Easy mille-feuille with strawberries and cream

For a girl who grew up with no appreciation for berries whatsoever, I'm amazed by the amount of strawberries I'm consuming and absolutely loving these days.  Strawberries are at their seasonal peak between mid-May and mid-June in New Jersey and I've been taking advantage of this.  How many pounds do you think you've eaten in the last few weeks?  I can't count...

The fresh strawberries are so good, they quickly vanish as I simply eat them.  As much inspiration as I've encountered, despite all the beautiful berry-filled desserts I've admired, I can't seem to muster the motivation to make a fruit tart or even whip up a cake with them.  I'm just gorging on them straight-up while my husband likes a little chocolate or Nutella with it.  

I could only manage to assemble this simple strawberry dessert, and all it takes is assembly.  It's a loose interpretation of a mille-feuille or Napoleon dessert.  I adapted the "recipe" from Gavottes, the original maker of crispy crepe dentelle - amazing wafer cookies that I simply love to eat as is or break up to mimic feuilletine in chocolate crunch bars.  Very sadly, my local World Market stores seem to have stopped carrying Gavottes biscuits so I settled for similar ones available at Whole Foods.  They are good but if you can get the Gavottes brand of crepe wafers, I highly recommend it because they are even better.

The last time I made mille-feuille or Napoleon was back in May 2011 when I followed a somewhat more traditional route using puff pastry to form the crispy layers.  This easy dessert takes that similar idea but instead of puff pastry, the crispy, buttery crepe wafers act as the flaky layers.  To make it, simply lay down a few of these wafers (I used ones coated in dark chocolate but you can find plain or ones coated in milk chocolate), top with some lightly sweetened fresh whipped cream, strawberries, and repeat.  It takes very little time to put together.

I'll be honest with you; this is a messy thing to eat!  Your best bet is to take a fork/spoon and whack it to break the wafers down. It's going to disintegrate and look a mess on your plate but just scoop it up and you're rewarded with mouthfuls of strawberries and cream together with crispy caramelized shards of wafers coated with chocolate. 

For the most part, I'm going to continue just snacking on these seasonal fresh strawberries while they're available but it was fun to do a little something different with my hoard!

Chocolate-hazelnut cups (for my Valentine)

Maybe for special occasions like Valentine's Day, I feel the urge (or I can justify) the effort to try and make my own confections.  I took on this little project because I wanted to make some homemade Valentine treats for my husband.  I mean, why simply buy delicious chocolates from the store when you can really show your love by toiling away on a snow day, brushing miniature candy cups with chocolate and filling it with your own chocolate-hazelnut concoction?

Well...these little chocolate-hazelnut cups didn't exactly turn out the way I envisioned - visually, anyway.  The goal was a cross between a Ferrero Rocher and Baci Perugina - those heavenly bites of chocolate-hazelnut goodness that my husband and I are partial to.  I think these really hit the mark on taste.  They're delicious!  Visually, however...my chocolate-hazelnut cups are certainly wanting but I hope the taste makes up for it.

If you love the combination of chocolate and hazelnut - what the Italians beautifully call, gianduja - and those particular chocolates I mentioned, these are for you and your sweetheart.

The cups are just bittersweet chocolate.  The filling I made is a mixture of semisweet chocolate and Nutella, mixed with chopped toasted hazelnuts.  When I think of chocolate-hazelnut desserts, I think of feuilletine - those super crispy yet light-as-air, thin pastry flakes that I could eat all day.  So for that extra special texture (and taste), I added bits of crushed crepe dentelle, or crepe cookies, into the filling.  It's a shortcut way of getting feuilletine without actually buying it or making it yourself.

Bittersweet chocolate cups are filled with a mixture of chocolate-nutella spread, coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts and crispy crepe dentelles (crispy, light pastry flakes)

These chocolate-hazelnut cups were mainly inspired by a recipe in a Cupcake book that I picked up a long time ago.  I also leaned on a recipe I found from epicurious.  I've had these little cups in the back of my mind for a special occasion for a long time; I think Valentine's Day certainly qualifies.  And like some ideas that land in your head and sticks there, and just won't go away, I'm glad I finally made this idea into reality so I can stop thinking about it.

I made several changes to the recipes, scaling it down but mainly making the process easier so that the filling is one you can easily mix together and fill into the dark chocolate cups.  After spending the time to "paint" chocolate into little baking cups, patience and concentration levels start to run low and I think the rest of the steps need to be quick and easy.  I did have visions of a neatly piped filling in the center of each one of these.  That didn't happen but I promise these taste wonderful.

I'm glad Valentine's Day is on a Friday this year.  I'm ready for a simple, relaxing at-home dinner with my hubby after bedtime for the little guy.  And I've stashed away a couple of these chocolate-hazelnut cups for us.  I just may have a few other, store-bought - "real" - chocolates for my Valentine as well.  

Have a sweet Valentine's Day!