The MIT Laboratory for Chocolate Science Recipe Page

Bete Noir

Courtesy of Kelsey Byers

Ingredients:
• 8 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 4 oz semi sweet chocolate (= 2/3 cup chocolate chips)
• 1/2 C water
• 1 1/3 C sugar
• 1/2 lb sweet (unsalted) butter (2 sticks) at room temperature cut in small pieces
• 5 extra large eggs at room temperature

Directions:
1. Pulverize chocolates in food processor ( add a bit at a time, depending on the power of your motor)
2. Cook water and sugar to a rolling boil.
3. Turn on processor, add boiling sugar water, then butter piece by piece, then eggs. Process only until smooth.
4. Preheat over to 350.
5. Butter 9 inch round pan, cut a circle of wax paper to cover bottom of pan, butter wax paper.
6. Pour bete noir into pan.
7. Put your pan inside a larger pan or a jelly roll pan, and fill the larger pan with boiling water. Do not splil the water on the bete noir!
8. Bake 25-30 min. A fork test should indicate a soft center and a relatively solid outside.
9. Cool 10 min.
10. Run spatula/knife around edges, cover top with plastic wrap, flip onto a plate, remove wax paper, flip right way up on another plate, remove plastic wrap. Refrigerate before eating so it solidifies.

Chocolate Waffle Cookies

Courtesy of Kat Allen and inspiration from Betty Crocker

Ingredients:
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine -- melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 teaspoons baking cocoa (*4.5 teaspoons - 6 teaspoons, to taste)
• confectioners' sugar

Directions:
1. In a bowl, combine sugar, butter, eggs and vanilla.
2. Combine flour and cocoa
3. Gradually add to the sugar mixture.
4. Drop tablespoonfuls of batter into each section of preheated waffle iron.
5. Bake 1-2 minutes until cookies are just a little brown.
6. Remove carefully; cool on wire racks.
7. Dust with confectioners sugar.

Chocolate Meringues

A Fanny Farmer recipe, with modifications by Ellen Cappo

Ingredients:
• 2 egg whites
• 8 tblspns white granulated sugar
• 1 tspn vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Beat the eggswhites and vanilla with an electric mixer, gradually adding the sugar, until the whites form stiff, white peaks.
2. Pipe or spoon the mixture onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper (basically a brown paper grocery bag) and bake for 1 hour at 250 degrees.
3. After one hour, turn off the oven and let the meringues sit in the oven for 6 hours.
4. Serve with iceream or plain or whipped cream or fruit or-- you get the idea.

• Gently fold in 4 tbspns cocoa powder to the beaten egg whites.

Gently! This takes a ton of air out of tht mixture, so plan on making a double batch to get about the same (maybe a few more) number of meringues.

Your meringues, because you added cocoa which took air out and made less meringues than you thought, also makes them a bit denser, which is why meringues are traditionally vanilla, so that they're airier. I advise sifting the cocoa powder in a little bit at a time and folding that in, rather than all the cocoa at once.

To put the chocolate shell on, melt semi-sweet chocolate chips and dip the finished meringues into the melted choclate. You can sprinkly the meringues with powdered sugar to make them look nice.

Here are some tips on meringues in general:
• Beat them in a copper bowl. If you don't have one (I didn't) add a little less than 1/2 tspn cream of tartar to the egg whites before you beat them.
• Don't make meringues when it's humid! They get all sticky inside. (I like them still, but they're not "professional.") This is why Fanny Farmer has you leave the meringues in the oven for so long, to thouraly dry them out.