Signature Desserts

Chocolate for Breakfast

Entertaining Menus to Start the Day with a Celebration
From Napa Valley’s Oak Knoll Inn

by Barbara Passino

Chocolate for Breakfast by Barbara Passino (The Gerald & Marc Hoberman Collection; February 2009) enables chocophiles to indulge their chocolate fantasies at breakfast with creative recipes and menus.

“Chocolate has always been my passion, ever since I was a baby and my mother gave me a chocolate brownie as a bribe,” says Passino. “When I would visit my Aunt Johnny , she and I would share a secret ritual, tiptoeing down to the kitchen in the morning for a secret breakfast of brownies from the night before. That’s where I got the idea of having chocolate for breakfast.”

These memories prompted Passino to create the signature menus and recipes that she serves daily at her famous Oak Knoll Inn in California’s Napa Valley. Chocolate for Breakfast is a collection of 100 or her recipes along with techniques, philosophies and anecdotes. She has also provided a list of resources for all of the items needed to create her recipes.

Recipes include

• Triple Threat Chocolate Muffins baked in flower pots
• Chocolate-filled Gazelle Horns
• Chocolate Truffle Fritters with Cherry Sauce
• Chocolate Omelet with Blueberries in a Pinot Noir Sauce
• Chocolate Strawberry Dumpling

Visit www.OakKnollInn.com.

Chocolate Strawberry Shortcake
Serves 8

Shortcake
1-3/4 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
2 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Topping
2 pints of strawberries, sliced
1 cup heavy cream, whipped with 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar and a splash of Grand Marnier
1 pint strawberry sorbet

Make the shortcake:
Place the dry ingredients in a food processor and blend. Add the butter and pulse just until blended. Mix together the eggs, cream and vanilla and add to the dry ingredients. Blend, and then add chocolate chips. Shape the dough into an 8-inch disk, place on a cookie sheet, cover loosely with waxed paper and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour.

Bake the shortcake:
Preheat oven to 375°. Place the chilled dough on a work surface and cut it like a pie into 8 wedges. Separate and place them on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 22 minutes. Cool slightly and slice the top half off.

Assemble the shortcake:
Fill with sliced strawberries, whipped cream and serve with strawberry sorbet, garnished with a mint sprig.