Category Archives: Chocolate

Chocolate Cupcakes

Sometimes I’ll make a recipe for the first time and it’ll be perfect.

Other times I’ll make a recipe and I can’t stop myself from playing with it. Case in point: these chocolate cupcakes from Elana Amsterdam’s Gluten-Free Cupcakes. It began as a simple affair, with mixing wet and dry ingredients together. The cupcakes, as they stand in the original recipe, are already great. I just couldn’t resist putting my own spin on it.

So I began to play with the recipe.

I had used butter and melted it instead of grapeseed oil, because that’s what I had on hand. Then I read that using melted butter in a cake recipe can give it a muffin texture and that it’s better to cream to the butter, as the pockets of fat are distributed and melt while baking – resulting in a fluffy crumb. Well, the cupcakes with the melted butter were soft but were also kind of dense. Point proven.

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Happy Easter, everybody! This is my favourite chocolate right now, it’s Lindor Stracciatella chocolate. It’s white chocolate with flecks of what seems to be milk chocolate; in real life, they kind of look like quail eggs. I took the photos with my iPod.

Stracciatella is basically vanilla ice cream (or gelato) with bits of chocolate in it – it’s sometimes called the Italian cousin to the North American chocolate chip ice cream. The name itself is not unique to just ice cream, though. It can also refer to a kind of soup and cheese, respectively. Regarding the ice cream, though, I really want to have a go at making it or maybe even a homemade version of these chocolates.

*Info for gluten-free folks: the only allergen info for this chocolate is that it may contain traces of peanuts and tree nuts (almonds and hazelnuts). Lindor chocolate is not certified gluten-free and this is a topic in their FAQ on their website.

Chocolate Olive Oil Madeleines with Almond or Pecan Flour

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chocolate olive oil madeleines with almond or pecan flour

I’m going to be the first to admit that I’ve never eaten a traditionally made madeleine. I make mention of this since I was recently asked in a comment on one of my previous madeleine recipes if they tasted like “real” madelienes.

The only madeleines I’ve eaten are the ones I’ve made and that I’ve posted here before. The only wheat-laden madeleines I’ve seen around here are at Starbucks, sealed in a plastic package and sold in threes, by the tip jar and I’ve never tried them simply because – truth be told – I like mine. (I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a snob!)

It’s almost a month since I last posted a chocolate recipe, so I hope it isn’t too soon to be posting another.

This recipe I’d actually marked down a long time ago – cough, two years ago – and only made it just this month. No time like the present, right? Everyone here has loved them and I’ve made them several times already. Using either almond flour or pecan flour doesn’t seem to make a noticeable difference in flavour, so use what you have on hand or prefer. They’re soft and moist, almost on the plush side. The olive oil works nicely with the cocoa and can be tasted even after baking (usually an issue when baking with olive oil), so be sure to use a good, quality oil.

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