Some weeks back, as I was looking at Pinterest for dinner ideas, homemade pasta collided with all the peppermint-chocolate holiday desserts I was seeing to create a crazy idea in my brain: What if I created a peppermint chocolate pasta? Homemade chocolate pasta is something that we've done several times now, both in savory dishes and in desserts- why not a fun Christmastime version with peppermint chocolate? I couldn't come up with anything good to use as a sauce for the noodles, though, so instead I decided on peppermint noodles with a chocolate sauce, and crushed candy canes as a garnish. And then, inspired by all of my family members who are allergic to chocolate and get left out of being able to eat so many Christmas goodies, I decided to make a white chocolate version as well.
I'll admit that I've never been as fond of white chocolate as the regular kind, so the chocolate version is still my favorite, but I think the white chocolate still went superbly, and it dampened the peppermint flavor just a tad less than the chocolate did- plus it also does a bit better job of showing off the pretty pink color of the noodles. :)
For the peppermint pasta:
1/2 lb all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1-3/4 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 tsp vanilla
A couple drops of red food coloring (optional)
Mix together the flour and sugar in a large bowl and create a well in the center. Place the eggs, vanilla, and peppermint extract into the crater. Using a fork, lightly beat the eggs and extracts together, then slowly incorporate the flour, starting with the inner rim of the crater. Eventually, this will become a sticky mess of dough that you can knead together to form a dough ball. Add flour as you knead the dough until it is soft, but doesn't stick to your fingers, and keep kneading until it is moderately smooth. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Then, either send through a pasta machine, or knead for another 10 minutes or so, until the dough is completely smooth and elastic, and roll on a floured surface out with a rolling pin. In order to get a pretty marbled pink color in my noodles, I sent the dough through the pasta machine once or twice, and then put a couple drops of red food coloring onto half the dough, folded it in half, then continued with the pasta machine like normal, which caused the food coloring to stretch out with the dough.
I'm not sure you could do this if you're using a rolling pin, but if you don't care whether the dough is marbled looking, you could just add the food coloring in with the eggs and extracts, which would give it a more uniform pink color- or you could just leave the food coloring out altogether, since it doesn't affect the flavor. :) Roll the dough out until desired thickness and then cut into noodles, and cook until al dente. While pasta is cooking, crush up the candy canes (I put a couple of candy canes in a sandwich bag, closed it up, and hit it with the flat side of a meat mallet a few couple of times) and make the sauce:
For Sauce:
4 oz semisweet chocolate chips (or white chocolate chips)
1/2 cup cream
Put the chocolate chips in a small bowl. In a small saucepan heat the cream over lowish heat (or medium heat, if you're using our stove), stirring occasionally until steaming hot (but not boiling). Remove from heat. Pour half of hot cream over chocolate. Allow to stand for a minute, stir until smooth, and gradually stir in rest of cream.
Drain the pasta, and drizzle chocolate sauce over individual servings. Sprinkle liberally with the crushed candy canes- the chocolate and cream combo is very rich and really dampens the peppermint flavor of the noodles, so a lot of the peppermint flavor you're going to get will come from the garnish. Enjoy!
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