Hot chocolate spoons were the final creation to come from my kitchen this week.

Here’s how I made them:

Spicy Hot Chocolate Spoons

I used a double boiler to melt eight ounces of semi-sweet chocolate over simmering water. While the chocolate melted, I sifted together a quarter of a cup of cocoa powder, half a cup of confectioners’ sugar, half a teaspoon of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and a quarter of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. I omit cayenne pepper when I’m giving these spoons to friends who prefer food without a spicy kick.

When the chocolate was melted, I added two teaspoons of unflavored vegetable oil, anything but olive oil will do, and used a spatula to stir in the sugar/cocoa mixture.

I put one tablespoon of chocolate into the bowls of eight Chinese porcelain spoons that I found in an Asian market. I added a tag to each spoon with the these simple directions: To make a sublime mug of spicy hot chocolate, put six ounces of very hot milk in a mug and stir with this spoon until the chocolate has melted.

I used the remaining chocolate to make chocolate cubes with cinnamon stick stirrers by spooning  the chocolate into plastic ice cube trays and poking a cinnamon stick into each cube before the chocolate hardened. Regardless of how they are packaged, it is important to include directions or the hot chocolate cube will be mistaken for a piece of spicy fudge or a chocolate lollipop.

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Spicy Hot Chocolate List

• 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
• 1/4 c cocoa powder
• 1/2 c  confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t cayenne pepper
• a pinch of salt

On Monday I made chocolate covered almonds.

They are simple to make and look as if they came from an upscale chocolatier. I tuck away a few small gift bags of them, decorated with a ribbon and a gift tag as last minute gifts for unexpected visitors. Here’s how I made them: … read more

Today marks the end of chocolate week in my holiday kitchen. Homemade chocolate treats are a gift of my time and since they are delicious and extraordinarily consumable they don’t occupy valuable space in anyone’s home for very long.

Last Saturday, I created chocolate turtles consisting of five pecans (the head and four legs), held together with a disc of creamy caramel (the body), and topped with dark chocolate (the shell). Creating chocolate turtles is a three-step process: building each turtle body, making caramel and adding the shell.

Here’s how I made them:
… read more

Last week, as I was serving my favorite chocolate cake, I remembered that my fascination with chemical reactions began when I was eight. Every Saturday morning, I watched Mr. Wizard explain the science behind ordinary things on our fuzzy black and white television. He said that chemical reactions made cakes rise. I wanted to be a chemist at work in the kitchen. It was time to move on from transforming copper saucepans from dull brown to garish, peachy pink with lemon and salt.

I was ready for more than powering my green plastic boat across the sink with a chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar. Curdling milk and making my sister cry by adding blue food coloring to her milk were child’s play.

I would become a baker/chemist. Kitchen experiments would be well received if the end results were sweet and tasty. After all, my sister always smiled when she saw a cake. My first cakes began as powder in red and white boxes from the grocery store. I measured water, broke eggs and mixed. Not much chemistry there. I moved onto the more complicated angel food cake mix and enjoyed transforming white powder into fluffy peaks using a primitive, hand operated, eggbeater. That was a bit more fun but I wanted to really make a cake, I wanted to “Start from Scratch!”

The first cake I made from scratch was a Chocolate Wacky Cake. I knew that this was the recipe for me when I read the part about creating a volcano with vinegar and baking soda to give the cake its ‘lift’. I had found a way to have both a chemical reaction and a sweet reward. I branched out and created brownies and pound cakes in my search for even more interesting recipes.

When I was nine, I saw a recipe for a walnut, chocolate chip, date cake in a small cookbook from the grocery store. I had only eaten dates at Christmas time and couldn’t imagine how the cake would taste, but with chocolate chips and walnuts, it sounded delicious and it was. I made it a couple of times before I lost the recipe and moved on to the challenge of perfecting tapioca.

Nearly ten years later, I saw a recipe for a chocolate, date cake in a newspaper column. With minor adjustments, this is the cake I have baked for many parties. I always use a Bundt pan and slather the cooled cake with unsweetened, heavy cream that has been beaten to stiff peaks. Last week, I topped the cream with sliced strawberries and promised our guests that I would share the recipe. Here’s how I did it:
… read more

An ice cream cone from the White Cottage as an after dinner treat is fun.

But since the Cottage Blanc, as we like to call it, is eight miles from the dining room table – a bit too far to travel when guests are ready for dessert, I have created a hot fudge sauce for adults only. It is made of just two ingredients and takes less than thirty seconds to make. If you want to see how I make it, you will have to read on. … read more

I’m making biscotti with pistachios and almonds and will post all of the details as soon as I can rescue my kitchen from yet another ‘I Love Lucy’ moment. Alas my Ricky (Charles) is out and it may take a bit of time.

I have removed the layer of chocolate from the counter, wrapped up the biscotti, delivered some to our neighbors, put some in a jar in the pantry and the rest in a basket to take with me to the Northeast Kingdom.  Here’s how I did it: … read more