Welcome to Plus One, a column by Food Editor Emily Ziemski where those small-but-mighty additions that instantly upgrade whatever’s on the table—ingredients, sauces, toppings—are the star of the show. Today, an unexpected addition to a Valentine’s Day chocolate.
This Valentine’s Day, I’m focusing on the long-standing loves of my life: my dear friends, my stand mixer (literally still standing since high school), my sweet, elderly cat, and the day-after Valentine’s Day chocolate sales. Love is definitely a box of chocolates, especially if I can get that love at 70 percent off. Yes, please.
The ultimate example of how to form those sturdy, life-long bonds we love to celebrate in February can be found in our fungi friends, the mushroom. Known as mycelium, mushrooms silently form an underground network assisted by tree roots in order to share nutrients and “communicate.” This mini social network of sorts allows the fungi to thrive in most environments while receiving info about humidity levels, sunlight, and nutrition sources from their friends. The oldest example of this is a cluster in Oregon that’s over 2,000 years old… Talk about being in it for the long haul.
What better way to honor big loves than by merging the timeless chocolate truffle with a little mushroom magic? Sweet, decadent truffles are getting a savory grounding from just a touch of porcini mushroom powder—which is made from dried then ground mushrooms. For a sweet, juicy accompaniment, I’m also calling on strawberry powder. The resulting composition is a bit vegetal and a touch caramel-sweet with a lot of bright acid notes. The umami aspect of mushrooms here tempers a dessert that can sometimes be a bit too cloying, and transforms it into something more balanced. And isn’t that what good love is? Balanced, down-to-earth, and sweet enough to keep going back for more. —Emily Ziemski
This recipe is a part of Chocolate Week—seven days of recipes and stories, all chocolate—presented by our friends at Guittard. A fifth-generation family business, Guittard has been crafting an array of chocolate offerings (like top-quality baking chips, cocoa powder, and baking bars) in San Francisco since 1868. —The Editors
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