Brandy Chocolate Truffles
Yields about 24
Indulge your friends with homemade truffles as a holiday gift. I like to roll mine in a combination of hazelnuts, pecans, and pistachios for a festive multicolored coating.
1 cup heavy cream
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 ounces brandy
1 cup assorted finely ground nuts
1 In your 1-quart saucepot, place the heavy cream over medium heat. While waiting for it to come to a simmer, stir the chocolate and brandy together in a medium bowl.
2 Once the cream begins to bubble up in the pot, carefully pour it into the bowl of chocolate. Whisk together until smooth, and then pour into a one-quart baking dish. Wrap it tightly and refrigerate until completely solid, which should take an hour.
3 Place the nuts into a shallow bowl. Scoop out 1 tablespoon of truffle mix, and form it into a ball. Then roll it in the nuts until well coated. Roll it between your palms to make it as round as possible. Roll it one last time through the nuts. Repeat until all the truffle mix is gone. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to serve. For a romantic single serving presentation, serve the truffles in a small gift box for each guest to be opened at the table. For a platter presentation, stack them neatly in a pyramid.
How to “Fine Grind” Nuts with No Grinder
You don’t need a special grinder to create finely ground nuts. Just put the nuts in a freezer bag and place your sauce pot on top. Put pressure on the sauce pot, rocking it back and forth to crush the nuts until you reach a fine consistency. Most grocery stores sell bags of ground nuts in their baking section as well, if you’d prefer to buy a finished product.
Dad’s Miraculous Pineapple
Upside-Down Campfire Cake
Serves 10 to 12
Here’s the recipe for my dad’s amazing pineapple upside-down cake that you can make from the confines of your cozy CLK. No campfire needed!
cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
3 cups fresh pineapple chunks, about
1 pineapple
¾ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch sea salt
6 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup sugar
4 eggs
1 Preheat the oven to 350°. Line the bottom of a round 8-inch cake pan with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray. In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar and melted butter, and spread it evenly in the bottom of the pan. Arrange the pineapple chunks on top of the sugar tightly packing them in, but only a single layer.
2 Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Then use your whisk to beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The butter must be at room temperature to whip up easily. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition before adding the next.
3 Fold in the flour mixture by gently putting your spatula in the center of the bowl. Pull toward you and scrape the spatula along the bottom. When the spatula breaks the surface of the batter, turn the bowl about an inch, and start again. Each time you pull up and then drop the spatula back into the center, you will be folding in the flour to the batter. Only do this for about 90 seconds, or you will overmix the cake.
4 Carefully spoon the cake batter over the pineapple, and spread it out evenly, while disturbing the pineapple as little as possible.
5 Bake for 15 minutes. Then rotate the cake, reduce the heat to 300°, and continue baking for 1 hour or until the cake is golden brown on top and beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan.
6 Don’t allow the cake to cool for more than 5 minutes or it will not easily release from the pan. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the cake. Place a cake platter upside down over the cake pan. Using a towel to hold the hot cake pan, turn it upside down onto the platter. It’s ready to eat!
Acknowledgments
Gourmet Meals in Crappy Little Kitchens was written and created by me, but the inspiration and content of this book was born of many wonderful relationships. Here I would like to acknowledge as many of the spectacular people who have influenced me as possible.
My mom and dad probably wouldn’t call themselves chefs, but the important thing they gave me was that food should be a celebration. The whole family would come together to make giant pans of lasagna, and my father would light up. Every opportunity we have to gather begets a massive outdoor cookout to rival anything seen on cable. Each of my parents makes what they make very well. My mother can do things with tuna and macaroni and cheese that just curls my toes. My dad still makes the best pork ribs I’ve ever tasted, and that’s not just because I love them. It’s because they are wonderful.
My sisters would be interested in cooking even if I wasn’t, but I am, so they ARE my band wagon. As a family we travel to cook offs, all wearing Crappy Little Kitchen T-shirts and passing out CLK propaganda. My little sisters and I (yes I’m the oldest) try restaurants together, travel and plan where we’ll be eating long before the plane and hotel arrangements are set, and talk about food endlessly. Truly, we don’t choose our family, but I would pick my sisters to be my best friends even if they were people I’d met late in my life. The fact that we’ve known each other literally forever only makes our relationship better.
My grandmothers each do something amazingly well. Granny Dee can stretch eggs and cheese for days with her signature dish, creamed eggs on toast. My mother was usually the one who made “cup of egg” (soft boiled egg cracked over toast that I got to tear into little pieces in a coffee cup) for me, but Dee taught her. Both dishes bring tears to my eyes. Granny Ila makes the best homemade candy you’ve ever tried whether you know it or not. Pink divinity and chocolate fudge at Christmas are a must. It’s magical to see her go outside and say, “No, it’s too humid today. We’ll see if we can make candy tomorrow.” Watching her drop the boiled sugar into a bowl of water and roll it around in her fingers to see if it’s reached the hard ball stage . . . has affected me and made me need to learn more.
Jay, ever my friend and partner, our relationship has changed much over the past 12 years I’ve known him, but our camaraderie in the kitchen stays the same. His signature dish would be his “bachelor chow,” but it changes every time he makes it, so the recipe will be difficult to nail down.
My friends are amazing. Amy insists that she can’t cook, but still makes the best chicken pot pie I’ve ever tasted (sorry Jeffery you’re coming up). She inspires me in so many aspects of my life, whenever I’m trying to look or act like an adult I always look to her and her stellar example of a woman. Laura always has an immaculate kitchen, and she goes on wonderful culinary adventures with me to restaurants and wineries. She makes the BEST chocolate pie in the world! My little Pound Cake, my best friend, Sarah Lee, makes all sorts of tasty things from cucumber kimchi to scallion pancakes, but her friendship is what gives my life flavor. Woolley’s the greatest flatmate ever, and not just because of his mother’s legendary refried beans.
The chefs who I’ve worked with truly make me humble. Jon and Joe were my first bosses when I was a lowly dishwasher. They taught me how to have fun despite the long, hot, grueling hours. I’m very proud of the menus we put out at Savory, and I am so fond of the memories of the prep meetings that would end (if we were lucky, sometimes we had to go back to work) with burgers at The Landing at 2:00 AM. Any restaurant I run will have a menu patterned after Savory.
Gilbert and Jeffery probably influenced this book the most. When I put it down for a while, and then picked it up for the final edit it truly hit me how much these men helped me. Gilbert definitely has the best pallet of any chef I’ve worked with, he could taste my pesto and tell me what day I made it. Jeffery not only taught me nearly everything I know about demi, salt and pepper, and cookies, he’s been an inspiration in life and I’m so glad he’s my friend.
Brian and Karin are some of my favorite people in the whole world. I gotta say it, the Grape was the most awful, debilitating work schedule I’ve ever encountered. Often fourteen-hour days and sometimes seven days a week. Gotta tell you, it was one of my favorite work experiences because of the environment those two created. The crew always got breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We had fun, we loved each other. Chuy, Rosa, Bobby, and Juanita, I love you and I miss you!!
Lenny and Jason came along at a time when I really needed allies in the work place. Lenny is a master at fresh Asian cooking, he is after all a true California boy at heart, but I’ll always remember him for the Apple Dapple! Not just any war hero, if I’m worthy, Lenny and I will be friends forever. Jason is the quintessential French man, but we have a lot of fun thinking outside the box. Egg yolk ravioli with bacon pesto or even butter-infused poached eggs are a few of the many recipes we have rolling around in our heads.
The people who have helped directly with the book, I can’t thank you enough. Rosemary my agent has been a godsend. None of this would have happened without her, and I just love her accent so much I could die. I never knew what agents really did until we started looking and negotiating with publishers, and let me tell the other would-be authors out there . . . get yourself a literary agent! HCI publishing, especially Michele, thank you so much for your time and kindness with this first-time author. You’re the best!
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