and double YUM!

while most of the time, i’m not a big fan of sweets, i usually dissolve into a puddle of helplessness over celebratory desserts. i think i actually like making them way more than i like eating them.

last week was my birthday, but this week it’s barb’s birthday and as it happens, we have spinning class tonight, just one day before it. so i wanted to make her a treat. she said “anything chocolate; dont’t go to a lot of trouble”. check and double check

we also have a couple of class members who need to eat gluten free, so i went in search of something tasty that we could ALL share (that’s how we roll around here). after looking over a bunch of recipes (one of which called for a POUND of chocolate, half a pound of butter, and eight eggs—WHOA), i found this nice little recipe.

what i liked about it on paper was that it made a small, pretty cake that would probably be gone after the party—the last thing we need this week is more cake hanging around. i even have the 7-inch tart pan that it called for somewhere, but danged if i could find it last night (because we’ve always planned to renovate the kitchen, i still have about 2/3s of my stuff packed away in the basement, heh).

anyway, i thought that using cupcake papers instead would be a good substitute for a tart pan.

the recipe is a cinch to put together;  it took no longer than ten minutes to mix up on top of the stove and i didn’t change one thing about it. i noticed that it calls for vanilla but does not say when to add it; i just whisked it in at the end, after the cocoa, as you would with fudge. i baked the individual tarts for about twenty minutes instead of 25 and next time, i will experiment with cooking them a little less to keep the centers just a bit looser. i was surprised the recipe made twelve 2-inch tarts; it made me wonder if all that would have fit in a 7-inch tart pan (they are probably an inch thick each).

the bake time was so short that i didn’t trust myself to walk away, so i poured a cup of coffee and knit on david’s basketweave sock while the kitchen filled with the most delicious. deep. dark. chocolate scent EVER.

for the glaze i used espresso dark chocolate and added a single chocolate covered espresso bean on top. beckie is bringing vanilla ice cream to go with them.

the nice thing about tarts is that you can taste one without ruining the look of the whole dessert, and well, david and i felt obligated as journalists to investigate for you. the verdict?

YUMYUMYUMYUMYUMYUMYUM!!
omg . . . SOooo good.
(that is not an invitation for all of you spinners to come early tonight!)

now, it’s really not nice of me to flash such treasures in front of your faces when you can’t even get a whiff of the deliciousness, much less a taste or a bite like WE will later on.

so let’s talk about your treat then . . . who won the  extra yarn book??

drum rolllllllll . . . . . debby w!

oh wow, when i first saw it, i thought it was another debby, but actually, it is debby from my knitting class; how cool is that? she has a bunch of grandchildren and one of them wants to knit, so i know it will go to a nice home. congratulations debby.

yesterday i worked all day on the new sweater pattern, but i don’t feel i got very far—what’s up with that? sometimes, that’s how it goes though; i spend a lot of time on preliminary details that don’t produce results, but when it all starts coming together, it happens so quickly that a pattern seems to materialize out of nowhere.

i’ve knit about halfway up the armhole section on the actual sweater front and i love the way the cable looks. just enough of a detail to give it a nice finish at that edge, not too fancy for david.

i’m also working on several secret projects at once, so i can’t show you that knitting today. but soon i’ll have a couple more public knitting projects on the needles and progress on some that are sitting around here neglected.

i’ve gotten this shawlette pattern written up now and ronni has sent back some corrections; once i make those changes, we can send it to phoebe for test knitting.

i plan to knit another one myself with this luscious raft of otter fingering yarn in colorway amber, by alisha goes around—highly desirable, no? with both BFL and silk in the mix, the sheen on this stuff is to die for. i can’t WAIT to cast on; i’ve been drooling over this skein for a year now, just waiting for the right project to come along.

once i get that sweater pattern out the door, i plan to spend some extra time on knitting to make up for all the desk work i’ve been doing lately (too much, i can tell you that).

and lastly, the elves have been very, very busy . . .

the first shipment of the spring/summer barenaked club went out to our international customers yesterday, but it’s not too late to join; we’ve got a few last spots remaining (and unlimited eBook-only spots). mister knitspot will be happy to add you to the list, should you decide to come on board at the very last minute.

and no—you don’t have to knit naked to take part (unless you want to)!

alright now, i gotta get to a doctor’s appt today and the way the snow is flying out there, it looks like i’d better start early.