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Today, I visited an overseas friend who taught me some of her native dishes. To celebrate her arrival to our town, I baked her The Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Cake, which has only 3 mandatory ingredients: chocolate, butter, and eggs, and an optional one: coffee liqueur, which I obliged. |
Archive for Pastry:Baked
The Ultimate Flourless Chocolate Cake
Chocolate with The Key Chocolate Class
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We had a cooking class with teenagers from The Key, a youth-run community-based organization. |
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The common ingredient was Mexican chocolate — which we prepared as Champurrado, a hot drink, slightly thickened with corn masa. Here is the Champurrado recipe. |
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and a luscious chile sauce called Red Mole. In the picture, it is served with roast turkey. Here is the Red Mole recipe. |
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Traditionally, the meat is slowly cooked (braised) in the mole for about 1 1/2 hours. But to fit into our 2-hour class schedule, we roasted free-range chickens instead. Here is the Roast Chicken recipe. |
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Unfortunately, we ran out of time to prepare a Hot Fudge Pudding Cake, a fun dessert with a brownie-like layer that floats on a pudding-like chocolate sauce. Here is the Hot Fudge Pudding Cake recipe. |
Muffins
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An officemate asked me “How do you make muffins rise?” I consulted the reliable Cooks Illustrated and found the following advice: “Make enough batter to fill up the cups for big, shapely muffins.” Here is a Lemon Blueberry Muffins recipe that shows the trick. |
Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze
This American classic is baked in an unusual way — in a cold oven set at 225°F for 20 minutes and then at 325°F for 30 to 40 minutes more. The result is a very moist cake. We served this cake at home last night to a party of teens and grown-ups. Every piece was consumed with delight. Here is the recipe.
Luigi Cooks 