This Tuesday marks the much anticipated/dreaded greeting card holiday celebrating St. Valentine. For those of you who don't know, St. Valentine is the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers. How this was converted into candlelit dinners with wine and boxes of chocolates is beyond me, but let's roll with it.
I'll walk you through making Sally's Baking Addiction's quick and easy recipe for Red Wine Chocolate Ganache.
If you haven't planned anything yet for that special someone, you can rest easy knowing in just 15 minutes you'll have a rich, luscious magical liquid you can pour onto anything (or anyone) your heart desires.
And if you're in the singles camp of VDay dire, treat yo' self.
First up: shopping!
If you happen to bake pretty often, you probably have a few of the nicer ingredients listed on hand, but if you're like me and are banging this out in a rush to make a newsletter deadline, ahem, I mean... to surprise your loved one! Then you might make some less-than-lovely substitutions. Don't fret, turns out wine and chocolate are delicious, regardless.
Ingredients (what I used)
3/4 cup heavy cream (check!)
3/4 cup favorite red wine (cheapest red wine)
1 and 1/2 Tablespoons unsweetened natural or dutch-process cocoa powder (ummm.. Hershey's should work)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (ok yeah I have this)
2 four ounce bars semi-sweet chocolate (I found little nubs... should work)
1/4 cup unsalted butter (yay, butter!)
1/8 teaspoon salt (check!)
The very first thing I do EVERY time I bake or cook something is measure out as many ingredients as possible and have them ready to go. French people and foodies call this mise en place, but I call it respecting your weaknesses in the kitchen.
After we're all set up, the first thing we'll do is whisk the heavy cream, wine, cocoa powder, and sugar together in a small pot (or in my case, a small pan) over medium heat. This leads to a fun game called "What is Medium Heat?" My gas stove has numbers 1 - 10. Is 5 medium? Many a burned dish would insist otherwise. Now when something calls for medium heat I usually end up on a 4, but honestly it's anybody's guess. I digress.
After it has tiny bubbles rising and popping on the surface (otherwise known as simmering), let that bad boy sit for 5 minutes. Take this time to light some candles, arrange some flowers, draw some pentagrams on the floor... you know, set the mood. Come back to the mix once in a while to stir it, otherwise it may burn a bit on the bottom of the pot. Whoops!
BOOM. That's it! Pour that scrumptious syrup into a bowl and give it a minute to cool to the consistency you want. You can pour it over ice cream, dip fruit in it, use it to glaze a cake, offer it to the patron you set that candle ritual up for, bribe your players with it... whatever!
Whether you decide to make this recipe or not, everyone here at Dice Envy wishes you a very happy Valentine's Day, especially those of you that are either epileptic, beekeepers, or both.