Chocolate Pots!
If you haven’t noticed by now, I think food and cooking is all about friends and fun and making it actually easy to cook, live and eat well. These chocolate pots are super simple to make, quick to whip together (well food process together if you want to get all technical about it) plus totally adaptable so you can customize the flavors and experiment with flavor ideas without breaking the bank or taking all day to make. Also I’ve found that when chocolate pots are involved, it’s really easy to get your friends to be guinea pigs and try out your new ideas.
Ok, the basics are this: number one get your food processor out.
A little side-bar on food pros. I just got my first new Cuisinart and seriously it is a world of difference from my old hand me down one (that I accidentally melted on the stove top). Any food processor is a totally great machine to have in the kitchen but there’s a reason that Cuisinart is shorthand for one like Xerox for copies or Kleenex for tissues. If you don’t have a food pro, get one!
Now, you just need about six ounces of dark chocolate, 70% cocoa is great, and chop it to tiny pieces in the food processor. Heat a 1/2 cup plus a splash of heavy cream and a 1/3 cup plus a splash of whole milk in a sauce pan until almost boiling. Add 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and a 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg.
Pour in the funnel over the chocolate and spin it for about thirty seconds, let it stand for 30 seconds to get all the chocolate a’melting, then process for a minute more. As it’s going the second time, crack one egg down the chute and voila! forty-five seconds later you’re done.
This makes about two cups worth so pour into any kind quarter cup or so little glass or ramekin you have around. I used these cool little white juice glasses from Ikea and some clear glass votive candle holders.
Stick in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before you want to serve. I usually make these just before people come over for dinner and by the time we’re done eating they are perfect!
To customize the flavors all you do is add different spices in place of the nutmeg. My favorites so far have been black pepper (1/4 tsp) and sea salt (1/4 tsp), cinnamon (1/2 tsp) with chili or cayenne (a dash) (be very careful with the cayenne, too much and you have a weird burning hot Tabasco pudding. Not delicious.) and crystallized ginger (2 Tbs chopped to tiny bits). You can also experiment with using milk chocolate instead of dark.
In the picture I made two batches and the glass cups are chili/cinnimon with carmalized walnuts on top and the white cups are the black pepper/sea salt.
