Pots de Creme au Chocolat with Vanilla Kipferl

This was our first plated dessert! We plated them yesterday, though we made them last week. The pots de creme were basically a baked chocolate custard, that was akin to pudding. They were quite nice! However they baked unevenly, so some were slightly underdone and some were overdone. Ah well, they were good for a first attempt. We topped them with sweetened whipped cream and chocolate shavings. We plated them on a doily and served them with two vanilla kipferl. Yum!

By the way vanilla kipferl are Austrian molded cookies. They are made with hazelnut flour and lots of vanilla paste, which gives them a lovely flavor. To mold them you roll small balls of the dough between your hands to make a log that is tapered on both ends (but not too pointy) and then bend it into a crescent shape. That is not easy to do. It isn't necessarily hard, it just takes a lot of practice and slightly bigger hands than I have. After they were baked, and while they were still warm from the oven, we rolled them in vanilla sugar, which stuck to them. That was a really nice touch. They are a very sweet cookie (not too sweet, in my opinion). They have a dense, dry, crumbly texture--like shortbread. I really like them and could see making these again on my own time.