Dark Chocolate Walnuts Périgord

November 5, 2024November 5, 2024 ~ Chambers Life! ~ Leave a comment

A Perfect Gift From France!

After a trip back to Le Vieux Couvent to study with ARTISTS Rita Carpenter & Stacy Levy hiking around a lot in The Lot, munching the delicious Périgord walnuts, and falling over in a food coma—I decided I should try to make the decadent morsels here in North Carolina. You are asking, “What was I thinking?” After all of those croissants and other irrésistibles how will your zippers cooperate?

(The gorgeous fabric in the picture above is the napkin created by Raleigh City Farm’s Artist in Residence, Julia Einstein. You can purchase the napkins and fabric from Spoonflower at Designs by j-einstein.)

Well, I am not in a French walnut food coma but I am in a very dreamy place with my Pacific Northwest Organic Walnuts. Back in the U.S., I also sauntered into my local La Farm Bakery just to ease my transition from all the REAL French (in France) butter, chocolate, and wine. The result, mon cher? I lost a few kilos in Paris from running up and down Metro stairs but gained a few pounds when I returned (obviously depressed) to the U.S. binging on croissants and these walnuts. Enjoy!

16 ounces of walnuts
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
4 ounces of bittersweet or semi-sweet baking chocolate
2 teaspoons of French butter (salted or not)
1 cup Dutch dark cocoa
2 tablespoons (+/-) confectioner’s sugar
+/- 1/4 teaspoon Fine sea salt (optional)

WALNUTS: Roast 16 ounces organic walnut halves at 350° F for 10 minutes, stirring after 5 minutes. Set aside.

GLAZE: Set a cooling rack over a large baking sheet lined with parchment for the glazed walnuts. Cook 1 cup sugar + 1/2 cup of water in a large skillet (big enough to hold the walnuts in a single layer) swirling the mixture until it’s a toasted a golden caramel color. You’ll need to work fast or the glaze will become too dark too fast.

Toss in the walnuts, stirring quickly to thinly coat them with the glaze. Quickly spoon them onto the cooling rack that is over the parchment-lined baking sheet. THIS will burn your fingers terribly so do not touch the glazed nuts until they have cooled a bit. Once a bit cool, break them apart into single walnuts or similar chunks. Let. cool completely.

CHOCOLATE: In a double-boiler (stainless steel bowl over a saucepan of hot water), melt 4 ounces bittersweet baking chocolate (not chocolate chips) and 1 teaspoon French butter. Stir until smooth. Remove the bowl from the heat and toss in the walnuts. Spread the chocolate-coated nuts on the parchment-lined sheet left from the glaze procedure above. Sprinkle immediately with the cocoa mixture and let cool completely.

COCOA: Sift together 1 cup Dutch dark cocoa powder and 2+/- tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar. I add 1/4 teaspoon very fine Fleur de Sel (sea salt, pulverized) but it’s optional. Sprinkle this mixture through a sieve over the chocolate-coated walnuts. Let the nuts cool completely, then toss in the cocoa mixture left that did not stick to the nuts.

Store in an airtight glass (not plastic) container at room temperature in a dark dry place.

I hide them from myself—because—Je ne peux pas les empêcher de sauter dans ma bouche. I can’t stop them from jumping into my mouth.

OH! HO HO HO Clothespin Cookies

December 5, 2022 ~ Chambers Life! ~ Leave a comment

Some family traditions are worth the sugar rush.

Clothespin Cookies – Use the old fashioned kind of clothespins.

Easy to make dough. Swirl onto greased pins.

These are ready for a roll in the sugars.

THE RECIPE

COOKIE DOUGH

2 1/2 t dry yeast
1/2 c milk, heat to 115
4 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 c unsalted butter
4 eggs, beaten
4 T sugar
1 t salt
Decorating sugars

Dissolve yeast in milk and set aside. Mix sugar and salt into flour. Cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles course crumbs. Mix eggs and yeast/milk mixture together. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the yeast/milk/egg mixture. Mix well and knead a few times. Wrap in wax paper and a damp tea towel and refrigerate overnight.

Grease about 50 clothespins with vegetable shortening. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 300º F.

Divide dough in half. On lightly floured surface roll each half into an 8″ wide X 20″ long rectangle. Dough will be about 1/8″ thick. Cut off rough side edges and set aside to roll again later. Cut rectangle in to 3/4″ strips and roll onto clothespin with floured side on the clothespin, overlapping edges. Do not wrap to “shoulder” of the clothespin as removal is difficult. Set rolled curls aside to warm a bit as this helps decorative sugars to adhere a bit better. Prepare all cookies.

Gently roll cookies in sugars. Roll with the swirl so you don’t uncurl the cookie. Place seam side down on parchment lined baking sheet. Double pan and bake 30 minutes until just golden on the bottoms. You can prepare filling while cookies bake.

Cool on wire racks for a few minutes and gently remove each cookie from the clothespin. Eat one. Let the rest cool to room temperature.

FILLING

1 cup sugar
1 cup salted or unsalted butter divided in two
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (Penzy’s double strength)
1 cup whipping cream

Heat sugar and 1/2 cup butter in a saucepan just until butter melts. Place in mixer bowl. Add milk and vanilla. Beat at high speed until mixture combines, about 10 minutes. It will look curdled at first. Add whipping cream and continue to beat at high speed. Add 1/2 cup butter a small piece at a time until the mixture becomes a fluffy frosting. This filling is a bit fussy to make but worth it for the taste. You could opt for your favorite Italian or French buttercream or stabilized whipped cream.

Fill the curls. Immediately eat them. Refrigerate or freeze those that aren’t eaten within an hour of filling. Refrigerate for up to ten days. They freeze for months – which makes the sugar rush last longer.