I have been feeling some pain over the last week with a disc out of joint in my neck, so it is a good time to look back to an older post I am nostalgic about. As soon as I can, I will hop over to the stove and whip up a batch of these tender, nutty, aromatic stove-top cakes to eat slathered with caramelized bananas.

Waffle-making is a task I take on without much prompting on the weekends, filling the kitchen with warm, vanilla aromas as my family lounges about drinking coffee. When I found a recipe for Hazelnut Waffles, I knew these would knock everybody over, adding a toasted nut nuance to the panoply of flavours I was about to launch.

Obviously, you need a waffle-maker for this project and I am happy to say I inherited an old-fashioned cast iron clunker from my mom after she gave up participating in this sort of kitchen slavery. For those of you not so inclined, may I suggest you take the beautiful batter and make pancakes instead? Surely you have a frying pan! I like to think we are all in this together.

Waffles speak to me of breakfast and brunch but I have been known to present them later in the day as well, even calling them a summer supper, topped with frozen yogurt and fresh fruit. Sometimes a multi-course meal just makes no sense and a tender, furrowed stove-top biscuit is exactly suited to our desires.

The other impetus for waffle-making in my house is having extra bananas, as I have been told that waffles without caramelized bananas are hardly worth waking up for. If there was ever a good reason for getting up in the morning, this is it.

Chocolate Hazelnut Waffles

2/3 cup hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and ground medium fine (see Note ); 2/3 cup bittersweet chocolate, chopped medium fine in a food processor (optional, but really yummy); 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1/2 cup whole wheat flour; 2 tbsp. granulated sugar; 3 tsp. baking powder; 1 tsp. kosher salt; 4 large eggs; 2 cups milk; 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract.

Combine ground hazelnuts, chopped chocolate, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl. Gently whisk eggs, milk, melted butter and vanilla in another bowl. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth, about 30 seconds. Use this batter according to the directions of your waffle-maker, or use it to make pancakes. Excellent served with carmelized bananas or fresh fruit and maple syrup. Makes 4 4-sided large waffles.

Note : To skin hazelnuts, toast in a 350 F oven until starting to turn golden and fragrant, about 8 minutes. Wrap the warm, toasted nuts in a clean dish towel and let cool. Rub vigorously to remove most of the skins. Don't worry if you don't get all the skin off.

Caramelized Bananas

Slice 3 - 4 bananas about 1/2-inch wide along the diagonal. In a large frying pan over medium heat melt 2 tbsp. sweet butter, 2 tbsp. brown sugar, a pinch of salt, 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon and a few gratings of fresh nutmeg. Add a splash of rum and stir to blend. Add the bananas and let them caramelize on each side. Serve hot over waffles.

Wake up to something special this weekend:

Chocolate. Orange. Ginger. Wow, I am smitten already. Landing on this recipe was a stroke of good fortune.

Gingersnaps are not new to me, but I was still not prepared for the intense blast of punchy flavour and texture that these deliver. I cannot fathom a more congenial combination in a cookie than this one, a bittersweet chocolate base speckled with rich nuggets of dark chocolate, the zing of peppery fresh ginger, bursts of tangy orange flavour and the added bonus of little bits of candied ginger for extra oomph. Then, there is the perfection of the texture, chewy and crisp at the same time, a hint of toothy resistance in the bite yielding to moist tackiness in the centre.

How does this happen? Secret ingredient: Marmalade. Who knew you could toss it into a gingersnap and get this sparkling result? I further bolstered the orange flavour with some pure orange oil. Married with the chocolate, this is a cookie to swoon over. Also, ground ginger can only do so much in the flavour department. The fresh ginger in these cookies takes the ginger concept and really lets it rip, as well as enhancing the moistness and tenderness ratio. Molasses is another essential element in a gingersnap, lending its sensuous, sweet depth and irresistible caramel-like qualities.

All told, you are in for a major jolt of delight, happiness in your hot little hands. Here is the game plan:

Chocolate Orange Gingersnaps

2 cups all-purpose flour; 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder; 2 tsp. baking soda; 2 tsp. ground ginger; 1 tsp. ground cinnamon; 1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg; 1/2 tsp. kosher salt; 3/4 cup unsalted butter, in pieces; 3/4 cup granulated sugar; 1/2 cup brown sugar; 1/4 cup molasses; 1/4 cup orange marmalade; 1 heaping tbsp. peeled and freshly grated fresh ginger; 1 large egg; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 2 - 3 drops of pure orange oil; 5 tbsp. finely chopped candied ginger; 2 tbsp. cocoa nibs (optional); 5 tbsp. bittersweet chocolate, chopped small; 1/2 cup extra granulated sugar for rolling the cookie dough in.

Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on low speed until well blended. Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl and blend again. Add molasses, marmalade and grated ginger and mix to blend. Add egg, vanilla and orange oil and mix. Batter may look curdled, but that's OK. Stop and scrape sides and bottom of bowl as needed. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix on low speed just until incorporated. Batter will be thick.

Add candied ginger, chopped chocolate and (optional) cocoa nibs. Mix only until evenly distributed. Refrigerate the batter overnight, covered with plastic wrap, for the best results.

When ready to bake, pour the extra cup of sugar into a shallow bowl or plate. Preheat your oven to 350 F. Using two teaspoons, plop balls of dough into the sugar and roll into a neater ball, coated with sugar completely. Place balls of sugared dough at least 3-inches apart on your baking sheets and bake for about 10 - 12 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. Remove cookies from the oven just when they puff up the most, about 11-12 minutes, and let them cool completely in the pan. Makes about 50 small cookies.

Let me say a few words about cocoa nibs. They are available in gourmet shops and are on the pricey side, so make sure you understand what they are before you spend the big bucks. Cocoa nibs are the edible part of the cocoa plant, a hard, almost nut-like shell that is very bittersweet and brittle, with a crackly texture and deep, unsweetened cocoa taste. They are quite bitter on their own but when encased in a sweet cookie, your mouth will marvel at the intoxicating pure essence of chocolate. If you are unsure or unwilling to use them, simply leave them out. I did. I would love to use them for special occassions but not having them at all times will not stop me from making these cookies (at all times!).

At first I thought, I would would have liked this cookie to be a bit thicker, a more handsome handful, but this thin version certainly has its charm. With an almost lacey design, it is large and festive and beautifully toned. I am giving up on my idea of a perfect orb and loving the quirky form and personality at play here.

Succumb to sweetness with our support:

Reading through cookbooks helps me feel like I am close to normal, seeing that other people also willingly devote precious hours of their lives to food preparation. Some would say I am obsessed with food, but I take pride in what I cook and bake, with just about everything made from scratch. I confess to spending hours in the kitchen and I feel healthy and virtuous as a result.

But, even I have my limits, parameters outside which I do not venture: Homemade sodas? Nope. Handmade pastrami. I'll pass on that one. Smoke my own jalapenos? Canned chipotles en adobo are just fine. But something about buzzing up some made-from-scratch chocolate hazelnut spread sounds like a project I would joyfully tackle, falling within my paradigms of normalcy. I can easily roast hazelnuts and quite enjoy the sweet aroma they serve up. I have a food processor and know how to melt chocolate. That's basically all the skill you need and, half an hour later, you can be the proud owner of a large crock of better-than-Nutella spreadable decadence.

Now, you are probably thinking, there IS nothing better than Nutella. That's a tough argument to speak against, but here I go: Do you like eating modified palm oil and chemical emulsifiers? I didn't think so. Imagine using the best quality European chocolate in a nutty spread, with pure vanilla extract and freshly roasted hazelnuts. Where you control the amount of sugar and salt and toss in some real butter too. Yes? Are you in?

Photo courtesy of bakecookeat.blogspot.com

Karen Solomon's new cookbook can it, bottle it, smoke it and other kitchen projects has lots of projects for the devoted foodie, many of them quirky and fun, like blueberry lemon syrup, pickled grapes, plum catsup, preserved lemons, little gourmet treats I would prepare on a proverbial rainy day. But chocolate hazelnut spread cannot wait for a rainy day. I am jumping right in, right now. Care to join me?

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
recipe courtesy of Karen Solomon

3 cups hazelnuts; 3/4 cup best quality unsweetened chocolate; 3 tbsp. butter; 3/4 cup sugar; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 2 tbsp. flavourless vegetable oil such as canola; 1+1/2 tsp. kosher salt or to taste.

Place a metal mixing bowl in the freezer to chill. Toast nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat until light golden brown, about 8 minutes. Pour them into the cold bowl and stir for 2 minutes. When they are cold enough to handle, rub the nuts to remove the outer skins. Don't worry if they don't all come off. Discard the skins and allow the nuts to cool.

In a small saucepan over medium low heat, melt the chocolate with the butter and sugar, stirring frequently, until smooth and well combined, about 3 minutes. The sugar will still be somewhat coarse. Take the pan off the heat and continue stirring for about 30 seconds. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Transfer the nuts to a food processor fitted with the metal blade and whirl for 1 minute to make a thick paste. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and process again. With the machine running, stream in the oil slowly and continue to process for a full 5 minutes, until very smooth. With the machine still running, stream the chocolate mixture into the nut butter. Stop the machine a couple of times and scrape the sides of the bowl. Reprocess for a few more minutes until everything is well blended and smooth. Add salt and blend to incorporate.

The mixture is ready to eat but is better if left to rest for a day. It is best to store the spread in the fridge but you may want to remove it for an hour before eating and stir it well right before use.

You may have thought you were in Nutella heaven before, but imagine the uber-intense chocolate-hazelnut paradise that could be yours. You may not have ventured into these waters before, but it sure feels normal now.

Take a dip into these tantalizing titles:

What are those sparkly crystals adorning those stunning chocolate cookies? Fleur de sel. Ha ha ha! When you stop laughing, consider this. A fudgey, gooey biscuit grows up and puts on a sprinkling of fine, pure salt as a study in contrasts. You've seen it on fancy chocolates. You put it on grilled fish. It's the reigning queen of salt and, yowzer, does it do wonders for this cookie! Fleur de sel is the surprise ingredient in this fine offering and I urge you to give it a go.

You may not realize this, but it is the magic of salt that gives foods the tastes we come to love. "Salt is the single most important ingredient in cooking and the single most powerful tool for improving the flavour of food" says Mark Bitterman in his book Salted - A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes. Think of that tomato and the heights to which salt can elevate its tomato-ness. Or pan-fried potatoes and the lingering memory of the crispy, browned bits basking in a little sea salt. Baking requires salt for maximum flavour too, as you can see in all sweet recipes. Salt rounds out flavours and makes everything taste better. So, why not celebrate it and let it shine a bit more? And, in doing so, let's bring out the gold standard, fleur de sel, harvested from the sea by hand into crunchy beds off of the coast of France. Fleur del sel is light, flaky, pure and it will anoint your food with a finishing touch that will last in your memory, a clean bright waft of sea air. In these cookies, fleur de sel sits inside the dough as well, permeating the mouth with an even more punchy chocolate experience, and then dotting the tongue with a final, pleasant reminder.

The proliferation of food writing means that cooking and baking ideas spread and mutate and morph. This cookie is a stellar example. New York baker extraordinaire Dorie Greenspan took inspiration from Parisian pastry chef Pierre Herme. I, in turn, take my lead from Dorie, trusting her inclusion of salt crystals to bring midnight dark chocolate to greater heights. But, she rolls her dough into logs and slices cookies for baking, where I add a few drops of cold coffee to moisten the dough to allow for forming balls. My result is a crispy/chewy, crackled, salted beauty, the little crevices allowing for a peak into the deep heart of this chocolate sensation. This is what it means to create in the kitchen, tweaking, thinking, adapting, following, altering, modifying, enriching. I took this devilishly delicious cookie to where I wanted it, where the dough held together for me and allowed me to form uniform, round mounds of rich decadence. Where Dorie's dough felt dry and crumbly to me, I tweaked her recipe and made it work my way. All the flavour Dorie promises is there, the salt exalting our senses in a playful surprise.

Dorie calls these World Peace Cookies because her neighbour Richard Gold, upon tasting them, claimed that a daily dose is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness. Imagine if we could really test that concept.

Fleur de Sel Chocolate Cookies
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe for World Peace Cookies

1+1/4 cups all-purpose flour; 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder; 1/2 tsp. baking soda; 11 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature; 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar; 1/4 cup granulated sugar; 1/2 tsp. fleur de sel or 1/4 tsp. fine sea salt; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; approximately 2 tbsp. cold coffee, enough to moisten the dough so that it holds together when pinched; 3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips.

Sift flour, cocoa and baking soda together. In a large mixing bowl beat butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, salt and vanilla and beat for 2 minutes more. Add dry ingredients and pulse mixer at low speed about 5 times to prevent the flour from flying around. Mix for about 30 seconds more, just so the flour disappears. If mixture appears dry and crumbly, add coffee a teaspoon at a time until the dough holds together when pinched.

Chill dough in the fridge overnight, wrapped well in plastic wrap. When you are ready to bake the cookies, centre a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 325 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. With a tablespoon, scoop out balls of dough and roll in your hands until rounded. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet and flatten balls slightly with the palm of your hand. Bake one sheet at a time for about 12 minutes or until set at the edges, puffed and crackled, but still soft. Cool on a rack and store in a covered container.

Let Dorie Greenspan be your capable and inspiring guide in the kitchen:

I baked up a batch of these beauties recently for a folk dance workshop and their success was measured in moans and swoons. Just the right quota of deep bittersweet morsels and the crunch of toasted walnuts encased in a fragrant, buttery, chewy cookie dough. All of these elements enhanced each other in an intoxicating interplay of flavour and texture, a virtual marriage of disparate parts that synthesized into a unified whole.

I realized, after a thoughtful chew, that the recipe for success in this cookie is essentially balance. You will find a dough sweet enough to titilate but that does not overwhelm the chocolate. There is a certain, special chewiness that feels just right, a small snap with every bite that melds into tenderness. The chocolate must stand up on its own two feet, delicious enough to win praise as it nestles into the crevices of your mouth. You expect a sweet sensation of nuttiness, little nuggets that play off of the silky smoothness of the chocolate. Here, the size of the nuts, their freshness and amount, come into play. Too many is the wrong emphasis. Too few is just wrong.

I subscribe to the school of thought that ordains that a chunk of chocolate is better than a chip. And chunking your own bar of chocolate yields all kinds of extra bonuses - lovely little pieces of course, but also slivers, shavings, dust, all useful in the cookie you are about to build. It all goes in, the dust speckling the dough, the slivers adding small dashes of flavour, and, the part you live for, the chunks, the explosion of chocolate indulgence that elevates this cookie to a realm unattainable by its cousin, the chocolate chip cookie.

From where does this cookie come to me? The one and only David Lebovitz, chocolate guru, ice cream maven, food blogger, essentially the perfect man:

David Lebovitz's Perfectly Balanced Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2+1/2 cups all-purpose flour; 3/4 tsp. baking soda; 1/8 tsp. salt; 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature; 1 cup light brown sugar; 3/4 cup granulated sugar; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 2 large eggs at room temperature; 2 cups walnuts, coarsely chopped; 14 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - use the best quality you can get your hands on.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. In a stand mixer beat together butter, the two sugars and vanilla and beat on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly blended. Stir in the flour mixture, nuts and chocolate chunks and mix just until the flour disappears. Chill the dough overnight in the fridge. Preheat oven to 350 F. Form teaspoon sized balls of dough and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, 2 inches apart. Press down gently on each ball with the palm of your hand to flatten slightly. Bake about 10 minutes or until the cookies are set, very lightly browned in the centres and are still soft.

Learn more about great cookies: