Pop Rocks Chocolate

When I landed at JFK after five months in Israel, the guy sitting next to me sighed and said, "Welcome back to the land of bad dairy," and I laughed, because I knew exactly what he meant. It was 2006, and the greek yogurt explosion hadn't yet moved American yogurt selection much past flavored Yoplait, but in a tiny country half covered by desert and where I never glimpsed a single cow, I tasted the real thing. My first spoonful of Israeli yogurt was a revelation, and I soon learned that the milk, cheeses, and chocolate were equally delicious. Especially the chocolate.

Friends pointed me to the Elite chocolate I kept seeing everywhere we went. I tried almost every variety of those red-wrapped bars with their depictions of a cow and whatever candy or filling happened to be inside. The one that most intrigued me was the milk chocolate bar with perplexing images of what appeared to be bright gold sparkles. I had no idea what those sparkles could be, but one day, on a trip to Nazareth, I finally bought one for the bus ride home. Turns, out it was pop rocks! Not the blue raspberry or strawberry ones I knew as a kid, but just plain, slightly golden ones that gave the chocolate a bubbly effervescence that I loved. Pretty soon, that was the only chocolate bar I was buying.

Almost ten years later, my local grocery store boasts yogurt options in an infinite variety of animal milks, flavors, styles, and fat percentages, so I don't find myself longing for much from Israel except good falafel and that chocolate. The first few years were tough. I heard rumors it was discontinued, and I never found the chocolate for sale at the Kosher grocery in Brookline, or online, but I sometimes got lucky, pouncing on the stuff like a crazed addict. When coworkers went to Israel for business I begged for someone to bring a bar or two back for me, and once I went to a not-close acquaintance's apartment and all but demanded her roommate share a piece from the bar I spied on the coffee table.

It turns out that they do still make it, and you can now buy it online, thanks to Amazon. Even Trader Joe's has a dark chocolate bar with pop rocks and chile powder, so clearly this has gone mainstream. The other thing that's gone mainstream is mixing oil and cacao powder to make your own chocolate at home, which I was dying to try. Of course, I knew exactly what was going in my first batch. I found some plain popping candy on line and held my breath it would work. My chocolate is darker than the bars I fell in love with, but that just means I feel fine eating more of it. 

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Pop Rocks Chocolate

Chocolate adapted from Minimalist Baker

1 cup cocoa butter
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 cup cacao powder
a good pinch of sea salt
1/8-1/4 cup popping candy

1. Heat cocoa butter over a double boiler until melted. Remove from heat and whisk in maple syrup and pinch of salt until completely combined, then add in  cacao powder and whisk to combine.
2. Pour mixture into a small, parchment lined cookie sheet or baking dish, and sprinkle with the popping candy. It will start popping a little bit, but that's ok.
3. Place the sheet in the freezer to harden. When completely solid, cut or break into pieces.
4. Store in the refrigerator or freezer in an airtight bag or container.

White Cheddar, Apple and Green Chile Scones

So, Christmas is almost here.

How? I don't know but the whiplash is painful. 

This week I'm knee deep in holiday menu planning for Christmas Eve/post- Star Wars snacking, Christmas Dinner and a Boxing Day party, and I just remembered we'll probably want something fun Christmas morning too, but it can't be too involved because I just want to drink tea and watch Elf before prepping Christmas dinner, not stand around the kitchen making waffles for an hour. The thought is almost as exhausting as that run-on sentence.

If you are in a similar situation come Christmas morning, may I suggest scones? Fresh, flaky and warm out of the oven, they have a "special occasion" air about them but really they are sneakily easy,  and if your family traditionally holds out long enough to open presents on the 25th (unlike mine), they also happen to leave one hand free for tearing into all that wrapping paper. 

And, if your family doesn't celebrate Christmas, so you will be spending your Friday morning as just a bonus day off sans family tension, well, lucky you, but also these make a pretty excellent and cozy "just because it's Winter" breakfast, too.

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White Cheddar, Apple and Green Chile Scones Recipe

Adapted from Bill Yosses via Leite's Culinaria

1 granny smith apple
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt, plus more for egg wash
6 tbs cold, unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 cup shredded sharp white cheddar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 4oz can whole green chiles
2 eggs
turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel apple and cut in half lengthwise. Remove core and slice each half into 8 pieces, lengthwise. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet about 20 minutes and set aside to cool.

2. On another parchment lined baking sheet, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

3. In a large mixing bowl, place the butter, apples, cheese, heavy cream, chiles, and one egg. Pick up the piece of parchment with the flour mixture and sprinkle the flour over the top of the other ingredients. With mixer on low, mix until everything just comes together.

4. Turn dough onto a floured surface and press into a round, at least 1 inch thick. Using a knife or a bench scraper, cut the round into 6 equal wedges. Transfer wedges to the parchment lined baking sheet (the one you mixed your flour on), leaving at least 2 inches beetween the wedges.

5. In a small bowl, mix together remaining egg and a pinch of salt, and brush onto the tops of the dough wedges. Sprinkle with turbinado (or regular) sugar and bake until golden, about 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes, then serve warm.

Chocolate Ginger Caramelized White Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Approaching almost a full year of this blog, I've learned one of the hardest things about creating content from week to week is translating my visions into reality. Sometimes it's just that I can't get the picture I want, or sometimes I just don't have as much to say as I thought I did, and every now and then, its just that I messed up a recipe. I could drive myself crazy trying to make this space as beautifully styled or my recipes as rigorously tested and infallible as some of the other blogs I read every day, but I don't have that kind of time and also, I think maybe the last thing the internet needs is another meticulously curated space showcasing aspirational perfection. 

Because here's the thing about cooking and messing up: It happens. All the time. Even using a recipe, things never come out exactly the same way twice. Sure, you want to make sure the guideline works, but also you want it to be ok if your oven temperature spikes, you get distracted, or your chocolate just won't behave. And if all of that happens and whatever you were making is still edible, the best thing to do in that situation is just shrug it off and enjoy that you made something. 

Anyway, that's what I kept telling myself while frosting these cookies with a stiff, grainy ganache that was nothing like the smooth, fluffy confection I planned to pipe onto them.  It's true that they aren't the lookers I was hoping for, but they taste pretty damn good, and it's nice to take a break from Instaworld every now and then and remind myself that that's the most important part.

If you do nothing else, buy a hunk of white chocolate and caramelize it. It will change your life, I swear.

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Chocolate Ginger Caramelized White Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Makes about 20 sandwich cookies

Chocolate Ginger Cookies (adapted from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook)
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 tbs dutch processed cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 stick softened butter
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tsp grated fresh ginger

Caramelized White Chocolate Ganache
8 oz caramelized white chocolate
1 cup heavy cream

1. Make cookie dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together dry  ingredients and set aside. Cream butter, sugars and ginger with a mixer on medium speed 2-3 minutes, then beat in egg and vanilla until combined. With mixer on low speed, incorporate the flour mixture, then turn dough out onto plastic wrap, divide in half, and chill at least 1 hour.
2. Make the ganache. Roughly chop the white chocolate and place it in a heat proof bowl. Heat heavy cream in a saucepot to a boil, then, pour over the chocolate. Let sit for 10 minutes, then whisk to combine. Chill 1 hour in the refrigerator 1-2 hours.
3. When ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take your chilled ganache out of the refrigerator. Roll the dough out to a 1/8 inch thickness, then cut out 2-inch circles using a biscuit or cookie cutter and place on parchment lined baking sheets. Freeze cut out dough for 15 minutes, then bake 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.Let cool completely before filling.
4. When ready to fill cookies, whip the ganache 1-2 minutes until fluffy and paler in color. Make sure the ganache is at room temperature, or at least not very chilled. Pipe or spread ganache onto half of the cookies, and top with remaining halves.

Notes:

• When ready to whip the ganache, make sure it is not too cold. It will firm up faster in the refrigerator, but if you try to whip it when it is cold, it may become grainy, because the fat solids in the chocolate don't warm up as quickly as the liquid cream. If this happens, you can gently warm up the ganache and even it out, but it probably won't whip up. Either way, it will still be edible and still delicious, just not as pretty.
• If all of this talk of tricky ganache is scaring you, you can also just fill the cookies with the melted chocolate. In that case, don't add cream, but melt the chocolate, then wait until it has firmed up enough to spread our pipe onto the cookies.