I make a chocolate pecan tart for my family every year at Thanksgiving. My brother really liked it the first time I made it several years ago, so I just kept making it. So now it's like, 'my thing.' Anyway, this year I made two - one at Thanksgiving for my family and another one for Dan's family, which I made last week while I was watching Spider Man (which was fabulous, by the way). I've changed up the recipe a bunch over the past few years, and a lot of people have asked me for it. So here it is:

Tools
9 -inch tart pan with removable bottom

Tart Crust
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 and a half sticks unsalted butter
3 or 4 tbs of ice water

Sift together the flour and salt. Cut butter into dime-size pieces and cut into the flour using either a butter knife or your fingers (I prefer using my hands) until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Then work the water into the mixture 1 tablespoon at a time (might as well use your hands for this too) until the mixture just barely holds together. (I usually end up needing just 3 tablespoons of water, but not always.) Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the counter, turn the mixture onto the plastic and shape into a ball. Chill for 45 minutes.

(You can start to make the filling while the dough is chilling.)

After the dough has chilled, roll it out into a circle that's a couple inches bigger than the diameter of the tart pan. (Quick hint: I roll the dough in between two pieces of plastic wrap. This makes sure that it doesn't stick to the rolling pin and is easy to lift off of the counter.) Line the pan with the tart dough. One way to do this is to lay the dough over your rolling pin, and then carefully lift the rolling pin over the pan, and fold the dough into it. Use the tips of your fingers to press the dough along the sides and down into the pan. Remove any excess by pressing the dough along the scalloped edge of the pan. If there are any holes or tears in the dough, patch them up. Cover the lined tart pan and chill for 30 minutes.

I often have enough extra dough to make a couple mini tarts. If you have mini tart pans, line them with the extra dough and chill.

Filling
3 oz Valrhona 70% dark chocolate, chopped
3 tbs unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup light corn syrup
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 heaping cup of raw pecans, chopped
25 - 30 pecan halves for garnish

Preheat oven to 350. Melt chocolate and butter together in a double boiler and set aside. (To make a double boiler, place ingredients in a glass bowl, then fit the glass bowl over a small pot with an inch or two of water in it, making sure the water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. Stir the chocobutter mixture as you heat the pot until the water is steaming (but not boiling!). Remove the glass bowl from the steaming pot when the ingredients are almost completely melted, and continue stirring until fully melted. If you need more heat to fully melt the chocolate, just put the bowl back over the steaming water for another minute.)

Using a medium saucepan, stir maple syrup, corn syrup, and sugar over medium heat for 1 minute. Then bring it all to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside. Beat eggs. Add chocolate and butter mixture to eggs and stir vigorously until thoroughly blended. Add syrup and whisk. Add vanilla and pecans and whisk thoroughly. Let the mixture cool for 3 minutes.

Remove lined tart pan from refrigerator and place on a baking sheet (for easy transport to and from oven). Carefully pour the pecan mixture into the shell. Make sure pecan pieces are distributed throughout. Garnish with pecan halves. You will probably have some extra filling - pour any extra into mini tart shells, if you have them.

Bake for 40 - 45 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 15 minutes. Carefully remove tart from tart pan. Serve at room temperature.

You can view larger versions of all the pix here.

I just added a new category to my blog. It's called "Best Day Ever." I added it in honor of this past Sunday, which was the best day ever. It was such a great day because I spent most of it either (a) in a car with seat warmers (b) eating chocolate (c) drinking beer or (d) eating ice cream - all things that I greatly enjoy.

First Stop: The Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory in Burlington Vermont.

So here's the thing, The Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory isn't really open on Sundays. But the Factory store is, so that's where we went. Lake Champlain is a fabulous company. While I was there, I sampled truffles (both their classic truffles and a newer, smaller line that uses more exotic flavors called Small World truffles that I haven't had before) and stocked up on 5 Star Bars, which are some of the most amazing candy bars I've ever had. Though I couldn't take a tour of the factory like I hoped, I did get to peek through the window and see where all the action happens (that's me peeking in the pic at left).

Second Stop: Magic Hat Brewery in South Burlington, Vermont

I got so drunk at the Magic Hat brewery that I forgot to take pictures. Just kidding. I only got a little bit drunk. But still, I forgot to take pictures so I'm including a nice picture of a Vermont tree instead. While I was at the brewery, I got to taste a bunch of beers that they only have in-house, and that you can't actually buy anywhere except for at the brewery itself. I'm feeling a little ambivalent about posting about them... because, as I said, it's really just a tease since you can't even get them anywhere. Here's my favorite of what I tried:

Magic Hat Thumbsucker: An incredible Imperial Stout that pours almost black with notes of dark chocolate and black cherry. This would make an awesome pairing with a classic dark chocolate truffle flavored with cognac - but is a little heavy for purposes other than tasting or pairing.

Third Stop: Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, Vermont

Our stop at Ben & Jerry's was short and sweet. First we walked up some stairs to watch a mooo-vie (some people chose to use the Vanillalator instead of the stairs...) where we learned that Ben & Jerry met in gym class in 7th grade and then took an ice cream making class that cost $5. Then we looked into a big room where they make ice cream and then we went to another room where we had a delicious sample of Ben & Jerry's most popular ice cream flavor, which is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. (Note that Cherry Garcia is a close second.)

A quick sidenote: While we were in the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory store, I made friends with the lovely girls who worked there, who made us a Vanilla Latte with real whole vanilla beans. We were such good friends that they clued me in on to how they make it. They use vanilla milk as their base - here's how to make vanilla milk at home:

Vanilla Milk
2 pints of whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean

Pour the milk into a heavy bottom saucepan. Slice the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the saucepan, then put in the vanilla bean's outer skin as well. Add the sugar, stir around a bit, and then scald to 150 degrees over med-low heat stirring constantly. (See note on scalding from this previous post.) Once that's all done, either use it right away or allow the milk to cool slightly, pour into a separate container, and keep in fridge until you want to use it. Remove the pieces of vanilla bean pod before using.

Vanilla milk doesn't have any specific uses - but it's quite delicious. I might use it for as a base for a particularly aromatic hot chocolate, froth it to top a cappuccino, add it to coffee or tea instead of regular milk, or just drink it, hot or cold.

Here's another tea-infused chocolate dessert recipe.

As I've mentioned before, when I'm not working with chocolate, I'm blessed to work with fabulous clients through my main endeavor at Zemack PR. And whenever those two worlds connect somehow, I get really excited. So I was totally surprised this morning to get a Google alert for (my client) Whittard of Chelsea that linked to an article about the Chocolate Idol contest at Boston's Langham Hotel... (Whittard of Chelsea is an English tea boutique that opened its first US shop in Boston this past spring.)

Here's a little background about the contest: Several weeks ago, I posted about a chocolate recipe contest being held by the Langham Hotel Chocolate Bar in Boston. The Chocolate Bar at the Langham is a huge lavish chocolate buffet featuring every chocolate dessert you've ever dreamed of that's open every Saturday through the fall and winter. This year, they wanted to do something fun and new, so they organized a chocolate recipe contest. Whoever wins the contest, which was called "Chocolate Idol," gets a season pass to go to the Chocolate Bar whenever they want, and their recipe will also be featured in the chocolate buffet for the rest of the season. The Boston Globe just ran a story about the creator of the winning recipe.

The winning recipe was created by Blanche Ip, a self-taught chocolate and sweets enthusiast who has been crowned Chocolate Idol for her Earl Grey Brownies recipe. In the Globe article about her, she explained that she's become a bit tea-obsessed over the past year, and Whittard of Chelsea's Earl Grey tea is her favorite kind of tea! And this comes at an interesting time, because Whittard has recently done a bunch of exploration in the world of tea-infused desserts with the South End Buttery - I just posted an Earl Grey Green Tea Truffle recipe from a Green Tea Desserts event that we organized at Whittard a couple weeks ago. Blanche's recipe is made up of a classic brownie topped with an Earl Grey ganache frosting. The recipe is posted on the Globe website or if you want someone to make it for you, you can try Blanche's brownies at the Chocolate Bar at the Langham any Saturday.

Blanche's Earl Grey Brownie recipe.
South End Buttery's Green Earl Grey truffle recipe.

More from the Fluff Festival that I went to last week... As I mentioned in my previous Fluff post, a bunch of us met up and went to the Independent, a bar next door to where the Fluff Festival was. They had a bunch of especially Fluffy bar and menu choices. In case you were thinking of having your own Fluff party at home, here are a couple recipes that we tried at the Independent to get you started:

Fluff Royale: Pour a shot of Creme de Cassis into a wine glass, pour Champagne over it until it's about halfway full. It doesn't matter what kind of Champagne you use because it will be mostly overpowered by the cassis anyway. Then spoon a dollop of Fluff on top. The Fluff will react with the Champagne and get all fizzy and expand to the top of the glass (see pic above).

Apple Fluffernutter Sandwich: To make this gourmet Fluffwich, get two slices of fresh sourdough bread, spread a layer of peanut butter and a layer of cream cheese on one piece of bread, top with a layer of thinly sliced macintosh apples, and then spread a layer of fluff on the other piece of bread and put it all together. For added effect, you can toast the bread beforehand.

I really like sweets and try to incorporate things that are sweet into every facet of my life. I do a lot of events for my clients at my main gig, and sweets and chocolate often make their way into my client work in one way or another. So this past weekend, I was at an event that I organized for one of my clients, English tea boutique Whittard of Chelsea, that featured desserts made with Whittard's green teas. The recipes were developed especially for the event by the pastry chef at Boston's revered South End Buttery.

Lee Napoli, the Buttery's pastry chef, was kind enough to supply the event attendees with all of the recipes for the green tea dessert menu that she created. The Green Earl Grey truffles were really fabulous, and demonstrate a concept in truffle-making that can be replicated with many different kinds of flavors and interesting ingredients. Here's the recipe that she gave me for the truffles:

Green Earl Grey Truffles

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup Whittard Green Earl Grey tea leaves
• 1 pound chopped dark chocolate
• cocoa powder

Place tea leaves and heavy cream in a medium saucepan. Scald heavy cream and tea. Remove from heat and cover with plastic wrap. Let the tea steep in the cream for 30 minutes. Strain out tea leaves and rescald cream. Pour hot mixture over chocolate and whisk until chocolate is fully melted and smooth. Chill chocolate mixture to set.

Scoop chocolate mixture with teaspoon or mini ice cream scoop. Roll each scoop in cocoa to finish.

A quick note on scalding: Scalding is when you heat a liquid - most often milk or cream - until it almost boils. Here's the best practice for scalding from my own experience: Use cream that's at room temperature or close to room temperature to minimize the potential for burning (big temperature differences will give you a higher chance of burning). Use low to medium low heat and stir pretty much constantly. The cream is scalded once small bubbles appear at the edges of the surface.

Steeping the tea in the cream is a flavor infusion method that can be used as the basis for lots of fun experimentation in truffle-making. The recipe above uses Earl Grey green tea, but you can infuse many different flavors into your truffle ganache by steeping the raw ingredients in the cream as it scalds. Here are a few of the ingredients that I've infused this way:

• black tea
  
• lavender
  
• apples (but this one's tricky, because the acidity of the apples can curdle the cream if the apples are too tart, or if the cream is heated too quickly.)
  
• cardamom pods
  
• coffee beans
  
• dried chili peppers and cinnamon bark
  
• vanilla beans
  

Recipe above provided by Lee Napoli of the South End Buttery.

Classic Chocolate Truffles
makes about 50 bite-size truffles


Ingredients

• a little under ½ cup half&half
• 14 ounces quality bittersweet chocolate chopped into nickel-size pieces
• 6 more ounces quality bittersweet chocolate shavings (for the rough chocolate coating)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons kahlua or grand marnier

Directions
Step 1: Bring cream and butter to a boil over medium heat in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Be sure to whisk constantly.

Step 2: Once cream mixture reaches rolling boil, remove from heat and add 10 ounces of chopped chocolate pieces. Whisk together until all the chocolate is melted.

Step 3: Add kahlua or grand marnier and blend completely.

Step 4: Pour chocolate mixture into parchment lined baking dish, cover and refrigerate until firm and cold - about an hour.

Step 5: Once mixture is firm, remove from refrigerator, pull out marble-sized pieces and roll into balls - this will be the truffle center. If mixture becomes too soft, rechill.

Step 6: Place the 6 ounces of chocolate shavings in a shallow bowl and set aside. Melt remaining 5 ounces of chopped chocolate in double boiler. Take a single truffle center and coat it in melted chocolate. (The best way to do this is to place the truffle center on a three-pronged fork, dunk it in the melted chocolate, and then tap the fork against the side of the bowl to get rid of excess chocolate. Then drop the coated truffle in the bowl of chocolate shavings and coat with shavings on all sides.

Step 7: Repeat with remaining truffles. Serve once completely hardened or keep fresh in the refrigerator layered between sheets of parchment in a sealed container.