Holy Panini!!

There's something about warm rich dark chocolate and fresh strawberries, melted between a buttery pound cake that's been pressed in a panini grill. Can you say Yummm!


I can't believe I never tried this before!

A while back I received this award winning chocolate as a gift from my son, who after reading this article in Food and Wine magazine, quickly ordered some.

Amedei was founded in 1990 by Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri who just happen to be brother and sister, they work together in Tuscany using artisan skills, along with the finest cacao, in producing this award winning chocolate.

According to the Food and Wine article,

"The most famous Venezuelan cacao of all comes from Chuao. The trees of Chuao are shielded by mountains from all but the warm Caribbean breezes; the soil is naturally irrigated by three cascading rivers. Doutre-Roussel calls the region "one of the jewels of the earth." Besides the microclimate, Chuao has centuries-old traditions of harvesting and preparing cacao. First it's fermented to develop the compounds that will later blossom into rich aromatics, then it's laid out on the parvis in front of the village church to dry slowly in the sun. Because the farmers worked together as a cooperative, Chuao is one of the only places where a chocolate maker could buy, at one stroke, 9 to 10 tons of uniformly excellent cacao. Until recently, that chocolate maker was Valrhona. Today every last kilo of cacao from Chuao goes to Amedei."

Needless to say I was excited to try this! My son's instructions were, " Mom, make sure you taste this on a clean palette, you don't want to try this after having onions or garlic, or anything else that would effect the true taste!" That's exactly what I did, I snapped a piece off, and I was in chocolate heaven! Not bitter at all to me, in fact I found it slightly creamy and so rich in flavor, a most memorable chocolate experience! Thanks Tony!!!

I couldn't wait to try this chocolate all warm and goowy, so I decided to melt some between pound cake in my panini gril. I just bought a good quality pound cake, because after all the chocolate is the star here, and some fresh strawberries. I brushed my heated grill slightly with unsalted butter, layed the chocolate bar on one side of the pound cake, along with some thinly cut strawberries. Gently bring the top down on your grill, you don't want to smash this at all, it only takes a couple of minutes to melt. Gently remove it and let it set a minute.

Look at that dark glossy color! Believe me, it tasted as good as it looks!!

Now you don't have to have Amedei chocolate to make this, you can use any favorite chocolate of your choice, of course a smear of Nutella would always do! Brioche, Challah, or even Ciabatta bread in place of the pound cake would be equally good as well.

Any way you make it, I'm sure you'll adore this decadent dessert!!

Buon Appetito!!