natalie.eats.chocolate

Recipes for friends

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Dubai Chocolate Tart Recipe

I saw that it was trendy, but I didn't try this new dessert until the winter of 2026 when we were traveling in Thailand. A bakery in Chiang Mai had a pastry called the Dubai chocolate croissant, a pastry cup made of croissant dough, filled with crunchy pistachio filling and topped with a smooth chocolate ganache.

Craving it ever since we got back to the US, here's my best approximation of the dessert (ahem, breakfast pastry) that set me on this most recent kick.

Full disclosure: Normally to satisfy this craving, I've made the filling and pushed it into a greased baking pan, topped it with ganache, and eaten it from the pan with a fork. But that isn't a ✨pretty✨ enough option to serve to guests so here's a presentable version of a Dubai chocolate tart, definitely a dessert and never, ever eaten for breakfast.

Tart Crust (adapted from Pretty. Simple. Sweet.)

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Sprinkle of salt

1 stick of butter, softened

1 egg

1/3 c chocolate chips

Mix together the flour, sugar, and salt, then pressed the butter through with a fork until the chunks are no larger than a pea. Add the egg and stir together just until mixed and not more. Press into buttered dishes, whatever sizes you're using. Cover and let rest in the fridge for at least an hour. Bake on 375 F for 20-40 minutes, until golden brown.

Once the tart crust is done, remove it and turn off the oven. Sprinkle a handful of chocolate chips over the top and return to the oven for 1 minute. The chocolate should melt but not burn. Remove from the oven again, and spread the chocolate evenly across the tart shell.

Dubai Filling

1/2 package or 8 oz kataifi dough

1 T butter

1/2 jar pistachio paste, about 3.5 oz from a 7 oz jar

2 tablespoons of tahini

Salt to taste

While your tart crust is baking, make the filling. Chop the kataifi into small pieces, about the size of sprinkles. Heat the butter in a pan on the stovetop. Add the dough and stir regularly until it is all a nice toasty brown.

Remove from the heat and add the pistachio paste and the tahini. Stir together and add more tahini, pistachio, or salt to taste. Once the filling tastes irresistibly good (you should be worried that you might eat all of it before you have time to share it with others), set this aside to cool.

After the filling cools, press it into the tart shells while the chocolate is still warm. This will help hold the filling in place.

Ganache Topping

1/3 c chocolate chips

3 tablespoons of milk

In a microwave safe bowl, heat the chocolate chips and milk together in 15 second increments, stirring regularly until the milk and chocolate come together smoothly.

After the tart shells and filling are mostly cool, pour the ganache over the top of the tart and spread evenly across the top.

Refrigerate for 4 hours or up to 3 days before serving. Enjoy!

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Easy Eggless Earl Grey Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

1.5 cups milk

1.5 cups cream

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

Sprinkle of salt

5 teabags of Earl Grey tea

1/2 bag of dark chocolate chips (I use the 72% chips from Trader Joe's.)

Equipment:

Saucepan and spatula

Ice cream freezer

Instructions:

If you’re using an ice cream freezer that requires pre-freezing the internal canister, place that in the freezer at least 24 hours before you plan to freeze the ice cream. I keep mine in the freezer throughout the summer so it’s ready whenever I need it.

In a saucepan, stir together all of the ingredients except the tea bags and chocolate chips. Slowly heat up the mixture over a low heat. When the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is hot but not bubbling, take the saucepan off the heat and add the teabags. Let the teabags steep for about 5 minutes or a little longer depending on the strength you want. Don’t steep them for too long or they will leave a bitter taste.

Let the mixture cool down and put the saucepan in the fridge to chill completely. I usually leave mine in the fridge overnight. When you’re ready to freeze the ice cream, get your ice cream freezer ready according to the instructions. For me, I pour the ice cream base into the freezer as it turns. While the ice cream is churning, roughly chop the chocolate chips. You could skip this step, but I like the texture of both small shards and bigger chunks of chocolate in this ice cream.

Just before the ice cream is done freezing according to your freezer’s instructions, add the chocolate chips. Transfer the ice cream to a container and put it in the freezer to allow it to freeze further, usually 2-4 hours, before serving.

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Easy Focaccia Breadsticks

Ingredients

2 cups of flour

3/4 teaspoon of yeast

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup of warm water

2 tablespoons olive oil + more for drizzling

Equipment

Stand mixer with a dough hook (or a mixing bowl, wooden spoon, and upper body strength)

Cast iron pan (or any pan, but cast iron will take them to the next level)

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together flour, yeast, and salt. Stir in 1 cup of warm water and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix with a dough hook for 2 minutes. Dough will be wet and sticky. Drizzle more olive oil over the dough.

Cover with a dish towel and let rise on the counter for 2-3 hours. When you’re ready to bake the focaccia, preheat the oven to 400 F. Coat a cast iron skillet in olive oil. Put the dough in the skillet and spread it out through the whole skillet using your fingers to push indents throughout the dough.

Drizzle with more olive oil and sprinkle with Maldon sea salt and red pepper flakes if desired. Bake at 400 for 15-25 minutes or until it looks done. Make sure to take it out before the bottom gets too done.

Slice into breadsticks. Serve with salad or soup.

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Problematically Easy Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

What if I told you that five minutes from now, you could be licking clean a spatula of cream cheese frosting? Using a microwave, a hand mixer, and a rubber spatula, I whip up this frosting in just a few minutes to use on pumpkin muffins in the fall or on top of cinnamon rolls all year round.

Ingredients

1 package of cream cheese

2 tablespoons of butter

1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered sugar (to taste)

A sprinkle of salt

Equipment

Microwaveable bowl or glass measuring cup that can be used with a hand mixer

Hand mixer

Rubber spatula

Instructions

Put the package of cream cheese in the microwaveable bowl. Top with the butter. Heat for 30 seconds. Using the hand mixer, mix the cream cheese and butter together. Heat in increments of 15-30 seconds, pausing to use the mixer and smooth out any lumps as you go.

When the butter and cream cheese are smooth together with no lumps, add the powdered sugar and salt. Mix until the mixture is smooth. Add more sugar to taste.

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

In a mixing bowl, cream together 1/2 c butter (softened), 2/3 c peanut butter, 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/2 c powdered sugar.

Beat in 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla.

Stir in 1 c flour, 1 c oatmeal, 1/4 tsp baking soda, and a pinch of salt just until blended.

Stir in 1 c chocolate chips.

Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 F for 10 minutes or until the cookies are lightly golden at the edges. They are best under-baked. ;)

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Espresso Cookies

Stir together and set aside:

1½ cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

Beat together:

1 cup butter

1 cup powdered sugar

Mix together:

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

Espresso powder should dissolve in the vanilla. Add to butter/sugar mixture.

Add dry mix and beat just until combined. Mix in 2 cups chocolate chips.

Use a cookie scoop or a spoon to form 1-2 tablespoon balls of dough. Roll each ball in white sugar (granulated). Bake at 325 for about 10 minutes.

Dough can be kept frozen after rolling in sugar. To make cookies from frozen dough, bake at 325 for slightly longer, closer to 15 minutes.

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Brown Butter Chocolate Lava Cakes

1 stick butter ¾ cup sugar 2/3 cup cocoa 1/8 t salt (or to taste) ½ T water 2 eggs ¼ cup flour 2 oz chocolate (chunks or chips are fine)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Fill a muffin tin with 6 regular-sized liners or 16 mini-size liners.

In a pot on the stove, heat the butter until melted and slightly browned. Remove from heat.

In a bowl, toss together the sugar, cocoa powder, and salt. Stir the sugar/cocoa mixture into the butter. Add water and stir. Add one egg at a time, stirring until completely mixed. Mix in the flour until no white remains.

Pour the batter evenly into the prepared muffin tins. Push a chunk of chocolate into each cupcake. Use a spoon to cover the chocolate in batter.

Bake at 350 F until just cooked through, 10 mins for mini tins, 12-13 minutes for regular sized. The cakes should still look a little shiny on top and indent slightly when you press the tops.

I always err on the side of undercooking these. As long as the batter is clearly heated through, there’s no reason to risk overcooking them.

Allow to cool for five minutes and then eat them all up. Or, microwave any leftovers for 10 seconds before eating the next day. Or the following day. I’ve never had any of these make it to a fourth day.

Adapted from a recipe in Food52 Baking.

[natalieeatschocolate]

Mandarin is a hard language to learn. It is tonal and fast, and there are many dialects. But certain vocabulary words are easy to remember because they are so descriptive. How could you forget that a giraffe is called a "long-neck-deer" or that an owl is a "cat-head-hawk"? Or that China's most famous resident, the panda, is literally called a "bear cat"? It's specific (and adorable) and it reminds me that English has its own challenges because our English-learning students have to remember "giraffe" rather than "long-neck-deer."

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In Praise of Sweetened Condensed Milk

I remember the first time I used sweetened condensed milk in a recipe. I was making my grandpa’s cheesecake recipe and had just opened a can of it into the mixing bowl. Setting down the can, I did what we all ought to do—swiped around the edge for the last remaining drops and licked them off my finger.

Why, I thought, do we not eat this straight with a spoon? I am a grown-up now, and I know why we don’t do that (cavities, calories), but I still think there is more of a place for the stuff than dulce de leche or buried in a different dessert.

Last year, I traveled to Thailand for the first time and found that they have accomplished what I had not: finding the best possible ways to bring sweetened condensed milk into my mouth without the indignity of eating it with a spoon.

The foremost way to eat it is drizzled on top of roti (or rotee). A circle of flaky dough is rolled out and fried on a griddle with optional toppings, the most popular being banana and Nutella. The crunchy crepe is then chopped up into small squares and drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. My favorite roti is made with Nutella and sweetened condensed milk and is eaten while walking on the chaotic Thai streets at night.

The second way I saw Thai vendors utilize the cans of succulent goodness are in drinks, both the ever-cloying and effervescent Thai milk tea and in espresso drinks, such as my favorite iced mocha. Using sweetened condensed milk as a stand-in for syrup, the drinks are as sweet as you want an indulgent drink to be without crossing the line.

I am sure there are more places and chefs holding on to great ways of using sweetened condensed milk. What other ways am still I missing out on besides, of course, the classic straight-with-a-spoon?

[natalieeatschocolate]

Recipe: Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

One of my staple recipes is a lemon chocolate chip muffin recipe given to me by my mom. The recipe uses yogurt to add moisture, which keeps the muffins light and delicious for days after they are made. I wanted to see how far I could push that recipe and retain the tart-yogurt taste that is so good about the original recipe. 

I stumbled across this banana bread recipe from Smitten Kitchen and decided to merge the two recipes. Because our glorified toaster oven can be unpredictable when baking in loaf pans, I have opted more recently for muffins, all the time. They cook faster and are more stable in unpredictable oven temperatures.

With the double chocolate in these, the banana plays more of a light harmony to the chocolate’s melody. For me, that is perfect, because I always opt for chocolate to be the star of the show.

Double Chocolate Banana Muffin Recipe 

3 bananas  ½ butter, melted ½ cup brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg 1 cup flour ½ cup cocoa ¼ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda ½ cup plain yogurt 1 cup dark chocolate chips 

In a mixer, mash the bananas. Add in the butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and egg and stir until incorporated. Mix in the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda until fully combined. Stir in the yogurt. Add the chocolate chips. Bake in muffin tins at 350 F for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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Recipe: Baanta Iced Mocha

One of the joys of leaving China for Thailand in the winter is the weather—it’s a fifty degree difference I will gladly take. The other joy is moving temporarily from tea country into coffee country.

I am not a coffee connoisseur or even a casual coffee lover, but I have finally made that adulthood transition from having “a little coffee in my hot chocolate” to having “a little chocolate in my coffee.” In other words, I have grown to like that beginner drink: the mocha.

In Thailand, I would often take breaks during busy days to visit a small coffee stand a few blocks from where we stayed. They had everything I was looking for in a coffee spot—good drinks at a cheap price (a mere $1 for a large) and owners that I was convinced I could win over through politeness and smiles. (I succeeded.)

Each day I visited, I would watch them make my favorite iced mocha. It was only this past week back at home in tea country that I took my careful mental notes and tried making one for myself, hoping it would ease my Thailand cravings. It turned out spectacularly, and much closer to the original than I thought possible, but only it made my desire to return to Thailand stronger.

Baanta Iced Mocha Recipe

2 shots of espresso* 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk ½ cup of milk Enough ice to fill a 16 oz cup (or two 8 oz cups)

Pour the sweetened condensed milk into a glass measuring cup. Top with the cocoa powder. Pour the espresso shots over the cocoa, stirring vigorously to break up any chunks. Continue stirring until the liquid is somewhat cooled. Fill your cup (or cups) with ice and pour the mocha over it. Pour the milk slowly on top. Drink slowly, letting the ice dilute the sweet mixture, as if you were walking down a sunny street in Thailand on a hot January day.

*I was surprised how well a mock shot of espresso turned out using 2 tablespoons of ground espresso-roasted beans (Intelligentsia Black Cat Analog) and 8 oz of water in a French press.

[natalieeatschocolate]

Recipe: 5-Ingredient Hot Chocolate

Milk. Chocolate. Sugar. Vanilla. Salt.

My new favorite hot chocolate is rich, simple, and easy to make for a group or for just one person. It is lighter than a drinking chocolate, but much richer than the powdered packs. The clean-up is minimal, but the cost of a better hot chocolate will be a few extra dishes.

We buy our chocolate in bulk bags here of 2.5 kilograms each, which means we have a LOT of one kind of chocolate. It is fun—delicious and high-quality—but even the best chocolate gets old when you only ever eat one kind. (Or is that just me? Maybe I am too chocolate-oriented for my own good.)

Now that we’ve reached the end of first semester, I am getting tired of this chocolate. We’ve had it in brownies, scones, muffins, pie, and pudding, and it is time for a change of pace.

In an effort to conserve my other kinds of chocolate that are carefully carted over from the USA, I have been trying to play with this kind of chocolate but tweaking it in ways that make it less dark and ominous for people who aren’t as chocolate-loving as me (namely Matt).

This hot chocolate recipe is my new obsession. We’ve had it at least four times in the last week, and we have started sharing it with friends. It is simple and easy to make, but it is infinitely better and easier if you have a stick blender (for bigger batches) or a little battery-powered foaming whisk (for single-servings) that you can find for two or three dollars at Ikea.

Here’s the recipe:

Makes: two big servings or three small ones Time: less than 10 minutes

Ingredients: 3 cups of milk 1-2 tablespoons of brown sugar 1 teaspoon of vanilla A dash of salt 1/3 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips (we use very dark, like 70%)

In a saucepan, put 3 cups of milk, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, a dash of salt, and a splash of vanilla. Heat until it is hot but not scalding and the sugar is fully dissolved. Turn the heat down a bit to make sure it doesn’t get too hot.

This is your chance to add extra sugar if your chocolate is very dark like ours. If you are using semisweet, 1 tablespoon should be plenty of sugar, but anything darker and you might want more.

Add 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and let them melt in the milk, stirring with a spatula as you go and raising the heat as needed to keep it a good drinking temperature.

Once the chocolate is melted (it will probably be in little pieces rather than fully immersed), blend the mixture using either your stick blender or a whisk. If you do this by hand, it will take longer and not look as pretty. If you use a blender, it will turn the milk a chocolatey-brown within seconds and add a nice layer of foam on top.

Pour into mugs, distributing the foam evenly among them.

For a little extra indulgence, serve with whipped cream, marshmallows, or a side of shortbread, as I did.

[natalieeatschocolate]

Everything Bagel Bombs

Several years ago, Matt and I were visiting New York and looking for a cheap place to eat and work for a few hours. We settled on bagels at a nearby deli. I opted for the everything bagel with cucumber dill cream cheese. To me, the everything bagel is the only one worth eating—it is everything you could want. Matt usually opted for something else, but ended up stealing bites of mine.

When we returned back to Chicago, we lamented the lack of nearby bagels. Searching online for a solution, I found this recipe, which answered our cravings in Chicago, when we could only get subpar bagels, and continues to answer it now in China, when we can’t get any at all.

Bagel bombs are a comfort food, a last minute meal, and a taste of home all rolled into one. So comforting, in fact, that I assembled my own everything bagel mix before moving to Asia, just to ensure we could make them whenever the craving hit.

I modify the linked recipe in a few ways. First, I typically don’t add flavors to or freeze the cream cheese. I just chop the block into eight pieces and use those squares in the dough. It works fine and saves a lot of time and several bowls. Second, since we recently inherited a breadmaker, I often make the dough in that on the dough setting. Another bowl saved.

I have only ever made these everything-flavored, but I’m sure you could make them other ways as well. Although in my mind, a bagel that isn’t everything is a waste of a bagel.

Recipe link: http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2012/04/everything-bagel-bombs.html

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Yang’s Soup Dumplings

There are some foods in life that I hope to one day have again—fried avocado tacos in Austin, Thai iced tea in Chiang Mai—and some that I have written off as unlikely to be rediscovered, at least as I remember them—freshly-made garlic shrimp on a remote beach in Thailand, the taste of a SnoCone on a summer day.

This was a food that I had put reluctantly on the second list. Maybe I would find it again, but if I didn’t, I would always remember it. When Matt and I visited Shanghai last winter, we ate these every day. (We were traveling alone at that point, so there was no around to judge us for getting them once a day when we were there.)

Yang’s Dumplings are high on almost every list of must-try Shanghai foods. They are similar to the famous soup dumplings, xiao long bao, but in my opinion, these are better. Picture tender meatballs in a hot soup, wrapped up in a dumpling wrapper and topped with sesame seeds and crunchy spring onions. Plus, fried crispy on the bottom. Once we tried them, these became my ideal dumplings, next to which no other dumpling could stand.

Fortunately for us, it turned out that these were not a never-to-be-found-again item…they have a similar chain at one of our local malls. Although I don’t think it’s the official chain (in China, it’s hard to know when something is real and when it’s a knock-off), these were every bit as good.

For any of you in Hohhot, the chain is called 阿三生煎 (A San Sheng Jian), located on the 10th floor at Moerchang. For those of you in China, try searching 生煎 (sheng jian) on Baidu to see if you can find these anywhere near you. For those of you outside of China, I can only hope that these dumplings are added to the list of excellent Chinese foods you can increasingly find outside of the country.

[natalieeatschocolate]

Recipe: Slow-Roasted Tomatoes

My aversion to tomatoes was cured by these for a few reasons. First, the seasoning will help you appreciate what is often masked in tomatoes: the balance of sweet, acidic, and peppery that a well-roasted tomato can hold so well. Second, these tomatoes slide effortlessly into a variety of dishes, never over-powering the flavor of the dish as a whole, but adding to the flavor beautifully.

If you like tomatoes, you’ll love these. If you don’t like tomatoes, you might start. Here are 10 excellent ways to use these tomatoes once you’ve roasted them, so you’ll never have too many on hand, no matter how many you make:

Put them on a pizza crust, along with mozzarella and basil for a delicious Margherita pizza.

Toss them into this Simple Orzo Salad.

Use in place of regular tomatoes on sandwiches.

Crush and cook in a saucepan along with some garlic for an easy spaghetti sauce.

Chop them up and add them to any salad.

Fold into an omelette along with some mozzarella.

Use in place of canned tomatoes in this Tomato Cream Pasta.

Put them on some Chicken Pomodoro Sandwiches.

Slow-Roasted Tomatoes Recipe

Wash, core, and halve as many tomatoes as you want to roast. In a roasting pan, drizzle olive oil over the bottom. Place tomatoes in the pan. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and turbinado sugar (optional). Roast at 250 F for two hours or until the tomatoes are the texture you want them to be. We like ours on the chewier, less-liquidy side, so I usually leave them in for close to three hours.

I found this recipe at the back of Culinary Intelligence, a book that I loved but no longer have access to. This is my revised version over years of making them since I first read the recipe.

[natalieeatschocolate]

Recipe: Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

As much as I love cream cheese frosting, I can’t help but feel that yellow cake + cream cheese frosting = a little too bland. I’ve always wanted an extra spike of flavor when I put non-chocolate frosting on top of cupcakes and this week I figured out what I wanted.

By making a small pot of creamy caramel and folding some cream cheese into it, I came away with a light-colored frosting that even held it’s shape when left out for a few hours at the office as people came through and took them away one by one.

(I don’t usually bring cupcakes to the office, but this was a big week for me. After months of wrangling and ergonomics assessments, I am finally getting a new chair! Yes, it seems like a simple problem to solve but the entire hoop-jumping process was exhausting enough for me to bake cupcakes of excitement when I finally found out it was done.)

The actual cake for these is from a box, Duncan Hines Golden Yellow, of course. I frosted half the batch with this frosting and the other half with Chocolate Sour Cream frosting. I also made an assortment of small and regular sized cupcakes to allow coworkers to try both kinds. (And to make me feel better about eating so many!)

Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

Ingredients ½ c. sugar 2 T. corn syrup 1 T. butter 1/3 c. cream 4 oz cream cheese 1/3 c. powdered sugar, or more to taste

Instructions

Place sugar and corn syrup in a small saucepan over low heat. Cook, swirling the pan as necessary, until it is cooked to a golden caramel color.

All at once, add the cream and butter, whisking vigorously as you add.

When the caramel is smooth, let it cool off. Meanwhile, put the cream cheese in a mixing bowl and whip for 30 seconds on low to soften.

Add the caramel a bit at a time, beating as you add. Add vanilla.

When all the caramel is combined into the cream cheese, add powdered sugar, 1/3 c. at a time until the frosting has a sturdy texture, but stopping before it is overly sweet. The flavor of the caramel should never be drowned out by the sugar.

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Simplest Spaghetti

When my husband was a kid, he was very adamant about not liking “red sauce,” which is kid-language for traditional spaghetti sauce. He much preferred “white sauce,” aka Alfredo sauce.

While I was an all-out spaghetti fan as a child (to the point that it was my birthday meal choice every year from 7-16), I outgrew my love of the sauce as I got older and fell in love the plain ol’ buttered noodles and Parmesan instead.

Now that I am cooking for two regularly, I wanted to be able to have a simple meal like spaghetti in my repertoire, but was solidly shot down by my husband every time I suggested it.

Fortunately, these simple roasted tomatoes (and the excuse for garlic bread) saved the day. By crushing these roasted tomatoes and adding a bit of garlic and fresh basil, plus simmering it all for a bit while the pasta cooks, my husband and I now have a go-to spaghetti dish.

He is okay with (and even enjoys!) this “red sauce” as a regular part of our meals. These tomatoes are lively in the subtle let’s-be-friends sort of way, rather than the overbearing  BE-MY-FRIEND sort of way that jarred sauces can often come off.

Simplest Spaghetti

Ingredients

1/2 T. olive oil

1 c. slow roasted tomatoes (or, if you don’t have any, some jarred plum tomatoes, preferably San Marzano**)

2 garlic cloves, minced

Basil leaves for garnish

1/4 lb. pasta

Parmesan to taste

Instructions

Heat olive oil in a small saucepan. When hot, add garlic.

Cook garlic until fragrant (not browned). Add tomatoes and crush with a fork or spatula as you stir.

Simmer sauce for 15-20 minutes as you make the pasta.

Cook pasta. Drain.

When the sauce is thickened, top a plate of pasta with sauce, a few basil leaves, and Parmesan to taste.

**If using canned tomatoes, add pepper, sugar, and oregano to taste. Also, if you have any leftover Parmesan rinds, you can toss them into the sauce as it simmers to enhance the flavor.