Kitchen Creativity

Last night I decided to make a dessert for a community meal that my family and I attend regularly. The community meal is the SUPPER tomorrow at the Church of St. Martin in the Fields in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. The homemade meal is provided free and families are welcome. I can say from attending for several years now that this is a fabulous ministry for this church.

The desserts are always provided as well, and they are usually centered around a theme. The theme for this week is Chocolate, Cocoa and Mocha. I wanted to do something outside the ordinary, and as usual the idea came from my wife who suggested chocolate and chili fudge. I was not sure how I was going to accomplish this task, so I watched an episode of Iron Chef America with these two ingredients as the secret ingredient to try to get some inspiration.

After watching the show last night I woke up this morning with some fresh inspiration on methods and ingredients, so I set to work.

Bridge to the chili side

Step 1: Decide on a bridge. Chocolate and Chili are two ends of the taste spectrum - spicy hot and sweet. Often foods with both of these suffer from a "taste gap" between the two. The chocolate (sweet) hits you first, and then there is a delay in sensation, then the spicy hits. What food needs is something to fill the gap. I decided on coffee to fill the gap, but my problem is this: how do I get coffee flavor in the mix without adding too much liquid? I tackled the problem on two fronts.

Grinding the beans by hand

First I decided to infuse some coffee flavor into some evaporated milk. I coarsely ground some coffee beans with my mortar and pestle and put a 12-oz can of evaporated milk in a mason jar with the coarse beans and stuck it in the fridge for several hours. This created a creamy cold-brewed style coffee flavored evaporated milk without adding any additional liquid.

Coffee-infused evaporated milk

Second, I took some coffee and brewed it extra strong (twice as many grounds as I would normally use for the amount of liquid) and then double brewed it. This meaning that once the water had gone through the brewing process, I put the hot coffee back into the coffee maker and ran it through again. Then I took the resulting brew and put it into a small saucepan and let it simmer over a low flame for several hours, evaporating more of the water and concentrating the flavor down.

Reducing the extra-strong coffee

Then I used the evaporated milk and a little bit of the extra strong coffee to create a coffee-flavored sweetened condensed milk. I strained the evaporated milk into a clean saucepan and added 1 1/2 cups of white sugar. I made sure that the sugar was all dissolved and then brought the mixture just to a boil (without letting it boil over) and then turned the heat off under the pan and moved it off of the hot burner. I allowed this to cool completely before starting in on my next step. Fudge.

Mmmmmmm. Chocolate.

Yes - I used the good stuff. Three bars of 60% Dark Cacao (12 ounces total weight) of good quality chocolate. I gave it a rough chop and then put it in a double boiler to melt it. Once it started melting I added 14 oz (or 1 3/4 cup) of the sweetened condensed milk (equal to one can purchased) and stirred gently to combine everything. If you are not familiar with the term "double boiler" it is a metal mixing bowl placed in a small saucepan with a small amount of simmering or boiling water in it. The point of the double boiler is to gently melt the contents but not expose them to direct heat. The heat coming off of the water is more even and gentle than the direct heat in a pan, and is conducive to things like melting and tempering chocolate, emulsifying sauces (like a hollandaise sauce) and other similar culinary pursuits. 

Chopped chocolate in a double boiler

If I have learned one thing, it is that heat for heat's sake is wasted. Hot spicy foods need a surrounding cast to allow them to shine. The coffee is the bridge, but along with the chili powder and ground chipotle chili I also included a little cinnamon and coriander. Personally I prefer the smoky taste of the chipotle pepper to an uncooked (or smoked) pepper like cayenne, but that's just me. They provide a deeper depth of flavor than just making stuff hot. I probably used about 2 1/2 tsp of the chili powder, 1 1/2 tsp of the chipotle powder, 1 tsp of roasted coriander and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. I didn't measure exactly so these are just guesses. I kept playing with it until it tasted right.

Some like it hot...

This mix went into a 8" x 8" pan lined with parchment paper, and then went into the fridge overnight. After it cooled some I took some milk, powdered sugar, a dash of vanilla extract, and some red food coloring together and put it into a bag and snipped off the corner. This gave me a kind of piping bag, and I made a fun design on the top. I used a large rubber band to hold the paper in place while the mixture set up. 

Finished and decorated and ready to set in the fridge

And to top it all off, my 6-year old came into the kitchen as I was celebrating getting the spice level just right and he wanted to know what the commotion was all about. I told him what I was working on, so I told him. He wanted to taste the chocolate, and didn't seem to mind that there would be some spicy associated with that, so I let him have a tiny taste. He loved it - and there was no one more surprised than me at this news. Not to be outdone, my nearly 2-year old also requested a taste, and he not only liked the tiny bit he had but he wanted more! So this dessert has the picky eater stamp of approval! 

If this made you hungry, feel free to come on out to the SUPPER on Wednesday June 8th at 6pm. Make sure to get in line for dessert early, because this fudge is not going to last long. Hope to see you all there!