Honey Roasted Cauliflower with Chocolate Hazlenut Drizzle

Have you heard of the Crazy Ingredient Challenge? I found it over on HungryLittleGirl.com and I signed up right away!! The challenge? Take two ingredients not normally used together and come up with an original recipe containing both. This month: Chocolate and Cauliflower

Now there are two I would have never thought to put together. I have blended cauliflower in mashed potatoes before but with chocolate? Challenge accepted!!  I decided to go all out and create a dessert recipe that would be unique and full of contrasting flavors. 

This recipe was inspired by my friend Kathy. I have roasted cauliflower often in garlic and olive oil and she told me once it tasted like candy. That moment came back to me when presented with these ingredients.  Hubby thought I'd lost my head when I told him what I was going to do.  His thought was cauliflower does NOT belong in a dessert recipe and especially not with chocolate! Was he right? Well, let's see.

Ingredients 

For the Cauliflower
1/2 head cauliflower
4 Tablespoon Honey
1 Tablespoon Dark Brown Sugar
2 1/2 Tablespoon melted butter (use real butter, not margarine)

For the Sauce

2 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 Tablespoons Nutella

1 Tablespoon Caffe Lolita Liquor
2 ozs dark chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon sugar or sugar substitute (i.e. Xylitol)

For nutrition information, click the magic button

 

To roast the cauliflower, preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Cut the cauliflower into bite sized pieces and lay them in a bread loaf pan. I started out with a cookie sheet and changed mid process to a bread loaf pan so the juices of the honey mix can easily soak into the veggies. 

In a small bowl, mix the honey, brown sugar and melted butter. Using a basting brush, brush half the mix over the veggies. Reserve the other half.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. At the 15 minute mark, add the remaining honey mix and stir the cauliflower.  When done baking, let the cauliflower cool in the juices then refridgerator for up to 30 minutes.

While the cauliflower cools, make the sauce. Add the milk and butter until the butter cools. Add the Nutella and whisk until blended. Add the liquor and the chocolate chips. Finally add the sugar. If you want it sweeter, add more sugar until it's just the way you want. I like the tartness of the dark chocolate so I minimized the sugar content. Cool the sauce about 30 minutes as well.

To serve, place cauliflower on a plate and drizzle the sauce over it. Or you can douse it in chocolate if you really want to!!! Another option is to let it sit in the fridge overnight and it's a cool treat. 

So how did this turn out? Quite interesting and I think quite tasty. The cauliflower turned a golden color from sitting in the honey butter and it maintained some crunch without getting mushy. Mushy would not work with this. The chocolate drizzle on top was sweet and tart at the same time. It worked really well with the honey flavor.  

I gave some to hubby to try and believe me he was skeptical! And he normally hates the tartness of dark chocolate. I was pleasantly surprised that he thought it was good and ate almost all of it (I was lucky I even got some). So he changed his mind and figured I had not lost my head. He preferred it warm while i preferred it cooled overnight. Either way, it was very good and it is something I would make again. 

Want to be part of the challenge? Click the button below and sign-up!