autumn = chocolate

Autumn in Japan means time to eat chocolate (well, to me anyway). Everywhere you go, you'll see pastries, cakes and other goodies made with chocolate because the weather is cooling down.

Here are some goodies I have been having lately...

Mister Donut's rich donut, I've posted about the rich donut filled with dark chocolate pudding before, but this is a dark chocolate donut filled with dark chocolate pudding and dusted with dark cocoa powder...be sure to wipe your mouth after this one...it will surely leave a black ring...

Homemade bark...I melted 1 cup of 60% Ghiradelli chocolate chips and added a 70% Sarotti bar. For the bits, I added cashews, pecans, almonds, sunflower seeds, cranberries and chocolate covered kakinotane (a spicy type of arare(rice cracker))...mmm!

Bigot's Da Vinci...this is definitely "a work of art". A whipped chocolate mousse dome layered with wafers and some chocolate giving it a little crunch inside. The outside is a sheen coating of chocolate, topped with a carmelized hazelnut and some sliced almonds....rich! a chocoholics dream dessert!

Refrain's milk tea croissant....This croissant had a teeny layer of earl grey chocolate in the center. The outside was coated with a milk glaze that had specks of tea in it, while the inside layer had the most earl grey flavor, the rest was nothing spectacular...meh.

Refrain's couverture...a flaky danish with some chocolate in between the layers. Covered with milk chocolate, this one was definitely chocolatey.

Pafonte's nut danish...a danish covered with milk chocolate and topped with almonds, pistachios and walnuts. No skimping on the nuts nor chocolate...mmm!

Starbuck's latest macaron...marron (chestnut)...The bottom tasted like chocolate with some coffee in it. In the middle was chestnut paste...yum!

If the season is changing where you are, are you enjoying anything special?

making my own sunshine

I had several unfinished drafts, so I put them together for this post.

The weather has been sunny then turning cloudy or just plain cloudy and cold. I was feeling blue with the dreary weather, I guess people from Hawaii do need sun...so I made some sunshine.

Last week, I tried the recipe for Creme de Chocolat on the side of the Spicy Mariebelle cocoa can. It was really easy to make, just measure the cocoa and add the amount of water and follow the rest of the instructions on the side of the can. After the two hours, I made some whipped cream using what little cream that I had in the fridge. The creme de chocolat was quite stiff and reminded me of ganache. It was just enough to soothe my sweet tooth. Plus, the chili in the chocolate gave it a kick--coffee went nicely with this.

Yesterday, I made my own bark with some chocolate and trail mix. I tempered the chocolate then stirred in the trail mix. The chocolate was dark but not a very high percentage, so it was a little sweet. And the trail mix was a little salty, so it matched nicely with the chocolate.

Take a bite and you get powdered sugar all around your mouth.

Put the whole thing in your mouth and a little powdered sugar goes down the wrong pipe. You let out a little cough and powdered sugar goes everywhere.

Flaky, buttery with the crunch from the nuts paired with a glass of ice-cold milk...the ultimate treat.

These are my memories of this cookie. My mom uses toasted macadamia nuts in her version.

Melting moments, Russian tea cookies, Snowballs...whatever you call these cookies, I call them delicious.

I cut up some yomogi (mugwort) bread and added some dried figs to make a warm and fuzzy treat. (We actually had this for breakfast.)

Whew, that was a lot of sunshine...I'm feeling better, how about you?