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Five chocolate desserts … temptations abound

Yeah, it's almost Valentine's Day and I'm doing that stereotypical thing ... searching for the perfect chocolate dessert. I know I don't need an excuse to consume chocolate, but making something extra special for Valentine's Day is selfishly romantic.

I eat a little bit of dark, dark chocolate almost every day. I’m almost sure it keeps the blood flowing in my veins and the antioxidants keep me immortal healthy. No, I am not full of it — I’m like a chocolate vampire. Really. Except the only effect the sunlight has is to sometimes melt the chocolate. …

Each year for Valentine’s Day, Keith and I like to cook up something yummy together and top it off with a spectacular dessert, usually of the chocolate variety. Last year, I had a hard time choosing between these desserts, but it was the falling chocolate cake with raspberry sauce that ultimately won us over. Here are this year’s contenders:

I know, we’ve made Bea’s chocolate tahini gooey cakes about a thousand times (including just last week) but it remains one of our favorites. If we make these, we know that we’re guaranteed the perfect dessert.

Now, if it turns out that we’re in a comfort food kind of mood, I’m definitely making Heidi Swanson’s chocolate chip skillet cookies. Instead of whole wheat flour, I’d use spelt and I’d definitely cut down the amount of sugar. This would satisfy the lazy in me as well, since I wouldn’t have to make individual cookies. So, so lazy. …

Perhaps I’ll want to satisfy the one-bite dessert lover in me; in that case, I’ll be making these chocolate Chambord truffles, but I’ll be using coconut milk instead of heavy cream.

Yeah, I found yet another recipe for molten chocolate cake (I really should do a roundup of those someday), this one spiked with the liquor of your choice. They are nearly flourless, but I’m thinking that the bit that is in there will give these cakes just enough texture to be perfect. And spelt ought to work. …

The radical choice would be these chocolate-orange pots de creme with candied orange peel. Radical, because I’d have to suspend all laziness to attend to the details of this recipe and also because I’d have to take a huge leap of faith in assuming that my bizarre substitutions for dairy will work in this recipe. Can I pull off a food-snob pudding with goat yogurt and coconut milk? If I can make custards and flan with coconut milk and truffles with goat yogurt (which I can), I’m thinking yes.

Time will tell which one it will be … which one would you make?

Photo Credit: norwichnuts / Flickr

3 Responses to “Five chocolate desserts … temptations abound”

February 10, 2011 at 12:54 PM

chocolate + booze = awesomeness

February 10, 2011 at 1:35 PM

Do the molten cake with liquor inside!!!

February 10, 2011 at 2:30 PM

Anything with “chocolate” and “gooey” in its name gets my vote!

Last Saturday I made David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Idiot Cake (4 ingredients: chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs). I’m a chocolate junkie, but I couldn’t handle more than a sliver of this cake. It’s that good.

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