Chocolate | Gourmandistan

Wild blackberry curd and buttercream make a lovely wedding (cake)

July 23, 2015 by Michelle

The wedding that eventually led to Gourmandistan happened many years ago, and it has been quite a while since we’ve attended anyone else’s. However, a combination of Michelle’s imagination and Steve’s perspiration recently led to one of the best wedding cakes either of us has ever eaten—and we didn’t have to get dressed up to do it. This year’s wild blackberry harvest was not that wonderful. February’s ice and snow smashed many canes flat; the oddly cool temperatures and torrential rains that followed didn’t […]

Categories: Blackberries, Cake, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Sometimes you feel like a dark chocolate almond coconut bar, sometimes you don’t

May 5, 2015 by Steve

Those outside of America may be unaware of either Almond Joy® or Mounds® candy bars. This means they are also unaware of the “sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t” debate that would have torn America apart decades ago if not for shelf after shelf groaning with other candy options. Rest assured, however, there is a divide over which bar is best, which remained alive in Gourmandistan until Michelle created a delightful compromise. Both Michelle and Steve chose the coconut treats quite […]

Categories: Brownies, Candy, Chocolate, Coconut, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Relative temperature in raspberry jam shortbread brownies

March 14, 2015 by Michelle

The baseline is clear: these brownies are very, very good. But at what temperature? Starting with some seedless raspberry preserves left after a cake proved disappointing, Michelle decided jam might be delicious if layered between shortbread and brownies. Adapting an Alice Medrich recipe, she produced a marvelous combination of crispy short crust, fudgy brownie topping and tartly sweet jam in between. Fairly simple to make, Michelle thinks they would likely work with other jam flavors such as apricot, cherry or strawberry. After sampling a bit of the very rich brownies, […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Recipes

Soar, salty bittersweet: salted peanut brownies

January 26, 2015 by Michelle

Once again in the midst of a dreary Gourmandistan winter, Michelle decided she had to have something sweet. Steve tried to tempt her with a crispy Gold Rush apple, as he has found a local grocery still stocking the locally-grown fruit (though they may not last long now that Steve knows about them). While Michelle did momentarily consider tarte tatin, it wasn’t what she really wanted. A can of salted Virginia peanuts some friends brought over during the holidays gave her an idea, however—and salty peanut brownies with peanut butter icing […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Gift, Gourmandistanized: Ghirardelli® Dark & [Sea Salt] Caramel Squares™ Cookies

January 4, 2015 by Steve

A Christmas gift of Ghirardelli® Dark & [Sea Salt] Caramel Squares™ (OK, it’s “Rich Chocolate, Luscious Filling,” but they trademarked the word “Squares”?) could have, we suppose, been enjoyed in the manner intended by its manufacturer: unwrapped and nibbled for “a moment that will carry you throughout your day.” But in Gourmandistan, that would be too easy—and, in yet another instance, Michelle began to think about how to turn a gift into something really, really good. Michelle wondered what might happen if one […]

Categories: Candy, Chocolate, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Vegetarian

Pawpaw ice cream with unfamiliarity and added tropicality

October 2, 2014 by Michelle

Even though we were raised within their growing range, pawpaws have been mostly a mystery to Gourmandistan. We were somewhat familiar with the song “Way Down Yonder In The Pawpaw Patch,” and were tempted many years ago by the offer of free pawpaw saplings from the Kentucky State University Land Grant Program. We turned them down, as we believed they would suffer the same fate as our other orchard (gnawed to death by deer). KSU is home to the world’s only “full-time pawpaw research program,” which seems to serve as the Internet’s primary […]

Categories: Chocolate, Cooking, Food, Fruit, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Meet your new King, Chocolate Elvis Cake

April 19, 2014 by Michelle

Elvis Presley has many, many incarnations. Swivel-hipped Ed Sullivan-censored Elvis. Terrible movie star Elvis. Television-shooting, fried peanut butter and banana sandwich-eating Elvis. Black leather-clad Comeback Elvis. Sweaty sequined Vegas Elvis. Dead Elvis. Some see Elvis as a racist, others as a messiah. Gourmandistan saw Elvis as cake. Our story begins like so many in Gourmandistan, with a bit of food about to go off. In this case, it was bananas, which Michelle (as she often does) starting thinking about making into a […]

Categories: Bananas, Cake, Candy, Chocolate, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Chocolate & peanut butter ripples across Atlantic, threatening Nutella domination.

December 9, 2012 by Steve

Gourmandistan wants only to spread the love, so we must first say that we adore Nutella. Steve, particularly, has been a fan of filberts for as long as he can remember, and we’ve both appreciated schmears of the nutty stuff on crêpes purchased from Paris metro station vendors. But seriously, Europeans need to get better acquainted with peanut butter, one of those magic foodstuffs (like tomatoes, potatoes, pineapples and processed cheese product) brought to life in the New World. We […]

Categories: Chocolate, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Martha Stewart, Mitt Romney and making bank off Salty Peanut & Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

November 25, 2012 by Steve

One of the benefits of being around since the middle of the last century is that we Gourmandistanis may confidently say we were hip to Martha Stewart before Martha Stewart became hip. “It’s a good thing” was a catchphrase in our various domiciles as we cooked, stenciled and collected assorted tchotchkes such as the fake topiary Steve dubbed “the puffball on a stick.” While even Michelle is not as craft-tastic and decorative-ish as she used to be (the puffball, too, […]

Categories: Chocolate, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Gourmandistan

A fabled land of farmers, farm shares, fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants, family meals, food projects and more.

Category Archives: Chocolate