A chocolate thing with no chocolate?

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So, since I don’t bake very much, I have the one thing that I bake well. It’s called Sin. I’ve volunteered to make several batches of this for a Relaxacon that I’m going to in January, which will be no problem, but I would like to make a batch that’s not chocolate. And I have no idea where to start to try and change the flavor.

The recipe is as follows:

1 lb chocolate
1 lb butter
1 cup half and half
1 cup sugar (optional)
1 tsp vanilla (or liqueur flavoring of your choice)
8 eggs.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
melt butter and chocolate together over low heat. Add half and half, sugar and vanilla.
Beat eggs in a glass bowl until they lightly foam.
Add chocolate mixture to the eggs, mixing constantly.
Pour mixture into 9″ springform pan, bake for 45 minutes. (note: the center will still be liquid when it comes out of the oven.)
Let cool to room temperature on a rack.
Refrigerate for 6 or more hours.
Serve either in very small pieces (like fudge), or in small slices with ice cream, a sauce of your choice, and/or whipped cream.

Any ideas that a midwestern american is going to be able to get her hands on the ingredients would be great.

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I assume we’re talking

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Oh, yes. I keep forgetting that we’re the oddballs over here with Fahrenheit temps.

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You’re going to have some trouble replacing the chocolate in a recipe like this, first, because it’s a large percentage of the total volume of ingredients, and second, because it offers both fat (for mouth-feel) and stability when it’s baked. If you replaced the chocolate with something like cream cheese, you’d have the fat, but not the stability. You might try experimenting with a mixture of a flavored cream cheese (Philly brand has flavors like strawberry that are available in my neighborhood (North Carolina) grocery store) and flour to make an volume equivalent to the chocolate. Maybe start with two parts cream cheese and one part flour. If that doesn’t come out right, try changing the amounts. I’ll be interested in knowing how it comes out.

Lee Morgan

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I was a bit afraid of that. One thought that I had was using butterscotch chips or something else similar to a chocolate chip, but I’m concerned that it would still be too sweet, even if I didn’t include the sugar. The particularly unfortunate thing is that it is very difficult to cut the batch into a small enough amount for testing, as it changes the volume too much for the baking part to be very consistent. And I loathe throwing away that much food if it turns out to be way too rich.

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You might experiment with almond bark, or perhaps a combination of butterscotch chips and almond bark. I don’t think the almond bark is nearly as sweet as the butterscotch chips, so you might get by if you don’t add the optional sugar.

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I’m sorry to be ignorant – but what is 1 cup half and half ? Is that an American thing?

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I’m not very kitchen-friendly, but I am a little web-savvy….

http://www.foodsubs.com/Dairyoth.html%5B/url%5D:
half-and-half = half & half (10.5 – 18% fat) Substitutes: equal parts cream and milk OR evaporated milk OR 7/8 C milk + 1

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As an echo to Tibbs, what is Half and Half?

And may I ask why you’re looking to cut out the chocolate? Is this something to do with whatever a Relaxacon is? Is it like a diet club or something? Forgive my questioning, I’ve never heard of one.

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To answer these three questions:

Half and Half is probably an American thing. It’s a milk product that still has most of the milk fat in it. The term comes from “half milk, half cream”.

A Relaxacon is a small science fiction (usually) convention where the point is more to hang out and chat and relax (and usually therefore has things like more decadent food, etc. than a larger convention); so, actually, the reason I’m looking for a non-chocolate substitute doesn’t much have to do with that. What it does have to do with is that a few of the people who go to the Relaxacon cannot, for one reason or another, have chocolate. So I thought it would be nice to try and figure out a version of this dish that doesn’t have chocolate in it so that they could have some too. And it seemed like an interesting challenge.

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Now I see. I was trying to equate it to a UK equivalent. Over here we have Stripey Blue Top, Stripey Red Top, Red Top, Silver Top and Gold Top available from the (sadly dwindling in number) milk floats, but in the supermarkets, the main types on sale are skimmed, semi-skimmed and full cream.

BTW would carob be a good substitute? Not as yummy as chocolate, but a passable substitute, well sort of.

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I don’t think carob would work in this particular situation. One of the people who is in the not eating chocolate camp says that he feels like carob is a ‘cheater’s’ method of dealing with a dislike for chocolate (he’s been allergic all of his life, and doesn’t understand the fascination that we have with chocolate) He is also a connoisseur of caramel. Unfortunately, we’re fairly certain that caramel would be a totally wrong consistency for this.

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To be honest, I personally don’t think carob works in any situation . Caramel certainly wouldn’t work, hard or soft. The only other suggestions I can make would be to use white chocolate in place of milk choc or change the recipe to something like Peanut Brittle. I’m still trying to envisage the consistency and taste of the original recipe. Is it like a sweet chocolatey omelette, or more like a cake (without the flour)? With all that fat, I can’t imagine it solidifying much.

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The consistency was best described to me by a friend as “solid pudding” but I’m afraid there might be a loss in translation, as most european puddings are quite different from what americans call pudding. It was originally billed as a flourless cake, and has a consistency somewhere between cheesecake and fudge. When it comes out of the oven, it is liquid. The cooling and then chilling is necessary to keep the top from “splitting” as it solidifies.

I’ve put some thought into it, and have figured out that I’ve been making this long enough that I could probably make a very small batch (1/8) of the melted part to determine if almond bark will be too sweet in the finished product.

Thanks, all, for your help! I’ll let you know when I come up with a finished recipe.

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Thanks for the explanation of half and half. We have evaporated milk here so that should work. It certainly sounds a yummy dish. Good luck with the chocolate replacement.

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Alright, I give in – what’s Almond bark?! I can’t imagine that it’s literally bark from an almond tree …

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Well, I’m even more confused than usual now.
Every reference to Almond Bark I find with Google points to something that is made of almonds.
And chocolate.

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Well, this is where we have another fun thing. Almond bark is white chocolate with almonds in it. Some folks in the US refer to the white coating chocolate that is used to make almond bark as almond bark, which it really isn’t. And the important detail here is that American white chocolate (I don’t know about European, so I will not make assumptions) doesn’t have any cocoa in it at all. Which means those folks allergic to chocolate probably aren’t allergic to it.

—

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Hi Shoryl

But what begins with a single circle of wire… ?????

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Chainmail. Y’see, I want to be an armorer when I grow up…

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A new variety of Spam?

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Is that SPAM, Spam or spam? See this for the story! Wonder what’s next, Fish fingers?

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No, no, no, you silly people!

Very flexible armor that is lighter weight, but not as durable as plate. The stuff that knights didn’t wear, but the better off footmen did.

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Are things really that bad in St Paul that you need protective armour??

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They spend the night in armour there…

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Surely you joust.

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I’m not sure this is worth blunting my wit.

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(Edited by gwhitfield on 08-Nov-02 06:15. Hyperlinks added)

To get this back on track, I’m afraid if chocolate allergies are the problem, white chocolate won’t solve it. While white chocolate doesn’t have chocolate liquor, it does still have cocoa butter. And some people who are allergic to chocolate are actually allergic to the cocoa butter. Or so a friend of mine who is terribly allergic to chocolate tells me.

I am, however, intrigued by the idea of caramel in this recipe. Maybe you could substitute something like a caramel ice cream topping (see http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/view?id=105386%5B/url%5D) for the chocolate in this recipe. It would be pretty sweet, but I bet it would be yummy.

Don’t the English have something called light cream, which is the equivalent of half and half? It’s a milk product with a butterfat content somewhere between milk and regular cream.

Lee Morgan

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In my humble opinion (!), you might want to give up on substituting in the original recipe and make creme brulee. It’s a known quantity, sure to impress, and I’ve heard the part where you use the torch is a lot of fun. Now, to find a recipe you can trust…

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I think the almond bark is probably your best bet. You might even be able to just switch lb for lb.

Personally I’d make Divinity or Penoche (or both) for the non chocolate goody.

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Well, I came up with a solution to the problem that works reasonably well. The biggest problem I had was the consistency, as almond bark is not as thick as chocolate. So I cut back some on the butter, and since the almond bark I was using doesn’t come in 16 oz packages, I just used the 20oz for my testing. Also, I am very* fond of vanilla, so that’s why the increase in the amount of vanilla used.

Here’s the recipe:

3/4 lb butter
20 oz. Almond bark (I found some that contained no cocoa butter, so you might want to watch for that if it’s an issue.)
1 cup half and half
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract (or flavoring of choice)
eight eggs

Melt butter and almond bark over low heat.
blend in half and half and vanilla.
In a bowl, beat eight eggs until slightly foamy.
combine butter/bark mixture with eggs until well blended.
Pour into 9″ springform pan
bake at 350 F for 30-35 minutes. The center should still be mostly liquid.
cool on a rack to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

This stuff is very sweet, but not as rich as its chocolate counterpart. I would recommend serving with a tart or tangy sauce. I used an unsweetened raspberry sauce that went marvelously.

On an interesting note, the convention that I’m doing this for is next weekend, and we decided to make the seven deadly sins (as the chocolate version is called sin). To make each batch unique, we chose different flavored alcohol to replace the vanilla (at about 2 tablespoons to the batch). Here are the flavors we are using:
Pride: Vanilla with no chocolate (as noted above)
Lust: Chocolate with Godiva Liqueur
Greed: Chocolate with Goldschlager (the gold leaf is sifted out at put on top during refrigeration)
Anger: Chocolate with Inferno Vodka (hot peppers)
Envy: Chocolate with Frangelico
Sloth: Plain Chocolate
Gluttony: Chocolate with Grand Marnier

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