Impromptu Half Marathon and Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies

Ever wondered what Connecticut Avenue looks like at 5 am on Sunday?

Well, you’ve come to the right place.

I snapped that picture for you on Sunday on my way to meet Liz and Rachel to drive on down to Fredericksburg for the Blue and Gray Half Marathon.

Why? I mean…Liz was entered, so obviously I had to, too. Plus, I’m trying to milk as much as possible out of my marathon training before I lose that edge.

Also, it gave me an opportunity to show off my mad skills in the area of combining chocolate and sea salt.

Specifically, I made some salted chocolate thumbprint cookies (sans flour, of course).

Gluten Free Salted Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

For the cookies:

8 tablespoons butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup almond flour (e.g. finely ground blanched almonds)

¼ cup corn starch

1 cup chickpea flour (e.g. finely ground dry chickpeas)

½ teaspoon salt

2 ounces finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

For the filling:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 ½ tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon coarse sea salt

Mix together flours, salt and corn starch, set aside. Cream butter and sugars, then add egg and vanilla. Add flour mixture, then chocolate. Shape dough into 1” diameter balls, chill for 30 minutes. Using the end of a wooden spoon, make an indent in each ball.

Bake at 350° F for 8 minutes, reinforce shape of indent with end of wooden spoon, then bake 4 additional minutes.

Prepare the filling by melting together chocolate and butter, allow to cool slightly, then add sea salt. Pour into indentations of cookies.

Feed to hungry runners in the car after a half marathon, even if one of them ran past you in the last 500 yards of the race and ran a 2:05, leaving you to finish in 2:06:01 (Not. Awesome. Even if it WAS a 6 minute PR).

Have you ever been beat at the very end of a race? Did you share cookies with the person who beat you anyway?

Triathlete/Runner Get-Togethers: How to Dispose of Cookies

I do fun things sometimes.

Really.

Things besides reviewing chocolate, swimming, or running.

In fact, this Friday, I took part in a dinner with a bunch of DC-area triathletes and runners that Sarah kindly organized.

(That's Emily, Lauren, me, and Allison. Not swimming, biking or running)

Where we TALKED about swimming and running, and reviewed chocolate; specifically, we checked out some new test bars from Potomac Chocolate.

Ben, the mastermind behind the Potomac Chocolate’s 82% cacao Upala bar that I enjoy in large enough quantities to justify large-scale purchases, had sent me two developmental bars to check out. When I told him I’d get the opinions of about a dozen runners and triathletes, he asked if I would need more bars.

Evidently, triathletes have quite the reputation for eating. Including eating artisan dark chocolate. We absolutely adored one of Ben’s experimental bars, and enjoyed the smooth texture and mild flavor immensely. I was luckily able to stash half of it to take home, since Lauren, a badass who recently finished an Ironman, made toffee.

She included salt in it. Lauren, I love you. Please don’t go back to Denver.

Have you ever had a developmental chocolate bar? Did you share it with hungry runners?

Dolfin Dolfin Noir Aux Feuilles De Menthe: It's Just Mint Dark Chocolate

Christmas is getting closer. Close enough that I finally bought plane tickets to visit my family around Christmas. I procrastinate this as long as possible every year, in hopes that all the seats will be gone and I won't have to go…er…in hopes that the prices will drop.

This time, it’s going to cost me almost $500. For the privilege of going to Detroit.

I hate my life sometimes.

But that’s not the Christmas spirit. And to get into the Christmas spirit, I need some more mint-infused chocolate. Or, perhaps the Dolfin Noir Aux Feuilles De Menthe.

Seriously, people, don’t be so full of yourselves. It’s freaking dark chocolate with mint leaves. I can, however, forgive some pretention since these folks were smart enough to double wrap the bar to keep the pervasive mint flavor and aroma confined to this bar rather than simply confined to any bit of chocolate in my chocolate cabinet.

The mint aroma is spicy in nature, and the flavor is relatively subtly, with a savory character that turns more sweet near the end.

A few other flavors emerge – cream at the beginning and coffee at the end – but mint is definitely the dominant flavor. While it’s natural and not artificial in character, it’s quite weak, and in fact, the bar’s flavor is weak overall and the dry melt of the bar compounds this deficiency.

A subpar mint chocolate bar and a $500 trip to Detroit in two weeks. Bah Humbug.

Are you going anywhere for Christmas? Is it going to cost less than $500?

Gluten-Free Secret Kiss Cookies: Flour-Free Family Favorites

You may have noticed that this blog has been relatively sparse in the baking department recently, and that the items that HAVE baked have been made without wheat. This is because I am crazy; specifically, I have this idea that I need to stay away from wheat because of a thyroid problem that I may or may not have. And this idea is, of course, based on information I found on the internet.

Rock-solid reasoning, don’t you think?

Anyway, since my mom wants to be just like me when she grows up (those of you who know both of us no doubt just laughed really hard), she is also giving up wheat in hopes of addressing headaches or something like that. And when she lamented how hard it would be to deal with Christmas cookies while avoiding wheat, I asked her which ones she’d like me to try to make wheat-free versions of, her first request was for Secret Kiss Cookies.

Those cookies we eat at an alarming rate every Christmas, leaving my mom frazzled and stating that she would only make another batch if we peeled the wrappers off of every single Hershey’s Kiss to be used.

This was never a problem for us. Now, however, I had another problem: how to make the dough without flour.

Problem solved. Read below.

Gluten-Free Secret Kiss Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chickpea flour**

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2/3 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/8 teaspoon salt

30 Hershey’s Kisses (any variety)

**You can spend a ridiculous amount of money on chickpea flour at a specialty grocery store, or you can buy dried chickpeas and run them through your food processor, press the final product through a fine sieve and save yourself a lot of money. You will, however, get quite a bit of chickpea flour in the air, and if you do this around that guy you tried to impress with butternut squash brownies, he will sneeze and probably not be amused. So it goes.

Stir together chickpea flour, cornstarch, nuts and salt, set aside. Cream butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, then add vanilla. Add chickpea flour mixture, stir in until dough holds together. Chill dough for one hour.

Take a one to one and one half tablespoon size of dough and begin to shape around a Hershey’s Kiss.

Repeat until all the Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped in dough.

Bake at 350 ºF for 9-11 minutes, or until cookies are a light golden color.

Allow to cool for 15-20 minutes, then devour by the handful, and pass along to friends who won’t believe that there isn’t any flour in them.

Have you ever done anything in the kitchen that made somebody nearby sneeze (I hope it’s not just me)? What was it?

Hot Chocolate 15k: Why I Stole Chocolate

Since I do that running thing, everybody thought that this weekend’s Hot Chocolate 15k, which promised a chocolate party at the finish line, would be just perfect for me.

I agreed. So, I registered.

Oh, do I ever regret the day I did that. I could go into a massive critique of the race, but let’s just say that Jackie, Sarah and I had no idea what was in store for us as we drove to the National Harbor.

(Jackie wanted this picture because she figured nobody would believe that she had driven to a race with two other runners dressed like this.)

We foolishly thought that the worst event of the day was behind us when Sarah’s car wouldn’t start that morning. Um, no. We just ran over to my car and drove to the massive backup that was I-295 leading to the National Harbor.

Then we walked a mile and a half to the start line. And kids, that was after we paid $10 for our parking pass. We walked pretty quickly to try to make the starting time. Then, because of catastrophic organizational failure, we waited in the corrals until 70 minutes after racing time to start running.

SEVENTY MINUTES.

At least it gave Sarah and I time to discuss recent poor life decisions we'd both made. And then we were sent off on the course, which may or may not have been short, to battle loose gravel paths, hairpin turns, and running against a freeway.

Rather than continuing to critique the race, let’s just do a numbers rundown:

Number of dead animals I had to run past on Indian Head Highway: 2

Number of Mack trucks I ran right next to on Indian Head Highway: 12

Number of times we tried to start Sarah’s car before jumping into my 17 year-old station wagon: At least 10

Number of Ghirardelli squares I stole at the finish line party: 20

Number of minutes I spent running: 82 (finish time 1:22:04 for an 8:49 pace)

Number of runners who got a Garmin reading of 15k or more on the course: Zero

Number of obnoxious running costumes in our car: 2

Number of times our $10 parking pass was checked: Zero

Number of miles walked between our car and the start/finish line: 3

Number of minutes Sarah and I spent discussing the 2012 racing season: At least 800

Number of times I will do this race again: Negative 14

Have you ever been to a poorly-organized race? Did you steal chocolate in revenge?

Hotel Chocolat: Dark Mint Puddles

As I’ve mentioned before, mint chocolate just seems to fit perfectly with the Christmas season. I’m not sure why. But it does. So let’s go with it, and talk about some Hotel Chocolate Dark Mint Puddles, which are made with 72% cacao dark chocolate and Tasmanian peppermint oil. Even with the peppermint oil, the mint aroma is faint; however, the mint flavor comes through almost immediately, though with a bit of an artificial bite.

In addition to the mint flavor, there’s a bit of a coffee flavor that is dominant at the end, and a very mild cooling mint after taste is evident as well. The melt is a bit waxy at first, which distracts from the blend of chocolate and mint flavors, and is then buttery, which allows for better enjoyment of the flavors. Though the Hotel Chocolat mint crisp bar was nicer, I can’t turn down mint and chocolate this time of year. I just can’t.

Have you had chocolate with mint oil in it?