Chocolate

Homey, comforting, chocolatey goodness: that’s Mama Braun’s Christmas fudge, as captured by her daughter and Epicurious member Meridith Braun Schmalz of Ontario, Canada. As one of seven children raised on a farm in Idaho, Schmalz grew up with this fudge recipe and considers it the best there is—maybe it’s the mellow butterscotch, maybe it’s the gooey marshmallow, or maybe it’s just the dense but crumbly fudge consistency. Any way you cut it, it’s a fabulous baked gift.

A much-loved brainchild of the legendary cookbook author Dorie Greenspan, this recipe features a dense, peanut-studded cake topped with a creamy layer of peanut butter, which is in turn topped with a thick, rich ganache. The recipe yields 30 pieces, but you can cut the brownies into even smaller squares for larger parties.

Hazelnut and chocolate have long been dessert partners, and it’s easy to see why. They bring out the best in each other, as in this mousse, from Epicurious member Derrinl. If you don’t have Frangelico, you can substitute Amaretto.

The most reviewed recipe on Epicurious, this is classic birthday cake material. Using premium chocolate gives this cake subtle sweetness and a refined taste. But, if you’re on a budget, a more affordable option still gets the job done.

The moist and toothsome coconut macaroon becomes a delicious (and infinitely more portable) bar cookie when built upon a dense shortbread base. The result is a surefire bake-sale winner, a kid-pleasing picnic finale, and an inviting edible gift for holidays or birthdays.

I am a big fan of rugelach made with cream cheese, so I used soy cream cheese to make these. There are so many different fillings for rugelach; my favorite is apricot jam or chocolate. It is fun to make different flavors so that when you place them on a platter, you see rows of different color swirls. In my baking classes, I give the students a buffet of choices so they can create their own combinations. Here I've given you three fillings to choose from. If you prefer to make one type, simply double one of the filling recipes (each filling amount is enough for half the dough). Or you can divide the dough into four and make four types—any flavor of jam, coconut, raisins, currants, or any kind of chopped nuts make great fillings.

Sometime during the first year of my marriage, I visited my mother-in-law in her kitchen. There she was, listening to the radio, whistling (she is a formidable whistler) and rolling cream cheese dough around raisins and nuts to form the crescent-shaped cookies known as rugelach. I was spellbound—I'd had no idea that rugelach could be made at home. As far as I knew, rugelach, like ketchup or ships-in-bottles, were only made in laboratories. But here was my mother-in-law shaping the cookies with ease. And a short time later, there I was, eating them with ease. These cookies weren't like the rugelach my mother bought every week at the local German bakery—they were much better. I was so excited I asked for the recipe.
My mother-in-law wrote it out in her precise hand on a 3-x-5 index card. And, as she wrote, she told me that this recipe was not exactly the same as the one her mother used, that it had come from Mrs. Strauss, her next-door neighbor, and that she was sure I'd have no problem making the cookies as long as I didn't overmix the dough.
She was right. I was a newcomer to the world of baking, but I had no problem with the dough, the only potentially tricky part of the process.
Since then, I've made rugelach countless times, but nowadays my dough is even more foolproof because I make it in a food processor. I've also made a few other changes to the recipe. While my mother-in-law's rugelach were filled with cinnamon-sugared nuts, mine also include a slick of jam, some currants and a handful of chopped chocolate. This is a very old recipe, and I have no doubt that everyone who has made it has added or subtracted a little bit to make it her own—and my mom-in-law, Mrs. Strauss, and I expect you to do the same.

We're always experimenting with new flavor combinations, so once you get the basics down, have fun mixing and matching.

This tart is a tradition-forming mix of caramel, crunchy pecans, and melted chocolate. Be sure to let it rest for 30 minutes before serving.

Pooh, my mother-in-law, makes the best easy family-style chocolate cake, which we persuade her to make whenever there's a birthday! Her secret is dissolving the cocoa in boiling water before adding it. If you prefer, you can divide this among two round cake pans and fill.

This is the water-based ganache that we use as the foundation for our hot chocolates and mochas . After extensive tests by our training department, we found that using water (rather than milk or cream) to melt the chocolate yielded the most rich and delicious drinks. We're lucky to have neighbors on both coasts who make chocolate for us; in San Francisco, we use a drinking chocolate made by TCHO, and in New York, we use a single origin dark chocolate made by the Mast Brothers. The type of chocolate you use will affect the strength of the ganache, so you may need to adjust the amount to taste.

Sure, the mocha is often a gateway to other coffee drinks—it just takes some customers longer to move along than others. One of our very first regulars at the Hayes Valley kiosk became so addicted to mochas that, at the apex of his habit, he consumed five mochas in one day, earning the nickname Five Mocha David. Eventually, David moved on to drinking straight black coffee, but he hasn't been able to shake his chocolately moniker. Since the ganache is extra-thick and is used warm, we have to respectfully deny requests for iced mochas; we've found the chocolate will seize up into unsightly globs in a cold and icy environment.
Note: omit the espresso and voilà, you've got a hot chocolate.

During the late nineteenth century, as part of their Protestant beliefs, the Templers arrived in Jerusalem from Europe and established the German colony, a picturesque little neighborhood southwest of the Old City that to this day feels unusually central European. This is the "civilized" part of town, where you go for a coffee and a slice of Sacher torte if you wish to escape the harsh Levantine reality. Germanic influences on the city's food are evident in Christian contexts—the famous Austrian hospice at the heart of the Old City serves superb strudels and proper schnitzels—but Czech, Austrian, Hungarian, and German Jews arriving in the city from the 1930s have also managed to stamp their mark, opening cafés and bakeries serving many Austro-Hungarian classics. Duvshanyot, round iced cookies, made with honey and spices, typically for Rosh Hashanah, are possibly a result of this heritage; they are similar to Pfeffernüsse. These are very loosely inspired by duvshanyot, or Pfeffernüsse. They are actually more closely related to an Italian spice cookie and are hugely popular on the sweet counter at Ottolenghi over Easter and Christmas. The recipe was adapted from the excellent The International Cookie Cookbook by Nancy Baggett.

This cake is perfect for beginners—it's moist, forgiving, and easy. Jif creamy peanut butter is our favorite for the decadent frosting.

Forget the boxed version you grew up with. This yellow cake gets a rich dark-chocolate frosting with a touch of tang thanks to sour cream. For the best presentation, it's important to cut the cake layers evenly.

This big, fun cake features layers of sponge cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream blanketed with pale-green whipped cream. It's perfect for a kid's birthday party. We like Baskin-Robbins Mint Chip for its thin chocolate shavings. Make sure to clear space in your freezer.

This is a Baker & Spice original and it's our most popular cake—loved by men and women alike! The buttercream frosting is tinted pink by a raspberry puree (not food coloring)—be sure to save your extra whites from baking the cake to make the frosting. The cake itself is a rich, moist chocolate cake. If you want a go-to recipe for all your chocolate cake cravings, this is the one.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other dessert classics, check out the videos.

This recipe is part of the Epicurious Online Cooking School, in partnership with the Culinary Institute of America. To watch it being made, and to learn how to make other dessert classics, check out the videos.