Coffee-Chocolate-Kahlua Ice Cream Pie

If the swelter of midsummer has you pining for an icy treat, pine no more! This boozy pie, with its caffeine punch and candy crackle, is like Good Humor for adults. I took Guy Fieri's coffee liqueur ice cream pie recipe and threw in some curveballs. The result is a tipsy mud pie you'll crave.

Serves 6-8. No one will eat just one slice.

Ingredients

 

Crust

1 box chocolate cookie wafers, crushed (I used MI-DEL's chocolate snaps)
5 Tbsp butter, melted

 

Pie

 

2 pints coffee ice cream, softened (on counter for 15 to 20 minutes)

2 pints chocolate ice cream, softened (on counter for 15 to 20 minutes)
6 Tbsp Kahlua

generous handful chocolate-covered coffee beans, crushed

 

Topping

 

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

1 Tbsp Kahlua

bittersweet chocolate bar for shaving

handful chocolate-covered coffee beans (optional)

Process

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix crushed chocolate cookie wafers with melted butter. Press onto bottom and up sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Bake in oven for 10 minutes. Let cool.

Combine softened ice cream and Kahlua using a mixer until creamy (you may have to do this in installments). Stir in crushed chocolate-covered coffee beans. Oh yes! Fill pie crust with ice cream mixture, cover with plastic wrap, and place in freezer for 3 to 4 hours.

Once the wait is over, whip cream with confectioner's sugar and Kahlua until soft peaks form (I do this with a hand mixer and inevitably end up spattering my walls, person, and nearby kitchen appliances with sugary foam). Top the pie with whipped cream. Refreeze for one hour.

Before serving, take a peeler and shave bittersweet chocolate over the pie. You may also top with chocolate-covered coffee beans.

Notes

• I was afraid that freezing the whipped cream would cause it to slump into an unappetizing icy slurry. Not so! The whipped topping stayed good for days, and your pie will probably not last that long.
• The crushed chocolate-covered coffee beans are key to elevating this pie to greatness, adding crunch and texture in concentrated bits of flavor. But you could do without in a pinch.

Verdict

 

5 stars plus. This will be the belle of the ball at any summer potluck. If you do what I did and serve slices garnished with mint and strawberries, prepare for those dainty embellishments to be ignored as your guests plow into the tundra.

Chocolate-Dipped Almond Macaroons

These are similar to the Grand Marnier-double chocolate macaroons except that the chocolate is a luscious hardened waterfall coating an almondy interior.

yields about 25 macaroons

Ingredients

400 grams sweetened, flaked coconut
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg whites
dash of salt
dash vanilla extract
dash almond extract
about half a cup of sliced almonds
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Guittard)

Process

Preheat your oven to 325. Line a baking sheet or two with parchment paper.

In a food processor such as the Tipsy Crumpet's brand-new Cuisinart, blend the coconut for one minute.

Pour in the sugar. Blend for another minute.

Add the salt, vanilla, almond extract, and egg whites (I crack the whites into a bowl separately first to make sure there are no shells). Blend until combined.

Pour in the sliced almonds. Blend again.

Either empty the batter into a bowl or remove the blade from the food processor and shape the batter from there. You can scoop out the batter with an ice-cream scoop, but what's the fun in that? Using your bare hands like the Tipsy Crumpet, plop golf-ball sized mounds of batter onto the baking sheet. No need to shape them.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or, if you have a more sluggish oven than mine 15.

Remove and keep in the pan for 10 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.

When the macaroons are fully cool, obtain a double boiler or use the Tipsy Crumpet's smaller-pan-in-a-larger-pan-of-heated-water trick. Pour in the chocolate chips and melt. Arrange the macaroons on a piece of waxed paper. Spoon melted chocolate lavishly over half of each macaroon. Or drizzle the chocolate in ribbons. Either way, use up all the chocolate. You can store the macaroons in the refrigerator if you want, but the chocolate will harden eventually either way.

Notes

• Remember, unsweetened chocolate; sweetened coconut.
• These macaroons turned out nicely, but they would have been even nicer with a dash of amaretto or Frangelico.
• They would also have been better with a half-cup or so of marzipan. Next year.
• You could forego chocolate and grate in some lemon or orange zest instead. Adding some white chocolate chips to the batter would give your desserts an Eastery decadence.

 

Verdict

3.5 stars. Not bad, but missing some substance. Trying these with the variations in the Notes section would make the macaroons ambrosial.

Grand Marnier-Double Chocolate Macaroons

These are Smitten Kitchen's dark chocolate macaroons with one important exception: they contain booze. Grand Marnier was what I had on hand, but rum would have done just as well. You can see some non-chocolate stragglers here: we'll get to those in another blog post. In the meantime, these are soft, fudgy, and even more brownie-like than a brownie itself. You will never crack open a carton of Manischewitz again!

yields about 25 macaroons

Ingredients

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
400 grams sweetened, flaked coconut
2/3 cup sugar
6 Tbsp cocoa powder
3 egg whites
dash of salt
dash vanilla extract
prolonged glug of Grand Marnier or another spirit

Process

Preheat your oven to 325. Line a baking sheet or two with parchment paper.

In a double boiler or the Tipsy Crumpet's very own pan-in-a-bigger-pan-of-heated-water, melt half of the chocolate (two ounces). Break up the other half. When the first half is melted, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the other half. It will soften like the dulcet tones of a wood thrush.

In a food processor like the Tipsy Crumpet's brand-new Cuisinart, blend the coconut for one minute.

Pour in the sugar and cocoa powder (no need for sifting). Blend for another minute. This will look really cool as you'll see the white and black layers, separate at first, mix into one. The chocolate macaroon: a metaphor for racial harmony!

Add the salt, vanilla, Grand Marnier or other spirits, and egg whites (I crack the whites into a bowl separately first to make sure there are no shells). Blend until combined.

Pour in the chocolate. Scrape the pan to get as much out as you can. When the river of chocolate has flooded the craggy mound of coconut goo, blend again.

Either empty the batter into a bowl or remove the blade from the food processor and shape the batter from there. You can scoop out the batter with an ice-cream scoop, but what's the fun in that? Using your bare hands like the Tipsy Crumpet, plop golf-ball sized mounds of batter onto the baking sheet. No need to shape them.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or, if you have a more sluggish oven than mine 15.

Remove and keep in the pan for 10 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.

Notes

• Remember, unsweetened chocolate; sweetened coconut.
• It would be delightful to grate an orange peel into this.
• Rum would be just as good as Grand Marnier. So would whiskey.
• You could add some sliced almonds and almond extract for chocolate-almond macaroons.

 

Verdict

5 stars. I would make these even if it weren't Passover, and I don't even like coconut.

Triple Chocolate Passover Brownies

Passover brownies! These aren't your sickly sweet squares from a Manischewitz box. They're moist, dense as earth, and sophisticated. Loaded with unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chocolate chips, and cocoa powder, they'll have you swearing off macaroons for a long time to come. I based the recipe on Engel's Passover Brownies, but with a few Toppled Chef twists.

makes 32 brownies

for a 9 x 13 baking pan: The Tipsy Crumpet doesn't bake brownies for just herself.

Ingredients

 

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 sticks butter (1 cup)
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash of rum 3 Tbsp sour cream or Tofutti substitute
1/3 cup and 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup Passover cake meal
pinch salt
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Process

 

Preheat the oven to 325.

Butter a 9 x 13 baking pan.

Obtain a double boiler or make one by filling a pan one-third of the way with water, heating the water, and setting a small pan on top.

With your double boiler nice and hot, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally. I like to wait until there are only a few lumps left and remove the mixture from the heat. Don't these two ingredients get along well together? Your kitchen smells intoxicating.

Remove your nose from the chocolate-butter elixir and obtain a large bowl. Crack the eggs in the bowl, check for shell shards, muddle the eggs a bit with a fork, add the sugar, and mix until these ingredients are getting along in the creamiest fashion. (Note: I don't like to beat the eggs and sugar using an electric mixer until they're pale because I find that this makes the brownies less gorgeously dense and more light and chewy. Just my preference.)

Add the vanilla and rum and stir in the molten ecstasy you created with the double boiler. It doesn't have to be room temperature, but it shouldn't be too hot. You don't want scrambled eggs in your batter. Stir in the sour cream. You may have to whisk it so that it yields to its surroundings and dissolves.

In another bowl, sift the cocoa powder, cake meal, and salt.  Carefully stir these into the wet mixture.

Make it rain chocolate chips into the bowl. Give a few more cautious stirs.

Pour the batter into your pan.

Bake for about 35 minutes and cool before cutting on a wire rack or just your stove.

Notes

• You can add a swirl of raspberry jam after you've poured the batter into the pan. You can also add dried cherries or walnuts or, for even more sophistication, blackberry jam. To add a jam swirl, pile a hefty amount onto a knife and swirl the knife through the batter. You may repeat a few times, with a clean knife each time.
• Be prepared for non-kosher-keeping people--even non-Jewish people--to widen their eyes upon tasting these brownies and lunge for more.
• You can put in more than a cup of chocolate chips.
• some espresso powder might be nice--maybe a Tbsp mixed into the sour cream

 

Verdict

 

5 stars. I've made this for my colleagues three years in a row, and it's a huge success each time. It's probably why I'm still employed.

The Nefarious Breadstick Beast

The Toppled Chef was in her kitchen one day making Smitten Kitchen pumpernickel grissini. Smitten Kitchen, as you can see, shows a smooth dough, like a sheet of vellum, lying obediently on the counter to be sliced into perfect thin strips. 

The Toppled Chef was having no such luck with her chemistry experiment. The "craggy mass of dough" was more like a loose collection of caraway filaments, and, when finally squished into the shape of a ball and set to rise, did not yield a matzoh-shaped mat of floppy gluten when rolled. This is what happened.

A gerrymandered island of dough took shape, impossible to force back into geometric uniformity. Also, the flour used to keep it on the silicon mat and not clinging stickily to the rolling pin gave it a pallid, unappetizing look.

The results, however, probably tasted just as good as the original.

You may wonder how exhibit A turned into exhibit B. The Toppled Chef wonders this, too. What does it matter, though, when delectable, crunchy snacks are the result? However, has anyone successfully managed to roll dough into a perfect rectangle? The Toppled Chef has never accomplished this and welcomes all suggestions.

Tempeh Hot Wings with Dipping Sauce

It was the Super Bowl. And I would ten times rather cook than watch sports. So I went full gender-stereotype, donned an apron, and created some addictively delicious snacks. These are based on the recipe here, with some tweaks. You don't have to be vegetarian, vegan, or a barnyard fowl to love these wings.

The sauce is more than enough for the wings. I made extra to accommodate cut radishes, celery, carrots, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes. You won't be sorry if you have leftovers.

makes 16 wings

Ingredients

Wings

8-oz package of tempeh: don't go for anything fancy. We're talking full rectangle.
1 cup panko
1/2 cup Frank's RedHot buffalo wing sauce (you MUST use this sauce: don't choose another)
2 Tbsp melted Earth Balance
olive, canola, or grapeseed oil

Dipping Sauce

1 cup vegan mayo
3 Tbsp water
juice from half a lemon
hefty shake or two of garlic powder
hefty shake of dried dill
hefty shake of onion powder
hefty shake of paprika
some chipotle powder couldn't hurt
salt and pepper
shake or three of smoked paprika, or pimentón--this is the secret ingredient that will elevate your dip to greatness. Don't dare to dip without it!

Process

You'll want to make your sauce first.

Dipping Sauce

Mix all the ingredients together. 

Taste, then add more seasonings and/or lemon juice as needed.

Cut up some vegetables.

Wings

Set a pot of water to boil.

Cut the tempeh in half along its side so that you have two flat rectangles. Cut each rectangle into 8 triangles.

Boil the tempeh for 15 minutes. Drain and let cool.

In a bowl, mix the panko, buffalo wing sauce, and melted Earth Balance.

Dredge each tempeh wedge into the mixture. Actually, don't: your tempeh will crumble. Do what I did and awkwardly pat the mixture onto each side of the wedge. I'm too impatient to try to make anything look perfect, but if you were working more slowly, you'd probably be able to completely cover each wedge.

Heat a Tbsp or two of oil in a nonstick frying pan (two pans if you want to pamper each wing with personal space). When the oil is hot, put the wings in the pan. Keep the heat on medium-high to achieve a crispy exterior. Flip the wings after a few minutes: cook until browned on both sides.

You can drain the wings on paper towels, but you probably won't need to.

Serve with the sauce. Hot wing heaven!

Notes

• I used flax tempeh. The flaxseeds added some extra chewiness and volume to the wings.
• I was afraid of cooking with tempeh at first, having the notion that it tastes somehow bland and bitter at the same time. But it's fantastic here. Perhaps it's the boiling.
• These wings will go QUICKLY. If you have a party greater than two, make a double or triple batch.

Verdict

5 stars. You'll miss them once they're gone.

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Breakfast Cookies

These cookies are a morning treat: plump, rich in color, redolent with oats, and filled with exciting nuggets of chocolate, ginger, and walnut. You'll enjoy them, but you won't experience a sugar crash and burn after eating. Think of them as craggy condensed muffins.

makes about two dozen cookies

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened (one cup)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 can pumpkin
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 dash whiskey or rum
2 cups flour
2 cups oats
showering of ground flax
4 tsp baking powder
few hearty shakes of cinnamon
dash of ginger
dash of salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp milk or almond milk
whopping shake of dark chocolate chunks
1/2 cup candied ginger, diced
whopping shake of walnut pieces

Process

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a few baking pans with parchment paper.

Combine butter and sugars. Whisk until they form one silken ball, or mush together with your hands like I do.

Add the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and whiskey or rum. Inhale--yum. Don't forget to give the chef a tipple.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, flax, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt.

Gingerly (har!) mix dry and wet together.

In a separate dish, stir the baking soda into the milk. Add to the batter.

Toss in the chocolate chunks, ginger, and walnut pieces. Mix with your bare hands.

Put the bowl in the refrigerator for half an hour or so to firm up the batter.

Using a cookie scoop, an ice-cream scoop, or your hands, form ping-pong ball-sized rounds of batter and plop them on the cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will look slightly underdone and liquidy in the centers, but they'll slide around the baking sheet intact when prodded with a spatula. My oven is built such that it take only about 6 minutes for the cookies to bake, but I think it's a freak oven.

If you overbake these, they'll still be soft and delectable because of the pumpkin content.

Notes

• These would be great with raisins, cranberries, or dried cherries.
• You don't really need three kinds of sugars. I used all three because I don't like just relying on white sugar, but any kind will do.
• Oat flour instead of oats would give you a smooth texture with just as much fiber.
• Perfect with a cup of black tea. I enjoyed some with Palais des Thés' Margaret Hope.

Verdict

5 stars. Wholesome and decadent: Tipsy Crumpet heaven!