Veruca’s Salted Dark Chocolate Caramels

Posted December 20, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

I LOVE chocolate caramels. I don’t mean caramels with chocolate on top (though those are good too). I’m talking about caramels that have had chocolate mixed into caramel itself as it heats, so you wind up with this dark brown, lusciously chocolaty confection. It’s a weakness of mine, so when I started brainstorming ideas for a Veruca Salt recipe for my Charlie and the Chocolate Factory menu, salted chocolate caramels stuck firmly in my brain.

However, my experience with making chewy caramels is limited…and by “limited,” I mean I’ve never actually done it. I accidentally made soft caramel while making honeycomb candy for the first time several years ago, but I don’t think even that counts, since I’ve never been able to replicate the result.

Rather than try to invent something on the fly, I found a recipe from Taste of Home that looked both simple and reliable. The only change I made was adding a little kosher salt to the top, and OH YOU GUYS IT WAS AMAZING. So chewy, rich, dark, and not-too-sweet. The salt turned out to be the perfect addition, adding just the right level of complexity.

I will DEFINITELY make these again. Soon. Maybe tomorrow. Do I have baking chocolate…I do! I could make these now!

Now is good.

NOTE: This recipe needs to set for at least 5 hours.

Willy Wonka’s Hot Chocolate with Lavender Whipped Cream

Posted December 6, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 5 Comments

First, let’s just be real: hot chocolate is what fresh whipped cream was invented for. It’s the perfect fresh, bright, cool companion to a rich and steamy chocolate drink. So when I decided I was going to do an all-dessert, all-chocolate menu for my new book of the month—Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—I knew I wanted my tribute to Willy Wonka’s hot chocolate river to feature fresh whipped cream.

Not just ANY whipped cream, though. This is Wonka we’re talking about. It needed some pizzazz, something creative and fun to set it apart from all the other whipped creams. Then I remembered Storeroom #54, which the children and their guardians pass during their tour of Wonka’s factory. It is labeled “ALL THE CREAMS” and lists several strange creams, including violet cream. I didn’t have any violet extract, but I DID have lavender buds, which got my brain ticking. I learned while making lavender lemon eclairs that lavender steeps beautifully in cream, so I used that technique to created a lavender whipped cream that had a distinctive but not overpowering flavor. After all, I wanted the hot chocolate to be the star of the show. On a whim, I added a little purple food coloring for whimsy…since you can never have too much whimsy in a Wonka recipe. 😉

The finished cream went on top of a homemade hot chocolate inspired by two of my favorites: the Witch’s Hot Chocolate from my Narnia menu and the Hundred Acre Hot Chocolate from my cookbook. I loved the way the rich, intense chocolate flavor paired with the floral whipped cream. So much so, in fact, that I started wondering what other flavors would make awesome infused creams (Earl Grey! Cinnamon! Mint!). I may just have to start experimenting!

Tag: Willy Wonka