Weekend Cookbook Challenge ~ Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food, My Way

Thanks to Alicat and Sara for hosting the new and improved Weekend Cookbook Challenge, a topic near and dear to my heart. I am a confessed cookbook addict. I have at least a few hundred cookbooks, most being babysat by a friend in San Francisco. She has them in her shelves in her office and says hello to them for me every morning. I don’t have children, I have cookbooks. Yes, I’m seeing someone about this...

Anyways, when I first came to France I had only my knife bag and one large duffel bag so not much room for cookbooks. I packed my notebook from cooking school and Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food, My Way. I cooked on this show and one morning while Jacques was reviewing the recipes for the day, I asked him how he came up with these recipes? He said that this is what he cooks at home...so if you want to cook like Jacques Pepin does chez lui, here's the book for you...

Fast Food, My Way certainly isn’t an old book but it’s one of the few I have with me here in France and I use it all the time. This is a super-easy dessert that I make when I am craving chocolate or need a quick last minute dessert. Everyone comes back for seconds so make a few extra just in case. I sometimes serve it a few minutes out of the oven so the middle is still soft and a bit oozy like the molten lava cakes. And topped with apricot and cognac, well, hard to go wrong...

I made it this past summer when I cooked at a certain swanky chateau. The strawberries were so sweet one morning at the market that I bought a flat and simply pureed a basket or two and served it with that. Formidable!  Bon appetit!

Chocolate Cake & Apricot Cognac Sauce
*from Jacques Pepin’s Fast Food, My Way

8 oz (225 grams) bittersweet chocolate
8 tbsp (1 stick or 110 grams) butter
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
½ cup apricot jam
2 tbsp warm water
2 tbsp cognac

1. heat oven to 350 degrees
2. over a bain marie, melt chocolate, butter, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla. whisk until smooth.
3. add eggs and yolks and whisk again until smooth
4. pour into individual ramekins or muffin tins
5. bake for 8 minutes
6. let them cool to room temperature
7. combine jam, water and cognac until smooth
8. flip dessert over onto plate and top with sauce