Adam and I have started to make Christmas cookies. We’re adding two new recipes this year and decided that we would do a test run to make sure they’re worthy to give to friends and neighbors. I decided that I wanted to make salted chocolate caramels from this month’s Gourmet, because really – who doesn’t love chocolate caramels with fine sprinkles of Maldon salt on them?

I got all of my ingredients ready and began following the directions to the letter. We don’t have an actual candy thermometer, so I used a digital thermometer that I clipped to the side of the pan. Once the boiling sugar was a golden amber color, I added the chocolate and heavy cream mixture and began to stir… and stir. This goo was supposed to get to 255 degrees. It was taking a while, but I continued to stir continuously. After 12 minutes or so, I began to smell a faint burning odor. I continued to stir anyway because the mixture wasn’t up to temp yet. After a few more minutes, Adam asked if I should take it off the heat. The burning smell continued and the goo was still separated. It only got to 230 degrees, but we took it off, added in the butter and poured it into the pan. After resting for ten minutes, I sprinkled the caramel with salt. It was then to rest in the pan for 2 hours before cutting into 1 inch pieces. After 20 minutes of trying to clean the pan with burnt chocolate and congealed caramel, I noticed Adam tapping the caramel in the pan with a spoon. It was as hard as a rock. We quickly found a cutting board and I cut a strip off (the knife slipped as I was doing this and I nearly cut myself). Once I had two small pieces, I tried to eat it. Dear lord… the caramel was so hard I could barely get my teeth into it. When I finally did bite into it, a tiny piece shot off and Adam said, “Look it’s caramel – watch out for the shrapnel!”. Behold, my awful not-even-remotely-candy creation! And yes, the entire block of caramel has gone into the trash.

Another person who made the recipe commented on the website that she had the same problem I did. I’m going to try and compare this recipe to others online and see if I can make a more edible batch next time. Here’s hoping it comes out differently.

I worked yesterday and was on transport call last night, so it was a gamble going out to eat. I had my pager hooked to my pants in case I got called back to the hospital, but luckily we had a page free dinner (the vibrate function on my pager is really startling). Twigs was doing 2 seatings last night, at 5:30 and at 8:00 pm. Knowing my inability to get out of work on time, Adam reserved a table for the 8pm seating. A bunch of our friends went to the 5:30 seating; it was a bummer to miss them, but Adam and I had a very relaxed, fun meal on our own. The food came in 4 courses: Antipasti, Primi, Secondi, and Dolci (dessert). It was fabulous start to finish. For the first two courses, you were given a little bit of everything to taste. For the Secondi course, you had to choose one of three things for the main dish, and for dessert each of us could choose one of three things as well.

For the Antipasti, we were given a plate of 4 things with enough for each of us to try everything. We both really enjoyed the cocoa shrimp with mango sauce and the three cheese stuffed artichoke bottoms. They also had fried polenta with wild mushrooms, and prosciutto wrapped slices of cantaloupe. The Primi included a bowl of roasted vegetable minestrone, and a goat cheese salad. The slices of goat cheese were fried, but the frying wasn’t bad for you because it was cancelled out by the bed of salad greens, of course! The slices of pear and the balsamic dressing (?) were a very nice pairing with the goat cheese. The soup was delicious as well.

Adam and I both got the roast duck with orange sauce for the Secondi course. It was beautifully done with roasted root vegetables, but the problem was that I couldn’t eat more than half of it because I had eaten so much in the first 2 courses. Luckily, they wrapped it up for us to take home. It was BYOB, so Adam had picked a 2001 Auslese Riesling which went really nicely with the duck.

Last but not least, was dessert – always my favorite part of the meal. Adam ordered the basil gelato with balsamic marinated strawberries, and I ordered the chocolate mousse with strawberries. The desserts were huge! I thought the flavors of the basil gelato and the balsamic strawberries went really well together, and the basil gelato by itself was stellar! The chocolate mousse was also to die for – very rich and creamy with white and dark chocolate drizzled over it. The strawberries on the side were dipped alternately in white or dark chocolate, which was a nice foil to the mousse. Both desserts had a beautiful presentation, and were delicious. I only finished half my mousse (it was getting to be a struggle to eat it at all because I was feeling pretty full), but got to take the rest home (yay!). Adam’s gelato was not going to travel home well unless we strapped it to the roof or bumper of the car, so we had to leave it behind, which was too bad. This morning, while I was grabbing things from the refridgerator for breakfast, I thought to myself – is it bad to want to eat chocolate mousse for breakfast?

All in all, it was a fantastic meal, and a lovely Valentine’s Day celebration indeed. Our only comment was that it was too much food, which is certainly not a complaint because everything was so delicious, but we felt quite full by the end. The good thing is that I have roast duck and chocolate mousse waiting for me today, and hey – that’s not shabby at all!