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Young & HungryIf you can't take the heat, get outta the kitchen! |
| 13 December |
While it turns out that Baci is just as much a nickname for chocolate hazelnut as Nutella, I’m sure they’d be happy to know that, in my mind at least, they’re the Kleenex of chocolate hazelnut candy! Baci, which means kiss in Italian, is the much more delicious Nestle version of our Hershey Kisses. Not only is their taste superior to our plain Jane chocolates, but they come with little multilingual love notes inside the wrapper!
I’ll never forget my trip to the chocolate festival in Perugia, the home of the Perugina factory where these little pecks of heaven are crafted. There was chocolate everywhere! Hot chocolate as thick as honey, decadent chocolate desserts, and even a chocolate sculpture contest where artists chipped away at life size blocks of cocoa while people crowded at their feet to catch the scraps*. How they maintained focus I will never know! It was a trip to remember, even 6 years later. And so here’s a little chip of Perugia just for you!
Dillo con un Bacio!
*Scraps?! Excuse my blasphemy.
| 14 October |
Not too long ago, one of the girls at work brought in Browned Butter Cookies. Have you ever had browned butter? It’s amazing. While I noticed the flavors are much more intense when used as a sauce, how could I not try to incorporate this deliciously nutty transformation of an everyday staple into baked goods! And so my quest for a Browned Butter Cake began.
Upon googling brown(ed) butter cake I was presented with a myriad of recipes for Hazelnut Browned Butter Cake. Surprised at how common this relatively specific cake was I decided to go for the one recipe that opted for almonds instead. Sorry hazelnut. Why is it that all the cakes containing browned butter also contain nuts? I don’t know exactly, but imagine that it brings out the aforementioned nutty flavors of the butter. When you taste this cake you’ll see what I mean. It has flavors quite unique from anything you’ve had before. The recipe, too, is quite unique. It contains no trace leavening agent, powdered sugar instead of the usual white, hardly any flour, and meringue?! Crazy, I know.
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