I like my chocolate tarts like I like my men: sophisticated, rich, deep and dark. The next time you need a dessert for a grown-up party, reach for David Leibowitz's super-easy yet drop-dead gorgeous Chocolate Tart . It's not for children. It's rich, but not overpoweringly so. I've made it three times now. It's very easy, and not very fiddly at all. The scariest part is making the caramel, and even that gets easy once you do it a few times. And once you make the easiest French pastry crust ever , you will wonder how you lived your life without it. Chocolate Tart by David Leibowitz 6082311 Ingredients (serves 10) 1 1/4 cup (250g) sugar 6 tablespoons (90ml) coffee 4 ounces (115g) unsalted butter, cubed pinch of sea salt 4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped 2 ounces (55g) unsweetened chocolate, chopped 2 large eggs 1/4 cup (35g) flour 1 tablespoon dark rum or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract One 9- or 10-inch prebaked tart shell Instructions
Every Sunday night I am the lucky guest at a neighborhood dinner party called "Sundays with Mel." On Sundays, it is Melvin's turn to cook dinner, and to not worry so much about healthy (which he and Diane do the other six nights of the week) and he doesn't hold back. One neighbor always brings a big, beautiful salad. And I often bring an appetizer, or a dessert. And I hate to bring the same thing twice, so during the week, when I'm supposed to be working, (one of) my guilty pleasures is to scroll through my feedly feed of food bloggers, looking for things I want to make. This week, Basic Soft Pretzels caught my eye on Pinch of Yum. I've never made pretzels before and just assumed they would be complicated. Au contraire! Could not be simpler. The recipe says makes 6-8, so I just divided the weight of the dough by 8, and then weighed each bit to make sure they were at least kind of the same size. The only really fiddly bit is rolling them. That took lo