Decadent recipes for chocolate desserts

From classics such as chewy chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake with buttercream frosting, to crazy candy creations such as Peanut Butter Cup and Snickers crunch brownies; whatever your guilty pleasure, we've got you covered with more than 50 chocolate recipes.

Chocolate pecan caramel shortbread

The Pastry Chef's Baking
Bake this shortbread in a round or rectangular tart pan with a removable bottom.

By Carol RamosThe Pastry Chef's Baking 

Shortbread crust

1-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pecan filling

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup pecan halves
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Chocolate topping

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Garnish

1 ounce white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Make the shortbread crust: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

2. Into a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder

3. In a medium bowl, using a hand-held electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix at low speed until combined. While continuing to mix at low speed, add the flour mixture in three batches, mixing just until the dough starts to come together.

4. Scrape the dough into a 9-1/2-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Using your fingertips, press the dough evenly into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Set the crust aside. Alternatively, you can choose to parbake for 15-20 minutes or until crust is very lightly golden brown before you add the filling.

5. Make the pecan filling: In a small saucepan, place the butter, honey, sugar, and brown sugar. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Continue to boil the mixture for 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the pecan halves. Stir in the cream. Pour the pecan mixture into the prepared crust and bake for 30 minutes (15-20 minutes if you've parbaked the crust first). Cool the tart on a wire rack for hour.

6. Make the chocolate topping: In a small saucepan, combine the cream and sugar. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the chocolate chips. Whisk the mixture until smooth. Set aside 1/3 cup of the topping in the refrigerator for garnish.

7. Garnish the shortbread: Pour the warm chocolate topping over the top of the tart and spread it evenly with a small metal cake spatula.

8. Place the tart uncovered in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to set the chocolate. Melt the white chocolate.

9. Fill a small parchment cone with the melted chocolate. Pipe the chocolate in fine lines across the top of the tart in a crisscross pattern.

10. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a medium star tip (such as Ateco #5) with the reserved chocolate topping. Pipe 8 rosettes around the edge of the tart. Top each rosette with a pecan half.

Click here to read the full Stir It Up! blog post

Back to Index

15 of 61

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.