Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know Taste Delicious With Chocolate

There’s nothing better than chocolate, right? Or is there? Foodies have figured out that everyone’s favorite candy gets even better when combined with some surprising ingredients. Here are our top 10 favorite crazy chocolate recipes.

10. Avocado

It might sound gross, but avo mixed with chocolate chips makes an amazingly rich filling for Russell Warnick’s chocolate avocado pie.

 9. Eggplant

No, this is not a joke. Just give it a try. Salted fried eggplant drizzled with dark chocolate, from What You Give Away You Keep.

8. Goat Cheese

Chocolate is great. Cheese is great. Why the eff not? Macheesmo makes goat cheese raspberry brownies.

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Edible Holiday Gifts: Samoas Bark

This year let’s bypass truffles and caramel popcorn for gifting and move into something way more fun — candy bark. Well, at least we think so, and since we a have a handful of fuss-free, no-bake candy bark recipes to share, ee’ll be sharing one new recipe a week until the end of December.

Ringing in the Holiday Bark series is a Samoas Bark. We’ve taken that Girl Scout cookie favorite and simplified it to a something you can make in about 20 minutes. They are perfect when combined with other edible Christmas gifts.

We’re also pretty sure you may find this damn hard to part with once you take a bite. See that soft caramel center getting all cozy and gooey with some crushed shortbread? Well that’s just the beginning. Nudging its way into that is a layer of toasted coconuts with more gooey goodness in the form of a caramel and chocolate drizzle…yeah, go ahead, take your heavenly bite and then put it down, wrap it up and give it up because tis the season for giving.

Samoas Bark

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Friday Fuck-Up: Rice Puffies

First off, I would like to say that I did not actually make these.  However, I did attempt to eat them, and there is no doubt that they deserve a mention on here.

My dear friend Jenn is an excellent baker.  She makes cupcakes from scratch and they actually taste good.  One day, though, she fell into the trap of cabinet experimentation.  She is moving soon and trying to eat down the pantry, and thus came across an uneaten bag of marshmallows.

Rice Krispies seemed the logical choice.  Her husband was stopping by Yes! Organic Market that afternoon and was assigned the task of picking up the cereal. Well, Yes! may be a great place to go for organic hummus made from hand-coddled chickpeas, but they are not helpful when it comes to name brand products.  Instead of snap, crackle and pop, Pat enlisted the help of some Kashi puffed rice.

All I can say about the resulting atrocity was that I should have stopped as soon as I tried to cut off a piece and nearly bent the knife.  It was fortunate that none of my teeth are filled, because they wouldn’t be any more.  The combination of stickiness and chewiness would have been impressive if it weren’t so horrific.  The worst part is, Pat could have totally warned me when I said, “Ooh, Rice Krispies!”, but I am pretty sure he kept quiet so that he would not be forced to eat any more himself.

Mudslides Gone Wild!

If you’ve read ES for, oh, 30 seconds or so, you probably know that we like cooking with booze. And no one does it better than our own bakers royale, who has found not 1, not 2, but 4 ways (so far) to turn a mudslide cocktail into a delicious dessert. Let’s take a moment to say bravo. And yum.

1. Mudslide Cupcake

Chocolate cake plus buttercream frosting infused with homemande Bailey’s, chocolate and kahlua. Bet you’re sorry you said you were over cupcakes now, huh?

2. Mudslide Ice Cream Cake

Take that kahlua, chocolate and Bailey’s, infuse it into some ice cream, and shape it into a cake.

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Artsy Photo of the Day

You think you hate cupcakes? Not as much as this chick. She hates cupcakes so much she had one inked on her neck just to mock the sugary sweet.

[Copenhagen, 2011]

Friday Fuck-Up: One Giant Cookie

Last week I was feeling down about life in general, not to mention, I was getting over the flu and had both sinus and ear infections. I needed a pick-me-up.

Now, I don’t bake. I know a lot of people say it’s my fault because I’m not trying hard enough or I’m not paying enough attention BUT REALLY SOMETIMES I DO EVERYTHING and even study the molecular science behind baking and it just doesn’t work for me.

But I’m not a quitter. At 10pm, once my roommates went to bed, I decided to embark on a new adventure: sugar cookies. I’ve successfully made cookies before, and I figured these can’t be that difficult, right?

Wrong.

Now of course I started with frozen butter, so I cut up the frozen sticks into slivers, put them on a plate, then mashed them with the warmth of my hands until the butter was warm enough for the cookies. That’s dedication, yo.

The dough came together and I did everything the recipe said, including rolling the dough in sugar and pressing it down all fancy-like with a glass.

As I was sitting there, proud of myself, thinking “THESE ARE GOING TO BE THE BEST COOKIES EVER,” I noticed a strange smell. Oh, it was smoke. COMING FROM MY OVEN.

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Cocktail O’Clock: Ice Cream, Vodka and Ice



Yes, we’re ready for winter cocktail season now.

New on the menu at Tavern at the Park in Chicago: A Snowball’s Chance mixes black pepper & mint-infused vodka with melted vanilla ice cream & slapped mint, all served over ice.

Browse more seasonal booze in Endless Cocktails.

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