"Cappuccino and Chocolate"

I made this trompe l'oeil dessert for Christmas Day dinner at our house. It is composed of espresso ice cream served in an espresso cup topped with vanilla meringue "foam," with Sambuca truffles to go along with it. This is a fun dessert to serve because of its cute presentation, and all of the components are delicious and go extremely well together.

The recipe for the espresso ice cream is here.

And I used this truffle recipe, adding a few tablespoons of Sambuca until the flavor was strong enough.

I don't remember which meringue recipe I used; any good recipe will do. Use a pastry bag or plastic bag with the corner cut off to pipe the filling into pretty mounds of "foam."

BTW: The espresso cup and plate are "Koko" by Arabia, a Finnish ceramics company. Their products are so beautiful and well-made. Arabia's product line can be found at their website.

Salted Caramel Ice Cream

One of the most delicious frozen desserts I have ever eaten. I served this with bombolini (a smaller version of the Italian doughnuts bomboloni), cranberry-pomegranate sauce, and candied pecans for Thanksgiving dessert. Perfect.

Adapted from The New York Times and Orangette

The recipe for bomboloni can be found here.

Ingredients:

• 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar, divided
• 2 cups organic cream
• 2 cups organic whole milk
• 10 large egg yolks
• ½ tsp fleur de sel, plus more for serving

Steps:

1. Place ¾ cup sugar in a medium saucepan and place the pan over medium-high heat. Cook the mixture to a dark caramel, swirling the pan as it begins to brown to distribute the sugar.
2. Add the cream; then slowly add the milk. The caramel will seize and harden. Bring the mixture to a boil, and then simmer it, stirring, just until the caramel has dissolved.
3. Meanwhile, place the yolks in a large bowl with the remaining ½ cup sugar and the fleur de sel. Whisk to combine. When the caramel cream is ready, pour about a quarter cup of it into the egg mixture to temper, whisking constantly. Then, continuing to whisk constantly, pour about a third of the caramel cream into the egg mixture, a half cup at a time. Pour the tempered egg mixture into the caramel cream and whisk thoroughly until smooth.
4. Pour the mixture through a fine-meshed sieve into a medium metal bowl. Place the bowl in an ice bath to cool the mixture completely. Remove the bowl from the ice bath, cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until cold. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. Serve with additional fleur de sel sprinkled on top.

Yields about 1 quart (recipe can be halved)