Big Sur Bakery Cookbook - Michelle Wojtowicz [29]
FOR THE CHOCOLATE SAUCE:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM:
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon sugar
To make the chocolate sauce, put the chocolate pieces in a heatproof bowl (or a double boiler), set it over a pot of barely simmering water (making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water), and melt the chocolate. Remove the bowl from the heat when all the chocolate pieces have melted, and set it aside. Combine the cocoa, sugar, honey, and ½ cup water in a small saucepan, and bring the mixture to a boil while stirring constantly. Add this cocoa mixture to the melted chocolate, stirring until combined. Add the butter and stir until it has melted. Keep the sauce in a warm place until ready to serve.
To serve, chill four sundae dishes in the freezer. Whip the cream with the sugar in a bowl until it forms soft peaks. (You want the cream to still be a little bit runny.) Build the sundaes by layering chocolate cookies between scoops of peppermint ice cream. Drizzle each sundae with chocolate sauce and top with whipped cream. Serve with more cookies on the side.
Photographs by Sara Remington
June
Pork and Beer Dinner
TLC Ranch
Profile: Justin, Butcher
Grilled Pork Confit with Chuck’s Barbecue Sauce
Pork Belly Pizza with Barbecue Sauce and Sweet Corn
Baked Beans
Blueberry Pie
Hazelnut Flan with Roasted Cherries
Photographs by Sara Remington
Pork and Beer Dinner
If you’re friends with a pig farmer and a butcher and a couple of beer connoisseurs, at some point you’ve got to have a party. Father’s Day happened to be the first Sunday of the season that we were open in the evening, and we decided that there’d be no better way to kick off summer than by hosting a Pork and Beer Dinner.
In Big Sur, it seems that everyone knows someone who knows someone who does something interesting with food, like raise pork on pasture, or make blood sausage by hand. In our case, that someone is Justin Severino, a former pizza cook at the Bakery who moved up to Santa Cruz and opened a butcher’s shop called Severino’s Community Butcher. Justin introduced us to Jim Dunlop, who raises pigs out in the pastures of TLC Ranch, his farm in Prunedale, and supplies Justin with fresh pork for his store. (These days, Jim also provides the Bakery’s eggs.)
Two of our other friends, Bill and Danielle, run a pub down the road. They’re serious beer people and have always wanted to do an event at the restaurant where they designed beer pairings to go with our food. So we thought, why not combine two of the greatest things in life—pork and beer—and put together an amazing dinner where every dish has something in it from the pig?
Another chef friend (who’s also the singer in Phil’s band), Todd Williamson, jumped on board too. Together with Todd and Justin, we came up with a pork-infused menu, and Bill and Danielle picked out beer pairings for each dish. The result was plans for a hearty, meaty meal that would drive vegetarians away screaming—but that would make a true carnivore (and beer-lover) drool.
Justin took care of the appetizers: cured salami, pork rinds, pork belly salad, and blood sausage—everyone’s non-favorite until we actually tasted it. Todd did slow-roasted pork with wonton soup. Phil made a grilled confit of pork shoulder with Chuckie’s homemade barbecue sauce and baked beans, and Michelle finished things off with a blueberry pie that had a crust made with