THE NIBBLE Gourmet News & Views
Trends, Products & Items Of Note In The World Of Specialty Foods
Read all of our content on TheNibble.com, the online magazine about specialty food.
Archive for Valentine's Day
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February 14, 2008 at 8:34 pm
· Filed under Chocolate, Special Sweets, Daily Food Holidays, Valentine's Day
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Molded chocolates from DeBrand Fine Chocolates. |
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Fittingly, February 14, Valentine’s Day, is also National Creme-Filled Chocolates Day. Cream-Filled chocolates were made possible by Jean Neuhaus, the Belgian chocolatier who invented the first hard chocolate shell in 1912. Using molds, it enabled fillings of any kind and consistency—creme, whipped cream, soft caramel, light ganache, liqueurs, etc. Previously, only solid centers like caramels and nut pastes could be enrobed in chocolate—anything else would have leaked out. In enrobing, the center—marzipan, fruit jelly or nuts in caramel, for example—were hand-dipped into liquid chocolate. The center had to be solid enough to be held and hand-dipped. With Neuhaus’ chocolate molds, chocolates could now be made in pretty shapes, too—flowers, butterflies, fleur-de-lis, crowns, berries and others that are now familiar to us. |
| Thanks, Jean Neuhaus, for vastly expanding our world of chocolate bonbons. Today, bonbons with chocolate shells are known as Belgian style, and dipped chocolates as French style. Some chocolatiers work in only one style, some create a mixture of both. Chocolate shells have a thicker chocolate covering than dipped chocolate, so consumers have their preferences, based on whether they like more chocolate flavor or more flavor of the center. Read more about filled chocolates, a.k.a. bonbons, in our article on chocolate truffles and ganache in the Chocolate Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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February 14, 2008 at 1:58 pm
· Filed under Special Sweets, Desserts & Ice Cream, Recipes, Valentine's Day
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| If you still don’t have a special Valentine’s Day dessert, you can pick up these ingredients and have something special in 5 minutes. Kozy Shack, Chocolate Covered Strawberries all-natural pudding and pie filing is the first in a new line of Limited Edition products from the pudding company. This flavor, available through April 1st, drops large pieces of strawberry into a very satisfying chocolate pudding. The recipe for the Chocolate-Strawberry Cream Pie is on the package, but we’ve included it below. The pudding is delicious right out of the package and as an ingredient in other desserts.
Ingredients
- 1-8″ premade pie shell (regular or chocolate crust)
- 22-ounce container Kozy Shack Chocolate-Covered Strawberries Pudding
- Whipped topping
- Fresh strawberries and shaved chocolate to garnish
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Make this pie in 5 minutes with Kozy Shack’s Chocolate Covered Strawberries pudding and pie filling. |
Preparation
1. Pour pudding into pie shell and spread evenly.
2. Cover entire surface of pie with whipped topping.
3. Place in freezer for an hour.
4. Remove, slice and serve. Visit KozyShack.com for more recipes, and check out the recipe collection in the Desserts & Ice Cream Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. |
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February 14, 2008 at 1:25 pm
· Filed under Jam/Peanut Butter, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, Valentine's Day
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If you don’t have heart-shaped cookie cutters, use stars for your “star” Valentine. |
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Each year, the Peanut Butter & Co. Sandwich Shop in the heart of New York’s Greenwich Village helps lovers celebrate Valentine’s Day with a special Sweetheart’s Snack. It includes heart-shaped PB sandwiches, milk, PB cookies, and other goodies. You can create the treat at home with a large heart-shaped cookie cutter, your favorite PB and J, and a mix tape of romantic tunes. (If you don’t have a heart, you can substitute stars or other shapes). Keep your lover guessing: Use a different flavor of peanut butter on each sandwich. If your Valentine prefer savory to sweet, use a garlic or Southwestern PB with turkey or ham, instead. Read our reviews of our favorite peanut butters: plain, crunch and flavored, and our favorite jellies, jams and preserves. |
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February 13, 2008 at 12:10 pm
· Filed under Fish/Seafood/Caviar, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, Valentine's Day
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Take those heart-shaped cookie cutters and make heart-stopping hors d’oeuvres—or a first course—with toast, sour cream or crème fraîche and red caviar. Buy the best white bread or brioche, toast it, let the toast cool, and then cut the heart shapes. Spread with sour cream/crème fraîche, then top with one or several different red caviars: salmon caviar, tobiko, beet-colored whitefish roe (available from Tsar Nicoulai, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week), lumpfish or capelin roe. Drape a chive across each heart as the “arrow.”- See the full recipe.
- See more red caviar recipes.
- Learn more about caviar in our Caviar Glossary.
- See all of the articles, recipes and product reviews in the Caviar Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine |
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Make red caviar into heart-shaped hors d’oeuvres. Photo courtesy of Red-Caviar.com. |
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February 12, 2008 at 1:46 pm
· Filed under Special Sweets, Candy, Gifts, Tip Of The Day, Valentine's Day
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| Coincidentally, since our prior post was about Michael Recchiuti’s new cassis gelée chocolate, our tip of the day focuses on pâte de fruits—a.k.a. fruit gelee or fruit jelly, although we hesitate to use the latter term because these have nothing to do with Chuckles or those jellied watermelon slices. Pâtes de fruits (pronounced pot duh froo-EE) are gourmet fruit jellies, made of fruit purée, sugar and pectin. Those other fruit jellies are made with “fruit flavoring.” A great pâte de fruit is like eating a wonderful piece of fruit in a different form (as is a great fruit sorbet). For people who like sweets but not chocolate, a perfect Valentine’s Day gift is a box of the best pâtes de fruit we know, from Paris’s Maison du Chocolat (which, conveniently, has two shops in New York City from which they do mail order). And keep a box in your own pantry. They’re so versatile: instead of (or in addition to) cookies and petit fours when friends drop by for tea or coffee; as an accent on a dessert plate; when guests can’t eat your regular dessert due to nut or chocolate allergies. In fact, if you’ve forgotten the dessert, or the soufflé flops, bring out a plate of these beautiful, jewel-colored sweets and no one will be the wiser. |
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Our favorite pâtes de fruit, from La Maison du Chocolat. |
| By the way, the difference between pâtes de fruit, plural, and pâte de fruit, singular, is not how many pieces you get, but how many flavors. If there’s more than one flavor, use the plural, pâtes. This nuance of the French language is courtesy of our French cousin Philippe. Read more about our favorite sweets in the Gourmet Candy Section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. If you pursue the greatest chocolates, visit our Chocolate Section. |
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February 11, 2008 at 2:15 am
· Filed under Top Pick Of The Week, Candy, Gifts, Valentine's Day
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Artisan marshmallows like these, flavored
with real lavender buds, can be as pretty as a box of chocolates. |
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If your Valentine doesn’t like chocolate, how about marshmallows? Gourmet marshmallows come in a variety of flavors that will delight the young and charm the food sophisticate. In addition to Valentine gifts, we like serve them as “petit fours” after dinner with coffee. The medley of available colors and flavors match holiday themes and other occasions. And the flavors are heavenly.- Read our review of America’s best artisan marshmallows.
- Check out Plush Puffs brand of marshmallows.
- People on sugar-free diets will love La Nouba sugar-free marshmallows.
- The fudge-covered marshmallows from Momma Reiner must be experienced.
- The great Belgian chocolatier Pierre Marcolini also makes gourmet marshmallows.
Try some of these beauties and you just might develop a marshmallow habit. |
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February 10, 2008 at 8:49 am
· Filed under Cookies/Cake/Pastry, Recipes, Tip Of The Day, Valentine's Day
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 Make these individual Valentine cakes with a 3-inch heart cookie cutter. |
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Bake your sweetie a devil’s food chocolate cake with our Valentine cake recipe from Michael Recchiuti. It uses a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut mini-heart cakes from a sheet cake. For one large cake, heart-shaped cake pans are available at any kitchen supply store. Write a customized message on the top of your Valentine cake and decorate with seasonal candies (cinnamon red-hots, Hershey’s kisses). If you’d rather buy than bake, check our favorite heart-shaped cookies and cakes in the Gift Finder section of THE NIBBLE online magazine. Try them with some of our favorite, romantic Valentine’s Day wines and liqueurs. |
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