Chocolate-Nut Bars: the Perfect Dinner Party Dessert

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By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

Whenever I’m invited to dinner parties, I’m usually always asked to bring a dessert. I used to bring pies and cakes and large family-style desserts to make an impression. But as I’ve been to more and more, I’ve realized that what most people want after a large meal is really just a small nibble of something really indulgent. That’s why these days I always bring cookies. But they can’t just be sugar cookies; they need to have a little more panache.

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Make your own Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

By Ben Mims
For Cooking Newbie, a blog for beginner cooks

As I said in my Special Fork debut post, I love breakfast. It’s the best meal of the day and has the best dishes to choose from: biscuits with sausage gravy, chilaquiles; corned beef hash!

But more often than not, I always choose something sweet, whether it’s a simple scone or a rich slab of cake. One of my favorite things is Nutella, and for years, I spread it liberally, rotating it with peanut butter, jelly, or cinnamon-sugar butter, on my 7-grain toast.

I got the idea one day to try and make my own “Nutella” for a dessert I was developing, and it came out better than I expected. It retained small chunks of hazelnut, and I could control the sweetness and quality of chocolate.

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