Sharffen Berger chocolate crostini
Ingredients:
1 sweet baguette or French bread
Flavorful extra virgin olive oil to drizzle
3-4 ounces Scharffen Berger Semisweet 62% Chocolate
Flakey sea salt
Optional embellishments such as: espellette pepper, smoked hot or sweet paprika, dried or fresh herbs…
Procedure:
Slice the bread and toast slices on both sides until lightly golden at the edges and perfectly crisp and crunchy. Brush the tops liberally with olive oil. Melt the chocolate and drizzle over the crostini. Season with tiny pinches of salt and any of the optional flavors you like. Serve alone or with cocktails.
Scharffen Berger banana bread puddings with salted caramel and chocolate chunks
By Alice Medrich for Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker
Makes 8 individual puddings
Crusty golden-topped puddings stuffed with chocolate chunks and ripe bananas in a swirl of salted caramel sauce! Store-bought sauce, spiked with sea salt, makes this decadent, but comfy dessert easier than it looks. Puddings are cozy spooned right from their cups, or elegant unmolded with sauce all around.
Ingredients:
8 slices of slightly stale or very lightly toasted fresh homemade or bakery style white bread (Pepperidge Farm or Orowheat Country Buttermilk or Country Potato Bread for example)
1 1/2 cup purchased or homemade caramel sauce
Rounded 1/4 teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
6 large eggs
2 cups half and half
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for sprinkling
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ripe bananas
6 ounces SBCM 62% Semisweet Chocolate Chunks
2 tablespoons melted butter
Equipment:
Eight 6-ounce ramekins or custard cups, buttered
A baking pan large enough to hold the cups with space between them
Stir the rounded 1/4 teaspoons of salt into the caramel sauce. Spread a generous tablespoon on one side of each bread slice. In a toaster oven or broiler, broil the slices, caramel side up, until the caramel bubbles all over and turns a slight shade darker. Do not scorch. Cool on a rack.
Divide the remaining caramel sauce among the ramekins using a generous tablespoon for each.
Trim the bread crusts if they are scorched. Cut one slice in half the long way, then crosswise in thirds to make 6 pieces. Cut bananas at a slight angle in ¼" slices. Place a slice on each piece of bread. Stack four pieces of banana-topped bread. Turn the stack on edge and set it in the caramel in bottom of a ramekin. Put one of the two remaining pieces of bread (banana side inward), on each side of the stack. Repeat to fill the remaining ramekins. Distribute the chocolate among the ramekins (using about 20 chunks for each) on top and between the slices of bread.
In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and vanilla. Whisk in the half and half and milk. Pour the egg mixture into the ramekins. Let set for 20 to 30 minutes to saturate the bread. Top off the cups with the remaining egg mixture.
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and put a kettle of water on to boil. Brush the exposed top edges of the bread with melted butter. Sprinkle with a generous 1/4 teaspoon of sugar per pudding. Wipe any smudges off the ramekins and set them in the baking pan. Set the pan in the oven. Pull out the rack and pour boiling water carefully into the pan until it reaches half way up the sides of the ramekins. Bake until the edges of the bread are golden brown, and a knife inserted into the puddings comes out wet but mostly clear rather than milky, 20-30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes in the water bath. If not serving with two hours, cover and refrigerate. Cold puddings can be reheated in the microwave.
Serve the puddings in their cups, warm (wonderful!) or at room temperature or cold. Or, un mold them as follows: slide a slim knife around the inside of a cup to detach the pudding. Tip the cup on a dessert dish and slide the pudding out, letting the sauce flow around it. Adjust the pudding to sit upright and scrape extra sauce from the cup around it or drizzle a bit on top.
About Alice Medrich:
Author, pastry chef, and teacher, Alice Medrich is one of the country's foremost experts on chocolate and chocolate desserts. She is the only three-time IACP Cookbook of the Year award winner. . Her 5th book, "Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from A Life in Chocolate" (Artisan, 2003) was named IACP Cookbook of the Year in 2004, she won the James Beard Cookbook of the Year award for both "Chocolate and The Art of Low-Fat Desserts" (1994) and for "Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts" (1990), which also won the Julia Child Award for the Best First Cookbook. After opening her renowned dessert company, Cocolat in Berkeley, California in l976, Gourmet Magazine said, "Cocolat is to chocolate what Tiffany's is to diamonds". Alice sold Cocolat in 1990, but continues to influence chefs, chocolate makers, and home cooks, by writing, teaching and consulting. She appeared in the Television Food Network "Chef de Jour" and "Baker's Dozen" series and with Julia Child in the PBS series, "Baking with Julia". Alice's newest book is "Pure Dessert: True Flavors, Inspiring Ingredients, and Simple Recipes" (Artisan 2007). Alice lives in Berkeley, California.
Alice's cooking class info:
Ramekins Cooking school in Sonoma: 707 9330450 | Website
Tante Marie Cooking School: 415.788.6699 | Website