It’s  rich, it’s dense and it’s chocolate—and that makes it the perfect dessert for me.  A Bête Noire is the French version of a flourless chocolate cake. Our friend, Gary, found this recipe for La Bete Noire on the cover (September 2006) of Bon Appetit magazine.  It’s from the Wilde Roast Café in Minneapolis. Here is Gary wit...

Tags: dessert, flourless chocolate cake, la Bête Noire

It’s hard to believe but some folks just don’t like pumpkin pie. For them, you could make a Bittersweet Chocolate-Caramel Tart for your Thanksgiving dessert.  It wasn’t the title alone that made me want to taste this recipe but the close-up photo with three slices of the tart.  The crust is a chocolate cookie crust that is topped with a thick layer of homemade soft and gooey caramel and on top of that is a dark chocolate ganache. It’s garnished with a few sprinkles of Fleur de Sel (coarse sea salt).  The final result is a wonderfully delicious ...

Tags: bittersweet chocolate, caramel, dessert, tart, Thanksgiving

Apparently I am not the only one out there with an extreme love of bacon. A colleague recently forwarded me this article from the Dallas Morning News  that features a recipe for bacon cookies, and another coworker brought a little bag of Bacon Brittle in to work to share. The brittle is from a restaurant called ...

Tags: dessert, bacon

Going to a St. Pat’s party tonight? If you’re looking for a yummy dessert (or “za-wert” as my three-year-old niece likes to call it) to bring, try these Grasshopper Bars. The recipe calls for cookie mix so it’s fairly quick to whip together. You could also save a little t...

Tags: bars, dessert, St. Patrick's Day

My friend Audrey and I have been taking French classes for more years than I care to admit, since we still can't speak French. One class tradition is that we celebrate our birthdays with a sweet treat. This can be challenging because we meet right after work on Wednesday nights. Anything that I bring to class has to sit in the trunk of my car all day or I have to haul it into my office.  ...

Tags: birthday, dessert, French, petits fours

My refrigerator drawer was bursting with apples after a visit to an orchard in Bayfield, Wisconsin. I wanted to use some of the apples in a dessert last weekend and remembered my favorite recipe from French class, La Tarte Normande, which is basically an apple pie with custard.  ...

Tags: apple tart, apples, dessert, Julia Child