Chocolate

These white chocolate sheets are a wonderful example of the synergy between agar and locust bean gum. They are delicate and flexible, with a rich flavor. They can be draped across fruits, cheeses, or desserts. If you prefer, you can also let the chocolate set in one piece and slice it for serving as custard, or puree it for something softer and more pudding like. The sheets are best served cold, although they will hold their shape at room temperature.

Adding homemade nonfat Greek yogurt is one of our favorite ways to add the richness of dairy to recipes without making them heavy. It has a wonderful creamy texture and tang that balance the sweetness of white chocolate. It’s important to use a good-quality white chocolate because it makes a real difference in the flavor of the ice cream. We like Valrhona, although several premium brands are available in supermarkets and gourmet stores. You can deepen the flavor by caramelizing the chopped white chocolate in a 250°F (120°C) oven for 45 to 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Depending on the season, this frozen yogurt is wonderful with fresh berries or macerated citrus slices.

This is the classic pudding of our childhood. Chocolate pudding is the ultimate comfort food, and this version is decadent without being overpowering. Use your favorite good-quality chocolate here because it will make your pudding that much better. A dollop of unsweetened whipped cream or lightly sweetened heavy cream poured over the top takes this to yet another level, although Aki has been known to eat it straight out of the container with a spoon. Jell-O pudding has nothing on us.

These light cookies have the texture of brownie edges, crisp with a touch of chew and a surprisingly big chocolate flavor. They bake for five hours at 200°F (95°C) in order to achieve this texture. On the bright side, you can set a timer and forget about the cookies until they are done—although it’s hard to ignore them as the scent of chocolate slowly fills your home. Fortunately, they can be eaten as soon as you pull them from the oven.

What would a French or any festive meal be without a little chocolate? Françoise Tenenbaum, a deputy mayor of Dijon, shared her entire recipe book with me. When she has time in her busy schedule, she rolls these chocolate truffles at home to serve for parties. They are also perfect for Passover.

To learn how to make the French macaroons that I tasted at many bakeries and homes in Paris, I asked Sherry Yard, executive pastry chef at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, for guidance. Spending a day with Sherry and her staff, I had the opportunity to witness how American pastry chefs are learning from the macaroon-crazy French. The first of these dainty macaroon sandwiches filled with chocolate ganache was developed by the pastry chef Pierre Desfontaines Ladurée at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today almost every pastry shop in France makes them in a dizzying array of flavors and colors with jam, chocolate, and buttercream fillings. Some pastry shops make certified kosher versions. Here is a master recipe for the chocolate macaroon, with suggestions for making them vanilla- or raspberry-flavored. I have given a recipe for chocolate-mocha filling as well. You can also fill them with good-quality raspberry jam or almond paste. After you have made a few macaroons, use your own imagination to create others. And do serve them for Passover.

During World War II , Claudine Moos’s family hid in Lyon, which was the center of the Free Zone and considered to be a slightly safer city for the Jews. One day, her father, a socialist and Resistance fighter, was distributing leaflets against the Germans at the railroad station. The French police, helped by the German SS officer Klaus Barbie, caught him and others, and they were dispatched on the last train to Auschwitz. As they were escorted away, they sang the “Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, at the top of their lungs. Claudine, who was five years old at the time, has memories of their singing voices fading off into the distance. She was raised by her mother, who had also lost her father at a young age. Despite a difficult life, having lost her father and her husband, Claudine’s mother’s last words were “Life is good.” Even in a good life, food could be a challenge. “During and after the war, food was rationed,” Claudine told me in her kitchen in Annecy. “We got ration cards for the milk and eggs. Of course there was no chocolate. I remember my mother coming home with the first tablet of chocolate she could get after the war. How excited we all were!” Regardless of the shortages during the war, chestnuts still fell from trees throughout France in autumn. This rich uncooked cake would have been made from the chestnuts that were collected on the street. The recipe comes from a handwritten cookbook that Claudine’s grandmother gave her when she got married in 1960. The original recipes were measured in interesting ways, calling for a “glass of mustard” and a “nut of butter.” Peeling chestnuts used to be a laborious task. Her grandmother would collect or buy them whole, score them a quarter of the way down, boil them to loosen the skin, and then peel them. For Claudine, it is so much easier these days to make this cake, because she can buy frozen or jarred chestnuts, already peeled. Best made a day in advance, this rich cake should be served in small portions, topped with dollops of whipped cream.

Ever since Ana Bensadon moved to Madrid from her native Tangier in the 1950s, she has been writing to Sephardic Jews all over the world asking for recipes. “My idea is to leave a legacy for the young women,” she told me, while visiting her daughter in Florida. “It is very important to maintain fidelity to our traditions and to transmit them to the new generation.” Many recipes, like fijuelas (see page 360) and flan, are commonly known, but others, like this chocolate mousse using olive oil instead of cream, is a fascinating adaptation of a local French delicacy to comply with the laws of kashrut.

This recipe for chocolate-almond cake is four hundred years old, and was passed down orally in one Bayonne family from mother to daughter in Spanish, Ladino, and then French. The accent of rum was probably introduced in the seventeenth century. My guess is that at first the eggs would have been whole, and later separated, the whites whipped to give it more height, probably in the eighteenth century. This cake can be made with matzo cake meal for Passover.

Recently, a number of stylish kosher restaurants have opened in Paris. One is the superchic Osmose, which calls itself a fusion and health-food restaurant. When I dined there, it was packed with well-dressed young French couples who could clearly afford the steep prices. The food, prepared by French-born Jewish Tunisian chef Yoni Saada, is delicious and sophisticated. Our meal began with a long, narrow plate filled with cumin-roasted almonds, fava beans, and tiny olives, and a tasty carrot-and-mango soup served in a champagne glass. And for dessert: an extravagant plate with that now classic molten chocolate cake and little marshmallow lollipops. Molten chocolate cake began as a simple French birthday cake that everyone’s grandmother made until the Alsatian chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten accidentally undercooked one. To his surprise, the guests loved it. An instant classic was born, now found just about everywhere, even at this chic kosher restaurant in Paris. The beauty of this cake is that the batter can be made ahead, poured into a cake pan or muffin tins, refrigerated, and baked 10 minutes before serving.

This indispensable chocolate cake is perfect for every birthday.

These brownies turn out moist and fudgy. They bake in the convection oven at 25 degrees lower and for 10 minutes less baking time.

You can use these directions to adapt your favorite biscotti recipe to bake in the convection oven. Both temperature and baking time are reduced, plus you can bake on multiple racks with even results.

Using a convection oven lets you bake multiple sheets of cookies at one time. Just be sure to use dark, rimless, noninsulated cookie sheets.

Chewy with nuts, coconut, dried fruit, and chocolate chips. Using my quick one-bowl method, you can stir up the cookie dough in the same time it takes for the oven to preheat.

These are my favorite “mass-production” cookies. So, when I have little time to bake, these are the cookies I choose.

To synchronize a dessert soufflé with the rest of the meal, you can get the whole thing ready for baking an hour ahead, and pop it into the oven about 25 minutes before you plan to serve dessert.

This popular dessert can be made a day ahead and baked at the last minute. The chile powder adds a mild heat and enhances the chocolate flavor.

This recalls for me the chocolate-and-bread sandwiches that sometimes were my lunch, and always a special treat. And it is another inventive way surplus is used in Umbrian cuisine, with leftover country bread serving as the foundation of an elegant layered dessert. Though it is soaked with chocolate and espresso sauce and buried in whipped cream, the bread doesn’t disintegrate, and provides a pleasing textural contrast in every heavenly spoonful.

In the culinary world today, dishes with whole grains are “in,” but they have always been part of Italian regional cuisine, even as desserts. Put together from whatever grains and nuts were in the house, and minimally sweetened with available fruit, traditional desserts like this wheat-berry ambrosia are among my favorites. In that spirit, this recipe can be a guideline for your own creativity. This is a versatile and practical dessert, too. Prepare the mixture of wheat berries, dried fruit, and chocolate in advance, and refrigerate it. Let it return to room temperature before serving (though it is nice slightly chilled in summer). It’s also great for a buffet with whipped cream or scoops of vanilla or chocolate ice cream on top.