Brian's Blackberry Jam Cake With Caramel Icing

Friday was a momentous day in the George family as it marked our last single-digit human birthday. Penny turned 9. It should be noted that doggie Ellie will turn 1 in May.

We celebrated all weekend with food — duck curry at a favorite Thai restaurant on Friday, homemade meatballs and sauce on Saturday, slow cooker Philly cheesesteaks on Super Bowl Sunday. And for dessert: blackberry jam cake with caramel icing.

I'd never heard of a jam cake before, but was intrigued when I saw my friend and former newspaper colleague Brian post about it on Facebook.

Brian's husband was grew up eating jam cakes in Kentucky. But Brian had never heard of them before either. Brian grew up in Virginia, and I'm from Ohio. I found a Southern Living story that explains that this dessert originated in Appalachia when store-bought sugar was scarce and jam was used to sweeten cakes.

Now because I'd never had or seen a jam cake before, I didn't realize that the icing was supposed to be spread all over the cake. Because the cake is to be baked in a tube pan — like angel food cake — I was picturing icing more as a glaze. Consider the picture of my finished cake.

And now Brian's finished cake.

Brian's is prettier, no doubt. But happy to report mine still tasted amazing. Subtly spiced. Not sickeningly sweet despite all the sugar and jam. Even the kids loved it. (Although, Lucy wants me to leave out the raisins next time.)

Y'all try this cake!

XOXO,
Amy

Brian's Blackberry Jam Cake
2 cups white sugar
1 cup butter
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 pint blackberry jam
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Slow add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Then, add buttermilk.

In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice and cocoa. Add this to the sugar-egg-buttermilk mixture and mix well. Add blackberry jam and combine. Place raisins and nuts in a small bowl and coat with a small amount of flour; add to mixture.

Grease and flour a tube pan. Pour cake batter into pan. Cover pan with a stoneware plate. Place a pan of hot water on the bottom rack in the oven, so the cake will steam as it bakes. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a straw inserted in the center comes out clean. Frost with caramel icing.

Caramel Icing
1 1-pound box of light brown sugar
1 stick butter
1 cup milk

Combine ingredients in a saucepan. Cook until the soft ball* stage. Beat with an electric mixer until thick. If it gets too thick, add a few drops of milk and stir.

*Soft ball stage is candy-making lingo for 235 degrees, and it will be a major marking on any candy thermometer, Brian explained when I asked. He added: If you don't have a candy thermometer, "the test is something like `drop a little into water. If it forms a soft ball (as opposed to a hard ball, hard crack, etc.), you're good to go."

More from Brian: "Because the temperature is so important, making jam cake frosting is among the more complicated things I do. It will probably take longer than you'd expect for it to reach temperature. But it's really good—sweet but sophisticated, not like Betty Crocker glucose goo." (Sorry, Betty.)

Old-Fashioned Cream Pie

I rip recipes from magazines (that I own, not say in waiting rooms) all the time. If I never tore another recipe from People, Real Simple and more, I'd easily spend the next couple years cooking my way through my "to make" recipe pile.

Anyhow, this year for Easter the kids and I decided a cream pie sounded tasty. I used a recipe from the June 2013(!) issue of Ladies' Home Journal. It was worth the wait, so give it a try sooner rather than later.

XOXO,
Amy

PS: What drew me to the LHJ recipe was the headline on the article — "The Pie That Made My Dad Propose." Here's a version of that story, originally published in LHJ. And below is a piece of art that ran with the story.

Old-Fashioned Cream Pie

Crust:
12 graham crackers, broken into pieces
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Or...
1 store-bought graham cracker pie crust (For less than $2 and a lot less hassle, this is my preferred option.)

Filling:
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cornstarch
 2 1/2 cups cold milk
4 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Fresh berries for serving

For crust: Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, blend graham cracker pieces and sugar until finely ground. Add butter and pulse until combined. Set aside 1/4 cup of graham cracker mixture for topping. Press remaining mixture into bottom and side of a 9-inch pie pan. Bake until lightly browned, about seven minutes. Cool while you prepare the filling.

For filling: In a 3-quart saucepan, whisk together sugar, salt and cornstarch. Add milk and egg yolks and whisk to combine. Heat mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly until mixture begins to bubble and then cook 1 more minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, nutmeg and butter. Place over and ice bath to cool slightly before pouring into prepared crust. Cover pie with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm — about 5 hours or overnight. Sprinkle with reserved graham cracker crumbs and serve with cold berries.

Pumpkin Brownies

It might still be 90 degrees in Charlotte, but it's Fall, that time of year when everything comes up pumpkin. For example, while reading my People magazine (guilty pleasure) the other day, I found a recipe for The Cake Boss Buddy Valastro's "Pumpkin Chocolate Brownies."

I decided to try them out — minus the chocolate sauce, because my kids don't like frosting or icing. Plus, nine eggs, one and a half cups of butter and four cups of sugar make these brownies plenty sweet. In fact, the recipe called for four and a third cups of sugar and two and two thirds cups of butter, so I trimmed a bit. I also added a generous pinch of cloves, because you can't have pumpkin spices without the cloves.

The verdict: Pumpkin brownies deserve their place next to pumpkin lattes, pumpkin bread and pumpkin beer. Yum!

Happy Fall, y'all!

XOXO,
Amy

Pumpkin Brownies
Adapted from The Cake Boss Buddy Valastro's recipe in the Sept. 26 issue of People magazine

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon table salt
Generous pinch of ground cloves
9 large eggs
2 (15 ounce) cans plain pumpkin puree
4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, melted
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Equipment note: This recipe makes two 9X12 pans of brownies! The batter barely fit in the bowl of my KitchenAid blender and some of it was sloshing out. Next time I will use a hand mixer and my largest bowl.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and next five ingredients. Set flour mixture aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and pumpkin on medium speed until combined. Beat in sugar.

With mixer running, add in the melted butter in a steady stream. Next, gradually add in the flour mixture, stopping now and then to scrape the sides of the bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Lightly grease two 9X12 baking pans and divide the batter between the two. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle of the brownies comes out clean.

Watermelon Pizza

We had friends over for dinner last week. The moms and four girls went to the pool first. Between pool time and it being nearly 100 degrees out, my goal was to keep it easy and to turn up the heat as little possible in the kitchen. So, Jeff smoked a beautiful salmon. I threw together a salad and pulled out the pasta salad I'd made the night before. For dessert, I thought it would be fun for Lucy and Penny and their friends Hannah and Sophie to make the watermelon pizza I'd seen in my latest Good Housekeeping magazine.

Aren't they all adorbs?

From left to right: Penny, Hannah, Lucy and Sophie hard at work making watermelon pizzas.

The girls loved making their "pizzas," but didn't love eating them so much. The "sauce" — made of cream cheese, ricotta and honey — was weird and I tended to agree. But they liked the berries and the watermelon itself, of course. In the future, I'd turn this into a fruit salad, cutting the watermelon into bite-sized chunks and mixing in the berries and a little mint. I bet they'd gobble it up.

Still, it was fun to watch and a great way to get kids involved in the kitchen.

XOXO,
Amy

Watermelon Pizza
Adapted from Good Housekeeping

1 seedless watermelon, cut into four rounds
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
16 ounces ricotta cheese
2 tablespoons honey
Couple handfuls of coconut, toasted
Variety of berries of your choosing -- blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries
Kiwi, optional but could serve as your "pepperoni"
1 bunch of mint, roughly chopped

Mix cream cheese, ricotta and honey together. Spread this "sauce" on your watermelon rounds. Next, sprinkle toasted coconut and top with berries and fruit. Sprinkle chopped mint.

Cut each round into quarters. Enjoy!

Kentucky Derby Cookies

This past weekend was Derby weekend and I was nostalgic thinking of my Old Kentucky Home. As usual on the first Saturday in May, I teared up at the playing of the state song just before the big race.

I was lucky enough to get to cover three derbys while a reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, where I met my husband. The Bluegrass is a special place.

Often on Derby Day, I make Derby pie. But this year I decided to create something different -- Kentucky Derby Cookies. Think of them as Derby pie in cookie form. Yes, there's bourbon and two kinds  of  nuts -- pecans and walnuts. That's because I learned that some versions of the pie have walnuts and others have pecans, which is what I've always used. Why choose?

And why wait until next Derby to bake up these delicious cookies? With more than half a cup of bourbon I promise you will enjoy them any day of the year. Besides, we have a Triple Crown to watch out for in the coming weeks.

Then next year, you can add Kentucky Derby Cookies to your Derby Day menu.

XOXO,
Amy

Kentucky Derby Cookies
(Note: This is a double batch that yields 7 dozen cookies. I like to bake a lot of cookies and freeze half or more for later. If you want to cut this recipe in half, no problem. For the bourbon, use 5 tablespoons)

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons bourbon
1 12-ounce package semisweet chocolate chips
1 12-ounce package chopped pecans
1 12-ounce package chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt -- and then set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the sugars and butter until smooth. Add in eggs and mix to combine. Mix in vanilla extract and bourbon. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans.

Drop large spoonfuls of cookie batter on lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake for 9-10 minutes or until just beginning to golden. Cool cookies on wire racks.

Amy's Yummy Year

This time last year, my friend Erin invited my friend Andrea and I join her on this delicious blog she created. Andrea and I bellied right up. Thank you, Erin for the creative culinary outlet. It's been a sweet year blogging with two awesome foodie friends who share the goal of putting food on the table and keeping the tradition of family dinner alive.

Here are some of my happiest Hot Dinner Happy Home moments from the past year as well as some of my favorite dishes by Andrea and Erin.

Enjoy!

XOXO,
Amy

Happiest Moments

• Cooking with my kids, including "baking"  sugar cookies with them on live TV. Check out these posts:
• Good Day Charlotte Features George Girls and Sugar Cookies
• Chocolate Madeleines
• Ginger Cookies
• Smokehouse Spaghetti

• Creating Spring on Toast with Erin while my Lucy and Penny "babysat" her Danny-boy. (Love that Erin shared this memory in her Friday post.)

• Conquering the pressure cooker. See these posts:
• Midwestern Vegetable-Beef Soup
• Pressure Cooker Chicken Noodle Soup
• Pressure Cooker Potato Soup
• Shrimp Curry Under Pressure

Favorite dishes by Andrea

• Having an Italian BFF means access to recipes for classic, authentic dishes. It also means I get to know how each member of her family tweaks their own interpretations of the classics. Check  out:
• Traditional Italian Meatballs
• Sunday Gravy (Tortora family tomato sauce)
• Family Lasagna
• My favorite of Andrea's non-Italian dishes and a fantastic lighter dinner paired with a green salad: Buttermilk Spoonbread.

Favorite dishes by Erin

• Erin's Slow Cooker Thai Peanut Pork is the first HDHH dish I ever made and I chatted it up A LOT on my Facebook page. I couldn't even tell you how many friends have made that dish. Suffice to say it's a hit from coast to coast and all points in between.
• Parmesan and Yogurt Crusted Chicken is a George family go-to dinner. My younger daughter Penny requested it for her birthday dinner last month.
• I see Spiced Pecans becoming my go-to holiday party nosh. I didn't make them last year like I intended. But in 2014 my friends walked off with the few remaining nuts after the Thanksgiving feast Chez George. I don't blame them, because, after all, we call these crack nuts.

French Chocolate Cake

Recall from last week's post Penny's birthday dinner -- Parmesan and Yogurt Crusted Chicken, Carolina Collard Greens, scalloped potatoes and this nearly flourless French Chocolate Cake.

I made this cake exactly per the recipe in pastry chef David Lebovitz's memoir, The Sweet Life in Paris. I selected it because it offers something for everyone in the George family -- high quality dark chocolate for maman and a cake that doesn't require icing, which les enfants don't like anyhow. Plus, it is so rich that a teeny piece is perfect -- and perfect for papa who doesn't have a huge sweet tooth.

I highly recommend the cake and the book, which explained a lot about Parisians that I already knew but plenty that I didn't. Sweet Life is also full of recipes that appear easy to do -- and eat. In fact, the chocolate cake was my second dish from the book. When I made the Chicken Tagine with Apricots and Almonds, I swear my house smelled just like Chez Omar, the popular Moroccan restaurant in Paris' Le Marais neighborhood.

XOXO,
Amy

French Chocolate Cake
From The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

9 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature, separated
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch loaf pan and line the bottom with a strip of parchment paper.

In a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water or likewise in a double boiler, heat the chocolate and butter together until just melted and smooth. A note about the chocolate, for this and for homemade brownies I use Scharffen Berger Baking Bar - 70% Bittersweet Chocolate. Worth the 10 bucks.

Remove chocolate and butter from the heat and stir in half the sugar, then the egg yolks, and flour. (I love this part from the book: "You don't need to measure the half-quantity of sugar exactly. Just pretend you're a French woman cooking in her home kitchen and don't worry about it.)

Whip egg whites with the salt, using an electric hand mixer or whisk. Keep whipping until the whites form soft peaks. Gradually whip in the remaining sugar until the whites are smooth and hold their shape when the whisk or beaters are lifted.

Use a rubber spatula to fold one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Next fold in the remaining egg whites just until the mixture is smooth and no visible white streaks remain.

Pour batter into pan, scraping sides of the bowl so you bake up all that goodness. Smooth the top of the batter with rubber spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Do not overbake.

Let cake cook in pan before cutting and serving.

The cake can be stored for up to three days. Some French women believe it is better after it sits for a day or two. The cake can also be wrapped in plastic and frozen for up to one month.

Brie Cranberry Pizza

I got this recipe more than 15 years ago from a coworker, Sally, at the Kentucky newspaper where I met my husband. The original recipe calls for canned whole berry cranberry sauce, but in recent years I have instead used my homemade Spiced Cranberry Sauce, leftover from Thanksgiving.

Brie Cranberry Pizza is the perfect holiday party or book club gathering nosh -- either as appetizer or dessert. I last made this on New Year's eve as a precursor to our main meal -- a twist on the French classic coq au vin, which you will read all about very soon.

XOXO,
Amy

Brie Cranberry Pizza

8 ounce tube of crescent rolls (I typically used the reduced fat kind.)
8 ounces of brie, rind removed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3/4 cup whole berry cranberry sauce, canned  or Amy's Spiced Cranberry Sauce
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly spray bottom of 12-inch pizza pan or 9" X 13" glass baking dish. Unroll dough and press into pan or dish by tips. Bake for 5-8 minutes, until golden. Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese. Spoon cranberry sauce over dough and cheese. Top with pecans. Bake for 6-10 minutes, until cheese is melted. Cool for 5 minutes before cutting.

Ginger Cookies

We're kicking off a week of holiday baked goods today, dear readers.

Actually, my daughters and I got the baking party started last week by appearing Friday on Fox 46's Good Day Charlotte to show off our Sugar Cookies. (Click here to watch the "What's Your Dish?" segment featuring Lucy, Penny and me. Click here to read the blog post all about it.)

Anyhow, ginger cookies are my favorite cookies of all time. Always have been, always will be. And now my two little gingers love baking and eating them, too!

My mom made ginger cookies for me throughout my childhood. Sometimes I'd ask for these cookies -- like ginger snaps but soft -- instead of birthday cake. I still would -- no matter that my birthday is in June.

I say make ginger cookies this holiday season and all year round!

XOXO,
Amy

PS: The key to ginger cookies is to find unsulphured blackstrap molasses. Molasses comes from sugar cane and is the byproduct in the production of sugar. Juice extracted from sugar cane is boiled up to three times to become three different kinds of molasses -- light molasses from the first boiling, dark molasses from the second boiling and blackstrap molasses from the third boiling. In these ginger cookies, blackstrap molasses brings out the flavor of the cloves, ginger and cinnamon, whereas light molasses makes some disappoing, bland cookies. Blackstrap molasses is super healthy too, so pass me another cookie. Kidding. No, seriously, for real, pass me another cookie.

PPS: I never bake a single batch of cookies. If I'm getting out all my baking supplies, I'm going to make it worth the effort and double the recipe. This recipe doubles nicely and the cookies freeze well after they are baked, too.

Ginger Cookies
Yields about five dozen cookies

2 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup sugar, plus more for rolling cookie dough
1 egg, beaten
4 tablespoons unsulphured blackstrap molasses
1 cup unsalted butter, softened to slightly runny

Combine all  dry ingredients, except sugar, and set aside. Mix together sugar and all other ingredients. Gradually add the dry mix to the egg and butter mixture. Refrigerate cookie dough for a few hours or overnight -- or place in freezer for a shorter amount of time. Basically, you want to dough to harden a bit so that  you can roll it into balls.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough into small balls and then roll in sugar. Bake on ungreased or lightly greased cookie sheets for about 9 minutes. You will see the bottoms of the cookies turn very slightly brown. Be careful not to overbake!

French Yogurt Cake

I've read about yogurt cake in beaucoup French books and memoirs. In Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, par exemple. And more recently in Elizabeth Bard's Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes. Both books make me a teensy bit wistful that I didn't pick up and move to the City of Light while in my 20s.

Anyhow, yogurt cake is a popular treat in France. It's often the first cake that les enfants learn to make and I can see why. No electric mixer needed. Most ingredients are always on hand. It's quick to put together, which means you don't have to wait long -- just a little over an hour really --- until you devour your slice. Of course, Mom or Dad should handle the lemon zesting.

French kids use the same 8 ounce yogurt cup to measure the sugar and flour. I couldn't find 8 ounce yogurt cups, so I bought a 24 ounce container, so Lucy, Penny and I could make this cake multiple times.

I adore this cake. It's quick. Simple. Sweet, but not too sweet. No icing required. Tastes even better the next day.

XOXO,
Amy

French Yogurt Cake
From Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard

1 cup plain, whole milk yogurt
1 cup sugar
A large pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Zest of one lemon
One 16-ounce can apricots, drained and quartered (Note: My store had 8-ounce cans only, so I got two of those.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly butter a 10-inch round cake pan and line with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, salt and vanilla, stirring or whisking until smooth. Add oil in a steady stream, while whisking to combine. Add eggs one by one, whisking to combine after each one.

In smaller bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Add flour mixture little by little to the yogurt mixture, whisking along the way to combine. Stir in lemon zest. Pour cake mixture into prepared cake  pan. Top with chopped apricots.

Bake on center rack for 45 minutes, until golden brown and slightly risen; a toothpick inserted in the center should  come out clean.

Lift cake by parchment paper and place on wire rack to cool.

This cake is even better the second day -- provided it sticks around that long. It gets more moist as it sits.

Elizabeth Bard points out in her book that this cake is a "blank canvas" that you can  make  your own based on the fruits you like or have in your fridge at the time. Try fresh raspberries or pears sprinkled with brown sugar, she suggests.

My girls enjoyed this cake. They ate it several mornings for breakfast -- with a banana on the side, so no judgment. But they didn't love the apricots and asked that next time I try peaches instead, so that's what I did the second time around. I used canned peaches (in juices, not syrup), drained and chopped. I sprinkled some cinnamon over the peaches as I would when making a peach cobbler.

Verdict: The girls preferred the cake with peaches; I liked the apricot version better.

Bottom  line: This is a great go-to dessert for any day of the week. I plan to make it beaucoup times.

Sugar Cookies

I love sugar cookies. Not the labor-intensive ones that you roll out, cut out and ice and that look pretty but are kinda dry and bland. Correction: I love my sugar cookies. Loaded with butter. Falling apart in your mouth.

I mostly make these cookies at Christmas, decorating them with red and green sugar. But sometimes when I need a quick dessert and don't want to run to the store for special ingredients, these cookies are the answer. I always have all of the ingredients on hand.

I recently whipped up my sugar cookies for an impromptu grill-out dinner party Chez George. I doubled the recipe so I'd have enough to take to a dinner party where we were the guests.

By the way, these cookies freeze nicely, too. FYI in case you are like me and you like to get a lot of baking done for the holidays or teacher gifts.

XOXO,
Amy

Sugar Cookies
Yields 5 dozen

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
Colored sugar sprinkles

Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla.

In separate bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients, except the sugar sprinkles. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar-egg mixture and combine.

Place the cookie dough in freezer for an hour or fridge for a couple hours or overnight.

After the cookie dough  has hardened a little, remove from fridge or freezer and shape into tablespoon-sized balls. Place balls on ungreased cookie sheets. Pour colored sugars onto individual plates. Take a glass and rub butter on the bottom or tap it onto the cookie dough to get it greasy enough to transfer the sugar sprinkles to the cookie balls. Dip the glass into a plate of colored sugar and then tap down gently on a cookie ball, flattening it just a little. Repeat. Use a different glass for each colored sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for about eight minutes. The cookies should not turn brown and you want to barely see any brown at the bottom.

The cookies will seem soft when you remove them from the oven--and they are kinda fragile, so be careful. Transfer cookies to wire racks. Eat a few immediately--worth it!

Chocolate Madeleines

A few years ago I splurged on a $30 baking pan at Sur La Table. Not just any baking pan: my Madeleine pan. Worth it. Every francophile and anyone who has read Marcel Proust needs a Madeleine pan, non?

I love that just as Marcel remembered a childhood in which his maman baked these mini pound cakes, so shall Lucy and Penny. My daughters adore Madeleines. They have proclaimed my Madeleines to be better than the packaged variety sold at Starbucks! Mais oui.

And while the girls appreciate the classic French treat, they have been begging me to try making chocolate Madeleines, so I did. Pour mes filles.

XOXO,
Amy

PS: Lucy helped.

Chocolate Madeleines
Adapted from Joyofbaking.com
Yields 18 Madeleines

3 eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted -- plus additional non-melted butter for greasing Madeleine pan
1 ounce unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

Put eggs and sugar in bowl of your blender and blend at medium high for five minutes. You want to blend until the mixture has tripled in volume  and a thick ribbon forms when you lift the beater. Again, about five minutes.

Meanwhile, place butter and chocolate in top of double boiler and melt over a medium boil.

Then, mix the remaining dry ingredients -- flour, baking powder and salt -- in a small bowl.

When the egg and sugar mixture is ready, fold in a bit of the flour mixture. Then fold in the rest of the flour mixture, bit by bit. Key word is "fold." Do not overstir or stir too vigorously as that will result in some flat Madeleines.

Your chocolate  and butter should be melted by now. Let it cool for a few minutes. Then fold some of the batter into the chocolate and butter. And  then fold the entire chocolate-butter mixture, which now contains some batter, into the mixing bowl with remaining batter. Combine gently. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Toward the end of that 30 minutes, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Then take a stick of butter and grease the Madeleine pan. There are a lot of grooves in these seashell-shaped cakes, so make sure to do a good job here or your Madeleines will stick and not look as pretty.

Remove batter from fridge and place a generous tablespoon of batter into the center of each mold in the Madeleine pan. This is how you get the classic "humped" appearance in your Madeleines.

Bake for 10-11 minutes or until edges are slightly browned and the center of the cakes spring back when lightly touched. Transfer Madeleines -- smooth side down -- to a plate and allow to cool.

When serving, sift confectioners sugar over the grooved side of the Madeleines.

Note that Madeleines are best eaten the same day. You can store leftover Madeleines (provided there are any) in an airtight container  and eat them the next day. If you want to store for longer, wrap well and freeze for up to one month.