Cocoa

Use the highest-quality chocolate you can find.

This dessert was inspired by the Frozen Hot Chocolate at Serendipity, a restaurant in New York City.

A wonderfully moist cake (partly because of baby-food prunes), it’s perfect all on its own—no icing required!

Fear of falling? Not with these frosty, airy soufflés.

When I was growing up, my mom made this magical chocolate cake that doesn’t use eggs and is mixed in the pan it’s baked in. It’s the most moist chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted, and because no refrigerated ingredients are used, it’s perfect for camping. Crazy cake dates back to the Depression, but I don’t know where my mother found this recipe; it’s always been in her handwriting.

Riso nero—black rice—is the dramatic name for a nursery dish offered to children as a light supper or as a sweet after a bit of broth or soup. It is most often just made with rice poached in milk that has been scented with cinnamon and mixed with a few shards of chocolate, the latter giving the dish its name as it melts and turns the rice a deep, dark color. Surely there are lovely similarities between it and pasta in nero della consolazione (page 118). Here I offer its comfort in a more adult version. The same prescriptions apply, though, as this is best presented after a light, reviving soup or, better, after no soup at all, so one can justify slipping one’s fork into the spiced, chocolate depths of a second or third piece of the sweet little pie.

We had been in Puglia and its environs nearly a month. Sapped from our journeys, our palates debauched into slumber from the opiate of too many chile peppers, our wits palled from nightly Circean cups, we needed redemption from the table. We asked each other what would soothe. Surely we needed to stop driving. Fernando wanted pastina in brodo—tiny pasta cooked in broth. I wanted a small custard pie, warm, soft. I wanted bread and butter. We both wanted to be in a place with not one more three-thousand-year-old olive tree. We wanted sympathy more than we wanted supper. And there we were, lost in Otranto. When finally we asked the same giornalaio, newspaper seller, for directions to our intended destination of Melpignano for the third time and got the third different answer, we thought it a good thing to surrender our search for the unnamed, unsigned place there that had been pressed upon us by our friends in Lecce and simply brake at the next and nearest little place with even the thinnest promise about it. Finding it, we tumbled out of the car, shuffled up the drive and asked if there might be a room for us. The cheery little man took our things, showed us up the stairs, started up the heater for the bathwater and began the reverent story of his wife’s genius in the kitchen. I saw Fernando’s face fading a bit toward citrine. Swooning, I tried so to smile at the even cheerier little man through my narrowing vision. He began his pastoral roundelay with her pigeons braised in red wine and juniper, on to her lamb roasted with potatoes and wild mushrooms, before coming to the rhapsody of her way with goats’ hearts poached in white wine and lemon. Fernando was nearly able to deflect him with an inquiry about the era of his handsome stone house before he began the lip-smacking tale of the pigs’ livers roasted on branches of bay. We closed the door. We took a bath. As we were dressing, the cheery little man knocked gently. They were waiting for us—he, his wife the cook, his son the university student, his brother the hunter, his friend the winemaker. They’d thought, since there were no other guests, we might dine together, make a real celebration of the evening. They had laid a beautiful fire and lit candles upon a narrow, wooden, unclothed table set for seven. They were so sweet, so excited by our presence, for their own clever spontaneity, for the prospect of a long winter’s evening to be passed at table. Fernando rallied and began nibbling at a creamy heft of new pecorino sitting on a crisp white cloth next to our aperitivi. I followed the lady into her kitchen, unraveling our adventures in a nervous sort of monologue. Rather than sympathy, she offered her envy. “Beati voi, tutti questi giorni in giro, sempre a ristoranti.” “Blessed are you, all these days running about, always in restaurants.” I thought to be more direct. “You know,” I said, averting my eyes from the legs of lamb she was basting, “what I would like most this evening is to eat something simple and comforting. I feel like a tired child.” She looked at me for the first time, really looked at me, heard me. She wrapped her great, fleshy arms about me, crushing me to her moist, rosemary-perfumed bosom. She had understood. She marched me back to the table with instructions to sit quietly, sipping at the winemaker’s best red and to wait. After a half an hour’s sashaying to and from the kitchen with the first of the feast’s plates, the lady, her broad olive cheeks blushing up to the corners of her dark eyes, carried in a small, white porcelain bowl with its own cover and set it down before me. I lifted the lid, unloosing the scents of cinnamon and butter and perhaps of chocolate, which curled up through a tangle of pale yellow noodles swathed in a curiously dark sort of sauce. “Ecco la pasta in nero,” she exclaimed. “There it is, pasta in b...

Churros and chocolate have a long history at Lucques, and an even longer one in Spain, where they dominate the dessert scene in late-night cafés. The hot chocolate is made thick and syrupy sweet, meant for dipping the piping-hot crullers. In preparation for one Spanish-themed Sunday supper, my former pastry chef Kimberly Sklar experimented with traditional churro recipes from Spanish cookbooks. Though the flavors were good, the Spanish versions seemed a little too heavy and not tender enough for our liking. Then Kim tried a batch of pâte à choux, the traditional French dough used to make such pastries as cream puffs and éclairs. It was the perfect solution. Next we set out to conquer the chocolate. Again, in my opinion, the traditional Spanish hot chocolate was better in theory than in reality. Spaniards love sugar, and their version is just too sweet for my taste. Still thick and rich in the vein of the traditional chocolate, ours is super-chocolaty but not as cloyingly sweet. I like to add a generous pinch of salt, to play up the bittersweet notes of the chocolate. This is a festive, interactive dessert that requires some last-minute attention when it’s time to fry the churros. Make the batter and hot chocolate ahead, and just before you serve dessert, invite your friends into the kitchen to help you fry. It’s fun to watch the dough transform into deep golden brown snakes and then to roll them in the glittery cinnamon-sugar.

The vanilla bean is one of the wonders of the culinary world. Cured until nearly shriveled, black as a two-week-old banana, the slender pods have a sweetness that belies their appearance. The rich fragrance of true vanilla is so intense that, after my first encounter with a vanilla pot de crème in France, it seemed to permeate even my dreams. I have adapted this pot de crème recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks, Simply French, by Patricia Wells and Joel Robuchon. The French-inspired chocolate sablés were developed by my pastry chef Roxana Jullapat. Encourage your guests to use them as edible spoons to scoop up the rich, silky custard.

Wholesome and seductive all at once, this dark bread can be made in a flash. It’s wonderful with tea as a dessert or as a breakfast bread.

This recipe is one of those that has been passed around from person to person, its origin unknown. I’ve tinkered with it, replacing margarine with oil and adding whole wheat pastry flour. I also concocted the simple frosting, which makes this moist cake totally delectable. Our extended family’s favorite cake for birthdays and other special occasions, this demands just minutes of hands-on time.

For as long as I can remember, tiramisù has been my favorite non-pie dessert. This pie has all the rich elegance and sophistication of the beloved Italian treat, plus a flaky pastry piecrust to add yet another element to this layered dessert.

This recipe is extremely versatile. We love to use it for cupcakes, but it makes an equally impressive layer or sheet cake; either is a perfect choice for kids’ birthday parties, swirled with Swiss Meringue Buttercream. For a more grown-up flavor, try icing the cupcakes with Mocha Buttercream (page 213).