Sea salt, great big crystals of sea salt, are sprinkled across the luscious sweet dark surface of my chocolate caramels!

Okay, I’ll admit, when my Christmas treat bag arrived from President’s Choice on Friday, I had some doubts.

Caramel, good.
Dark chocolate, fabulous.
Sea salt, very nice in its place.

But all of those put together?

What craziness is this?

Not so crazy, as it turns out. In fact, it’s just about the perfect taste combination for those of us who love both salty and sweet treats. My tastebuds have decided. And the chocolate box is empty.

If you’ve been around Domestik Goddess for a while, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of the inventive PC food products put out by Loblaw’s grocery chain. You may also be aware that the PC Healthy Eating Challenge helped me drop 10 pounds in a month — which has stayed off, by the way — though I make no guarantees about that from this point on, now that they’re tempting me with chocolate! (And we’re not even going to talk about the dark chocolate peppermint candy cane bark. Not. One. Word.).

So anyway, bottom line — I was more than happy to give the salty chocolate concept a fair taste-test… Sold!

So here’s what I’m thinking now:

A quick and fairly light sweet dessert for the holiday season, when you’re doing a lot of heavy eating in the normal round of visiting and entertaining — and you’ve been doing so much baking, the idea of putting together a dessert leaves you weak at the knees — who wants to cook more?

Just throw together a nice fruit plate, with those little tangerines that are in season right now, with green seedless grapes, slices of kiwi, maybe a few chunks of fresh pineapple and melon. Add a few of these salty-sweet chocolates (delightfully upscale for something you can just pick up at the grocery store, I might add!) and there you have it!

Originally uploaded by semarr

I can’t recall exactly how this idea of a virtual Bacon Collection got started, but it was definitely on Twitter, and probably sparked by @surfingtrucker:

“Anyone tried chocolate covered bacon yet?”

But the blame/credit for the collection getting to its current fat status can be laid squarely at the feet of my Lovely and Talented Research Assistant, Diane.

“Saw this on boingboing and thought of you,” she tweeted one day, linking to a bacon bikini top. The fashion statement was in response to Al Can’t Hang‘s Bacon of the Month Competition — honestly, who could make these things up? — and you can enjoy the whole cooked-in-the-sun bacon bikini story at Loona.net.

But let’s back up a bit.

First came that chocolate-covered bacon. (Yeah, okay, guys — here’s a recipe: melted chocolate chips and a pound of bacon are the star ingredients; sprinkles are optional. Good now? Right, moving on!)

Then @LaptopForHire chipped in with chocolate chip pancakes and sausage on a stick. Not bacon, but it’s pork-related and disgusting — so kudos and 10 cholesterol points for playing!

Then @BlogWellDone claimed to have a friend who once made bacon-flavoured vodka. “The horror still makes me shudder,” he said. Um, yeah.

And @HeyDriver said something about a bacon cupcake (“well, it’s the frosting”) — and just check it out! Maple Bacon Cupcakes with Maple Frosting, by Garrett at VanillaGarlic:

After reading a bit about bacon baklava, bacon candy, and bacon ice cream, I knew a bacon cupcake was do-able, but still I was hesitant and approached this with some trepidation. It’s an outside-of-the-box cupcake, a breakfast cupcake, a cupcake for those who eat with no fear.

Which brings us back to the Lovely and Talented Research Assistant, Diane, who attempted to justify these excesses of Americian cuisine with RypTide’s Unified Theory of Bacon — scientific proof that concludes:

Therefore all food products’ deliciousness is increased by the addition of bacon, except for cheese which in turn increases the deliciousness of bacon.

“Want me to knit you a bacon scarf?” Diane asked.

Ooh, that’s tempting…

But maybe later, for Part 2 of this porcine parade, when we’ll exam the role of bacon in Arts and Crafts.

When Scramblejam dropped a comment about partying at a Napoleonic island fortress near Portsmouth, UK, of course I urged him to tell us more — and he’s doing it here today, with the recipe for his decadent Chocolate Traybake given up to tempt your tastebuds and blow your diet. Enjoy! ~ Jen

Getting Fat on the Fort

I am a very lucky man in lots of ways — fabulous girlfriend, great job, divine gift for baking (for a man) — but those times that make me feel most lucky, and most grateful, are when all my favorite things come together. When you combine cold beer, great friends, diabetes-inducing chocolatey goodness and a fort — you end up with a recipe for a cracking evening.

Spitbank Fort is an amazing place to visit, and I am lucky enough to know the owners — I have had some wonderful times out there.

One of my favorite times out there, probably one of my all-time favourite memories, was when a group of us shipped out late after work one Friday. The journey out was a little hairy, with a storm coming in swift and sure, but we made it there with our cargo intact (“cargo” being beer and Chocolate Traybake).

The apartment where we ensconced ourselves is right on top of the fort, and has 360-degree views across the Solent (the sea between England and the Isle of Wight).

The views that we were witness to that night, as the storm broke around us, were truly out of this world — nature at its most glorious and ferocious. It puts you in perspective when you;re half a mile out to sea, actually in a storm not just watching one from afar.

Fortunately we had the triple comforts of cold beer, stout walls and my fantastic chocolate traybake to take the edge off.

I love sharing things with my friends — great experiences, good times and tasty food. That night I was lucky enough to be able to share all of them.

Despite all the lures of theme parks, loud bands and expensive restaurants — some of the best experiences we can have are through staying at home, or being in nature and sharing the best of life with your friends. Chocolate and beer are optional.

For those DGs who want to try this awesome traybake here is the recipe.

Chocolate Traybake

Ingredients:
100g Butter
200g Milk Chocolate
3 Tablespoons of Golden Syrup
225g Finely crushed Digestive biscuits
225g Maltesers (or Mini Creme eggs)

Directions:
Thoroughly melt the chocolate (ideally using a double-boiler) in a bowl
Mix in and melt in the golden syrup and butter — beat till you get a delicious stodgy goo.
Mix in the crushed biscuit and beat it till you get a gooey crumbly mixture
Add the Maltesers, stir together quickly, and spread into a lined square baking tin
Chill it in the fridge until the traybake has set (takes an hour or so), cut it up and serve with smiles :)


Lee Greenwood (aka Scramblejam) is a personal development author, speaker and storyteller currently writing at the Scramblejam Blog. His site aims to help you inject inspiration, motivation and creative new ideas into your personal development adventures.

Blame the UPS delivery guy. I had every intention of eating a nice nutritious lunch today, something green and lo-cal and full of vitamins… but then a sample package of Ferrero chocolates showed up at the door. What’s a girl to do?

And they were the new Rondnoir rich dark chocolates, too. Made in Germany where — I think you’ll agree — they do know a thing or two about rich dark chocolate.

Now, it is a fact that all good chocolate is tasty.

But consider the concept of a tiny hazelnut-sized nugget of semi-sweet dark chocolate, nestled in a creamy dark chocolate enough to make you weak at the knees, and the whole thing wrapped up in a delicate wafer shell — how on earth do they do that? — all covered with nummy chocolate sprinkle-things like some kind of over-achieving truffle. (I did share with He Who Hogs The Power Tools… truly… one. )

Here’s why I’m telling you all this:

If you’re quick, you might be able to snag your own free samples of Ferrero Rondnoir, just by filling in a quick survey over at iVillage (ends 11/30/07).

And should you think of these foil-wrapped nuggets of joy as a brilliant stocking-stuffer… don’t forget that Ferrero is giving a portion of its Rondnoir sales to fight childhood hunger in those far more deserving and needy.

It can be all too easy to get stuck in a “decorating rut” and do the same old comfortable thing each time you redecorate a room… or in any other visually creative activity, for that matter.

The best way I’ve found to jolt yourself out of that comfort zone, to open up to new ideas and new looks? Play with colours!

More specifically, put together an idea board of images in a colour (or group of colours) that you don’t see very much, when you look around your home or into your closet…

Chocolate and lime, for example, is not a colour combination you’ll find in my old house.

But today — inspired by the cover of John Loecke’s new book on Grosgrain Style — I’m going for it, seeking out inspiring images in that trendy chocolate brown and lime green combo, and putting them up on my idea board to see how it feels…

One interesting thing you’ll notice is highlighted by this little creative exercise — “lime green” can be interpreted in a great many different ways.

From an eye-popping bright fluorescent green…

To a pleasant mid-range green with a yellow tint…

To the colour of the striking Gia lime table lamp (with chocolate brown lampshade, above) — now, what do you say? Maybe more of a Benjamin Moore key lime colour there, almost a celadon?

We can all agree on the particular deep rich brown that’s reminiscent of a dark true chocolate — more or less — but what colour do you see in your mind’s eye, when someone says “lime green”?

Technorati Tags: colors, decorating, ideas

Into every woman’s life comes a need for a special sweet treat, something impressive you can whip up in a hurry. Like, when you suddenly learn that your in-laws are coming for tea, and they’ll be here in an hour!

You can make an emergency trip to the bakery (if there’s time, and if it’s open), or you can scrabble around in the kitchen cupboards and use what you have on hand to make an ordinary dessert a bit more fancy, or some combination of the two. Keeping just a couple of key ingredients on hand for domestic emergencies will make it that much easier.

Here are a few of our favourite sweets to put together quickly for company:

• Drizzle a bit of coffee-flavoured liqueur over a dollop of vanilla ice cream, and top it with a few curls of dark chocolate. Or try a splash of creme-de-menthe on lime sherbet, garnished with a citrus twist.
• Fancy up a basic spice cake (got a mix?) or some store-bought shortbread cookies with a simple caramel icing
• Serve up a trendy Dessert Soup in goblets or small pretty bowls. Blend 1 cup of fresh or frozen strawberries with 1 cup of plain yogurt, chill, and mix with 2 cups of ginger ale just before dishing it out.
• Chunks of store-bought pound cake are made special with Venetian Cream, also known as Zabaglione — an astonishingly easy and versatile Italian custard.
• Don’t underestimate the power of a nice cheese plate!
• Skip the dessert and serve a really good perked coffee (whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkles are optional) with homemade chocolate-dipped spoons for stirring.