Flourless Chocolate Cake with Caramel Whipped Cream

I’m ready for a new year – 2012 had more than its share of bad stuff in it and it’s time to move on. Lots of folks start off the new year with a diet, but diets don’t seem to take with me. I find I’m

 better off eating normal food and just cutting down on my portions. Eating rice cakes with cottage cheese on top just makes me sad. So, in the spirit of eating real (read: indulgent) food, here’s 

an ideal recipe: a really rich flourless chocolate cake, a small sliver of which is guaranteed to satisfy anyone with a hankering for something chocolaty. I serve it here with a Caramel Whipped

 Cream, which is basically a caramel sauce combined with softly whipped cream and then whipped to firm peaks. The cake is an adaptation of one that appeared in The Cake Book, my Chocolate Valentine Cake, which is baked in a heart-shaped pan. And that’s appropriate, because you’re going to love it. Happy New Year!!

Boston Cream Doughnuts

Boston Cream Pie is an iconic American dessert created by a German-born pastry chef at Boston’s Parker House Hotel in 1855. The cake consists of sponge layers filled with vanilla pastry cream, topped off with a rich dark chocolate glaze. What a combo! These 

filled doughnuts were inspired by the Boston Cream Pie. Though they require a little time to make, but they are far better than anything you'll find in any doughnut shop. The recipe was created by my friend Carole Harlam, a talented baker, dessert maker, and 

perfectionist. Carole developed many excellent recipes for Chocolatier magazine, and this is one of my favorites. Make sure your oil is properly preheated before frying the doughnuts, or they will absorb too much oil and be greasy. When the oil is at the right 

temperature, the surface will quiver slightly. If you want to simplify the recipe, skip the chocolate glaze and dust the doughnuts with confectioners’ sugar. They’ll still be good, but they won’t be as good, trust me.

Chocolate Glazed Vanilla Eclairs

My mother, who is Welsh, is the best hostess in the world. When you pay her a visit, she makes you feel like Queen (or King, if you’re a guy) for a Day. Even today, at the age of 87, she hosts elaborate bridge parties and luncheons with wonderful food. When I was a kid, I remember friends dropping by our house 

spontaneously. Instead of panicking, my Mom casually whipped up a batch of whipped cream-filled cream puffs to serve the visitors along with their tea. We were all pretty impressed with that trick. She was, and is, never afraid to try anything new, no matter how daunting the recipe or technique. So it’s in the spirit of my mother’s 

cooking approach—sheer fearlessness—that I present a recipe for éclairs, filled with a lightened vanilla pastry cream and topped with a shiny bittersweet chocolate glaze. Making choux paste, the dough for cream puffs and éclairs, is a technique that many find intimidating, though it’s actually fairly easy to put together. The 

only problem with homemade éclairs is that they have multiple components—the dough, the filling and the glaze—and it takes time to make each and assemble the finished pastries. The trick here is to make the filling (minus the whipped cream) a day or two beforehand, so that you only have to make the choux paste and the 

glaze the day you plan to serve the éclairs. Though I made mine slightly smaller than standard bakery éclairs, you can make them any size you like, and you can also vary the flavor of the pastry cream filling (espresso pastry cream is great with the chocolate glaze). I recommend chilling the filled éclairs while you make the glaze, so that the glaze sets up faster on the cold pastry. And do serve them the day they’re made—you won’t have any trouble finding takers. ♥