Mary’s bath…not sure what they did to Mary then.…). This should take 3 min­utes tops.

Beat the eggs and the sugar together with an elec­tric mixer until the mix­ture has tripled in vol­ume. 2 min­utes tops.
(Alter­na­tively, you can beat the egg whites sep­a­rately until they become firm. This will make the cake much lighter, but will also take much more time. You will need to slowly incor­po­rate the fluffy whites into the chocolate/butter mix­ture, spoon­ing around it again and again.….and again…and I find that for a quick fix after mid­night, this method is a lit­tle overkill. You may pass out before it reaches the oven. We are talk­ing about the I WANT CHOCOLATE NEAAAAOOOOOOW ENVY!!)

Finally spoon in the melted butter/chocolate into the sugar/eggs and stir until the mix­ture is homogeneous.

Pour the final mix into a dish pie. Use a sil­i­cone one or rub some but­ter onto a ceramic dish and sprin­kle with flour. The idea is to avoid the cake stick­ing to the dish… although that may not be a prob­lem if you take the whole dish into bed to devour it like a bar­bar­ian before a good night sleep. Trust me only the god­lier of good­ness of dreams will follow.

Bake in the pre­heated oven for 15–20 min­utes.
Voila, its sup­posed to be crusty out­side and melted inside. Insanely deli­cious. Add some whip cream and vanilla ice cream for total deca­dence at 3 am.
Really good the next day too when you have come off your horse.
Enjoy

CREPES (SWEET OR SALTY)

CREPES (SWEET OR SALTY)

In this chan­deleur sea­son, it’s time for a crepe recipe on Flow­ers of Vice. Here is a very easy and quick one (no wait­ing necessary!).

Ingre­di­ents:

  • 250 g (= 2 cups) white flour
  • 1/2 liter (= 2 cups or 17 oz) milk (tra­di­tion­ally you would use whole milk, but I found that 2% works just as good)
  • 3 eggs
  • salt
  • 50 g (= 3 tbsp) butter
  • 1 tsp orange flower extract (this is optional but it gives a nice sub­tle taste to the crepe dough. You may also add 1 tsp of Rum or vanilla sugar/extract).
  • a small potato and oil (to grease the pan)

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CHOCOLATE BANANA TOFU MUFFINS

CHOCOLATE BANANA TOFU MUFFINS

This is a great tasty and fill­ing snack that you can take along any­where you go

Ingre­di­ents

  • 1 cup soft silken tofu
  • 1 ripe banana
  • 1/4 cup oil or soften butter
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup or Agave
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp bak­ing powder
  • 1 tsp bak­ing soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup or more dark choco­late chunks
  • 1/2 cup walnuts

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SWEET or SALTY PIE CRUST

SWEET or SALTY PIE CRUST

Ingre­di­ents

  • 2 cups flour (I like to mix all-purpose and almond for instance)
  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2–3 tbsp ice-cold water

Optional:

  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp almond extract

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PEAR-RICOTTA PIE

PEAR-RICOTTA PIE

Sur­pris­ingly light and very smooth dessert. Since it’s not too sweet, it works well as a snack as well!

Ingre­di­ents

  • 1 pie crust
  • 1 cup  ricotta (fat free works)
  • 1 cup “fro­mage blanc” (the clos­est in the US is “Mediterranean-style cheese yogurt”)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup of sweet­ener (agave, honey, sugar…)
  • 2 tbsp flour (all-purpose or almond)
  • 1/2 cup sliced almonds
  • 2 pears peeled and cut in 1/8th

Details »