Chocolate Snowballs for Winter (To eat, not throw!)

I grabbed this cookbook when we had our first significant snowfall last week,  and decided writing about a book called Chocolate Snowball would be perfect for now. You can see a photo of a chocolate snowball on the top left of the book cover.  It's a decadent flourless chocolate cake covered in whipped cream.  It can be made as one cake or into individual servings to actually look like little snowballs.  Your holiday guests would love this!

The cookbook features dessert recipes from Utah's Deer Valley ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains where executive pastry chef Letty Halloran Flatt offers 125 of the resort's tried and true recipes for cookies, cakes, breads, ice cream, pies, tarts, breakfast treats for skiers, and more.   At the lodge they enjoy a variety of quick breads like pumpkin, cranberry-orange, chocolate zucchini, and banana raspberry, along with cherry scones, oatmeal rosemary scones, honey sticky buns, or whole wheat cinnamon brioche buns.  The skiers love the offerings in the breakfast delights chapter, before embarking on a ski run or other winter sports. 

If you love baking, this book is for you, whether you are a seasoned pastry chef or novice baker.  Not only are the recipes decadent and original, there are chapters explaining every term pertaining to baking, and detailed explanations including high altitude baking, which you can't always find in every baking or dessert book.  Go embark on your favorite winter sport, burn a ton of calories, then head back to the kitchen and bake something from this wonderful cookbook.

Speaking of winter sports, I have to tell you about a special person in our family, Olympian Chris Klug.  All of us in our extended family took great pride in watching Chris win a bronze medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.  Chris is a snowboarder, and not just any snowboarder.  Two years before the Olympics, Chris was gravely ill with a rare liver disorder and awaiting a liver transplant.  After years on the donor transplant waiting list, Chris was informed that a liver was available to him.  Chris became the first Olympian in history , winter or summer, to win a medal after an organ transplant.  He started the "Chris Klug Foundation" (CKF) in 2004, which is dedicated to promoting lifesaving organ donation, and improving the lives of donors, donor families, and organ candidates and recipients.  Since this is the season of giving, click on the link to the foundation and read how many people have given the gift of life through organ donation.

Have a happy, healthy holiday season!