Points North's April Issue On Stands Now!

Pick up a copy of Points North’s April issue or check out our interactive magazine to read my article about Cane Creek Farm (page 20), a certified naturally grown farm in Cumming. The best part of my job is the opportunity to uncover local gems such as this and to meet people like owner and farmer Lynn Pugh, whose passion for growing chemical-free produce for her community is incredibly inspiring.

After meeting her and touring her farm, I was so excited about her community supported agriculture (CSA) program that I recruited my friend Caroline to team up with me and join for the summer season. I cannot wait to start receiving my share of Cane Creek’s weekly harvest this May! The anticipation of all those farm-fresh fruits and veggies is so strong, it actually pains me to buy produce at the grocery store in the meantime. Expect many more posts about my CSA involvement to come!

Also in April, check out Food for Thought (pages 64 - 69) for my official review of Oyster Bay Seafood Café in Lawrenceville (the place with the euphoric French fries), and my review of Cumming Fish Market, which hasn’t had a dedicated post here on Impeccable Tastes, but could have, if only for it’s deliciously unique take on Key Lime Pie. (Maybe they’ll give me the recipe so I can try it out myself and write about it...)

Happy reading!

#Fail

I love the picture country songs paint of eating in the early years of marriage, like Kenny Chesney eating burnt suppers the whole first year in “The Good Stuff” and Brad Paisley proclaiming it charming when she lost all track of time and burnt the cake in “Little Moments.” But, though I’ve certainly burnt a thing or two in my time, that hasn’t been a real issue in mine and Hunter’s first year and a half of marriage. Rather than being forced to choke down charred suppers, my husband has had to endure my experiments in the kitchen.

More often than not, this is to his advantage. I cook at least once a week (often more), so he’s always well fed, and most of the time, the meals are incredibly tasty, if I do say so myself. But he’s definitely a “meat & potatoes” kinda guy, and though he’ll eat whatever I put in front of him, he has asked if I can just cook “normal” things every once in a while. I relent, for his sake and because those things he deems “normal” are often easy to throw together when I don’t have time to play (a few of his favorites are Paula Deen’s chicken in wine sauce and her Chicken Georgia, and good, ole chicken stir fry with store-bought teriyaki sauce, a staple in my cooking repertoire from college).

But most of the time, I still experiment. And sometimes, the results do not turn out as I’d hoped – like tonight’s pork chops with orange sauce, which looked simply stunning, but left something to be desired in terms of flavor. I can tell when Hunter doesn’t like something not because he complains, but because he doesn’t compliment it. In fact, I usually have to coax any negative opinions out of him. He didn’t care for the texture of the orange sauce, come to find out (too pulpy), plus, even I have to admit that he makes a killer seasoning mix for pork chops that this dish simply didn’t live up to. It doesn’t hurt my feelings when he doesn’t like something – I mostly want to know so I can contemplate how the dish might be improved the next time. Not that there usually is a next time – I’m too busy experimenting with new recipes to redo something we didn’t love the first time around.

This dish turned out to be a failure, and there will probably be many more of those to come. Still, just like Kenny and Brad, Hunter cleans his plate every time, bless his heart. I’m not sure if he does it to spare my feelings, or because he thinks its cute that I try, or just because he’s hungry. But I love him for it all the same.

Chocolate Walnut Cupcakes with Hazelnut Filling

All that thinking last week about Ferrero Rocher truffles made me want to try something creative in the kitchen, so I did a little research. Apparently, playing around with recreations of this confection is quite popular. I found recipes for Ferrero Rocher brownies, Ferrero Rocher tortes and homemade versions of the truffles themselves. Ultimately, I chose these Ferrero Rocher cupcakes by The Cupcake Project for my little experiment.

Though I followed The Cupcake Project’s recipe closely, what I ended up with was not the Ferrero Rocher tribute I had expected, mainly because I was missing a few key elements. I purposely eliminated the edible gold flakes she uses (they just didn’t seem practical for the casual family dinner I was baking for), but then I ran into a few problems at the grocery store. Not only could I not find hazelnut extract (The Cupcake Project recommend purchasing it here), I couldn’t find the hazelnuts themselves, OR the gold foil baking liners, which were really instrumental in making the association between the cupcakes and the Ferrero Rocher chocolates with their signature gold wrapping.

So I adapted. Instead of hazelnut, I used black walnut extract in the cupcakes themselves as well as in the chocolate ganache icing (who knew THAT would be more readily available?), and I replaced the chopped hazelnuts with chopped walnuts as well. To give them a touch of hazelnut flavor, I opted for Nutella instead of The Cupcake Project’s homemade filling, and I used plain, old paper baking liners. Because, really, who cares what they look like if they taste good? They turned out moist, rich and super chocolatey – and my family seemed to like them, which is really all that matters anyway.

Chocolate Walnut Cupcakes with Hazelnut Filling

Cupcakes

½ cup boiling water

6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ cup milk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon black walnut extract

½ cup unsalted butter, softened

10 tablespoons dark brown sugar

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ + 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

Nutella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, whisk the boiling water into the cocoa until smooth, then whisk in milk, vanilla and black walnut extracts. In a large bowl (or, better yet, a stand mixer), cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Next, beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt and add to egg/sugar mixture alternately with cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating well after each addition. Line cupcake pan with wrappers and fill each one slightly more than ½ full. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cupcakes on a wire rack.

When cool, use a small spoon to scoop out a hole in the center of each cupcake; fill each hole with Nutella, then replace the “cupcake holes” so the Nutella is “hidden” inside.

Chocolate Walnut Ganache

½ cup heavy cream

8 ounces (about 2 ½ cups) chocolate chunks

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

2 teaspoons black walnut extract

¾ cup finely chopped walnuts, toasted

Heat the cream on the stove until it boils. Mix chocolate into hot cream and stir to melt. Add corn syrup and walnut extract and blend well; stir in chopped walnuts and spread ganache on top of the cupcakes.

*Note: If you read The Cupcake Project’s post, she mentions doubling the cupcake recipe. I found this a bit confusing, and doubled the proportions she had listed, which made so many cupcakes, I had enough for more than a weeks’ worth of breakfasts (yes, I have a weakness for early morning sweets), and that was after my family put a serious dent in them. If you use the proportions I have listed here, this recipe should make about 16 cupcakes.

Chocolate-Covered Memories

Food is like a time machine, inextricably linking certain meals or flavors with memories from the past. Usually, its something home-prepared that does it, like the way my mom’s breakfast casserole reminds me of Christmas mornings or how Mema’s boiled cookies take me back to family ski trips in Sky Valley. But sometimes its something as simple as a store-bought morsel of hazelnut chocolate wrapped in gold foil.

Recently, a co-worker offered me a Ferrero Rocher chocolate truffle, and instantaneously, a memory from childhood popped into my head. It was a special occasion, and my dad had given my mother a gift. Now, it's a running joke in my family that Mom is the primary gift-buyer, though she always shares the credit with Dad on the card. On birthdays and Christmas, my sister and I always make a big show of "thanking" Dad for each gift we open, even though it's typically safe to assume that the contents of the package are as much (if not more) of a surprise to him as to us. But when my dad is responsible for the gift in question, there’s no question about it.  

I always love Dad’s gifts, first of all because they are always so well thought-out – perhaps something practical that he knows we could use (my favorite was a key chain chapstick holder), or something unique from a trip he's been on (pot holders from Alaska) or something fun we can use as a family (plastic saucer sleds for an upcoming ski trip). And secondly, his gifts are always well-presented. I didn't say well wrapped (his skills with wrapping paper don’t exactly live up to department store standards), but there's often an element of presentation to his gift-giving – the last present to be brought out from the basement on Christmas morning, or a personalized print-out he’s made on the computer to accompany a gift card. And this particular gift for Mom was no exception.

The box he gave her was rather large, and she opened it only to find another wrapped box inside. Inside that was yet another wrapped box, and so on and so on until she reached the smallest package – a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates. I imagine there might have been a hint of disappointment to find a simple box of confections after all that anticipation. 

But when she opened it up, she found that one of the truffles was a bit misshapen – rather than a sphere of chocolate and hazelnuts, that one piece of foil held a $100 bill. I’m missing a few details – exactly which occasion it was, or what the money was meant for – but for the most part, the scene plays out in my mind like a VHS recording from our old family camcorder. To this day, I cannot eat a Ferrero Rocher chocolate without thinking of that occasion and my dad’s special way with presents. It’s a chocolate-covered memory, and the taste is so sweet.


What do your memories taste like?