Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Tag: chocolate

  • A FRANK Tale: Aphrodisiacs Galore

    (Most of the photos in this blog appear courtesy of the incredibly talented Piya Trepetch, who flew in from the Bay Area to dine at FRANK with us.  Check out his amazing website and Facebook page, chock full of spectacular images!) At FRANK, we love our holiday themes.  For several months, Jennie and I have…

  • Masterchef 4 Recap: Team Mystery Box and Chocolate (S4E23)

    For the second to last time (Ben is back from Burning Man, but is currently trekking across the wild west and has no time to partake in MasterChef), hello, Starr-struck citizens of the internet! I am doing a temporary takeover of his blog in order to write the MasterChef recaps that so many of you…

  • MasterChef 3: Breakfast and Lava

    (Please note that all opinions in this blog are exactly that…opinions. I have no inside knowledge about how this season was filmed.  My words should not be treated as fact, only as opinion.) So we start off Monday’s episode with the judges waking up the contestants in their hotel room at 3:30am.  Just like Tanya,…

  • Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

    My friend Chef Dan was at my house the other day and said he wanted to make us his legendary cheesecake brownies.  When we went to the store to get the ingredients, he led me to the boxed cake mix section of the grocery store, and I steered him right back into the car to…

  • Bacon White Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Yes, yes…  I know.  “Bacon in a dessert?  GROSS!” I used to say the same thing, until my good friend Ross Strickland said on New Year’s Eve, “What we need tonight are some bacon white chocolate cookies.”  And for the past couple of years, all I hear about when I’m on the coasts is bacon…

  • Chocolate Covered Hazelnut Toffee

    A video tutorial is at the bottom of this recipe. I make this popular Christmas candy each year as easy, non-materialistic gifts. One batch will make 8-10 small present bundles, just wrap them in colored cellophane, tie it with some ribbon, and you’ve got a gift that will make mouths water with jealousy!  It will…

  • 5-minute Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

    I developed this recipe based on the popular “Microwave Chocolate Mug Cake” that makes the email rounds every year.  That recipe was actually developed by a Spanish molecular gastronomist (basically a creative food scientist/chef) and was considered a “high cuisine” dessert, to make and serve tableside at his $200-a-plate restaurant, to the amusement of his…

  • Christian’s Big Chocolate “O”

    Christian is a chocolate FIEND.  I have never seen anyone who can eat more chocolate than Christian.  For his birthday several years ago, Julia Child’s Chocolate Bombe just wasn’t cutting it any more, which was my replacement for Chocolate Blackout Cake.  So I had to think of something new. This was the result: Christian’s Big…

  • Crispy-Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Everyone LOVES chocolate chip cookies, right?  I don’t like desserts, and even I like chocolate chip cookies. This is a great recipe honed for several years to produce what I think is the ultimate chocolate chip cookie.  I don’t like cakey cookies because they seem dry in my mouth.  I like the soft, chewy kind,…