Comfort You Trivia Quiz

Bûche de Noël (Yule log) is a French pastry treat that is traditionally served around Christmas time. It is fashioned to resemble an actual Yule log, as used to be burned at that season in many parts of Europe. It is basically a Swiss roll (a thin sponge cake rolled around a cream or buttercream filling) coated in chocolate and decorated.

The chocolate is often given a bark-like appearance by dragging a fork through it before it sets. Real chocaholics can make the cake chocolate instead of the traditional plain vanilla sponge and use a chocolate buttercream for the moist layer.

The origin of the chocolate chip cookie is hotly disputed, with multiple people claiming the fortuitous discovery. Whatever its origins, you can now buy chocolate pieces designed especially to be mixed through a cookie dough so that the resulting cookie has chunks of concentrated chocolate.

Some even go for a triple-choc cookie: chocolate dough, and chocolate chips that are a mixture of milk chocolate and white chocolate.

In case you were worried, this pizza does not start with the traditional tomato base! Some incorporate chocolate into the pizza dough, while others use a standard pizza base (possibly with sugar added, as it is a sweet rather than a savoury dish) and spread chocolate on the top. Toppings are not mushroom, cheese and pepperoni - powdered sugar, fresh fruits, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips and nuts are more common. If you have used a chocolate dough, then spreading it with hazelnut spread reproduces the taste of Nutella. Or if you hanker after a s'more, marshmallows added just before the end of baking will gain a nice gooey texture.

Cannoli (the plural, because who can eat just one?) are an Italian pastry of fried dough formed into a cylinder and given a sweet filling. The traditional filling is based on ricotta cheese, and usually includes whipped cream and/or mascarpone for a lighter texture as well as sugar for sweetness.

A popular presentation (at least, here in Melbourne) is the black-and-white cannolo, with one half of the filling vanilla, the other half chocolate. The cannolo in the image is dipped in chocolate chips on one end, and crushed nuts on the other. I suggest an entirely chocolate filling, dipped in nuts on both ends.

Nuts and chocolate - they go together like a horse and carriage, even if that doesn't rhyme. Sometimes they are presented as in the image, with each nut coated individually in chocolate - dark, milk or white - your choice; mine will be dark. They may also be formed into clusters, so a handful of nuts are bound together in a lump of chocolate. And, of course, you needn't restrict yourself to almonds - peanuts, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, cashews, Brazil nuts, pecans, almost any nut goes with chocolate!

It is a matter of debate as to which is the 'best' doughnut, but I am voting for the chocolate-topped doughnut, made with a light yeasty dough. They are fiddly to make, as the dough requires multiple rising, so the cinnamon-and-sugar-coated doughnut using a more biscuity dough is faster to prepare, and does taste amazing when consumed within minutes of preparation.

But the choc top is worth the wait, and retains its lusciousness for a longer time if you need to prepare them in advance of consumption.

Ice cream in its most basic form is made from cream (usually, but a mixture including milk can be used) mixed with a chosen flavouring agent, then stirred while it freezes, to prevent the formation of large particles of ice, and produce a semi-solid foam.

But that hardly captures the rich variety of the food. While it is often stated that the most popular flavour of ice cream is vanilla, that is based on production - if you ask someone to name their favourite flavour, it is more likely to be chocolate or some more exotic flavour (Jamocha almond fudge anyone?). Vanilla is used to make a large range of commercial products, because it mixes well with coatings, toppings, and flavouring agents.

While it is possible to make a blonde brownie, which has the same texture as a proper chocolate brownie but uses brown sugar and vanilla for flavour, for most people the brownie is a chocolate cake with a luscious gooey texture and a shiny gloss on its upper surface.

They are baked in rectangular pans, and served cut into squares. The ones in the image have been decorated with chocolate sauce, and ice cream is also a popular accompaniment. Brownies do not need to be reserved for dessert - they make a great snack with a cup of coffee, tea or milk.

There are several types of treat called chocolate oranges. One (commercially available, and hard to duplicate at home) is pure chocolate, with orange oil flavouring, that is formed into pieces resembling the segments of an orange, then stacked together and wrapped in orange foil, to be presented as an orange of chocolate.

Another type is essentially orange segments dipped in chocolate. While you are making that, keep the peel so you can candy it and coat it, too, in chocolate. Assemble, admire, and eat!

Not the mushrooms, these truffles are a confectionery that starts with a chocolate ganache formed into a sphere to resemble the fungus from which its name is derived before being rolled in a chocolate mixture that hardens to form a shell. The filling can be flavoured - liqueurs are popular - or include a nut as a core - some truffles even use white chocolate so it can be flavoured with nut butter or fruit. There are even some that substitute a maraschino cherry! The shell can also be flavoured, but is more often just made from milk or dark or white chocolate. The final product can be rolled in cocoa powder or crushed nuts, or decorated with more chocolate.

Since all truffles look very much the same, it is traditional to add a decoration to the outside that indicates which flavour is inside. When you buy a box of mixed truffles, it is important to keep track of the slip of paper telling you which is which, or you may find yourself very disappointed at your selection.

Chocolate and strawberries are clearly a pair that has been accepted, although some may find it a bit odd. I definitely do not recommend the chocolate-covered freeze-dried strawberries we tried one Christmas, but they have a market.

The simplest preparation of this treat is simply dipping the strawberries in a chocolate coating, as seen in the image. More sophisticated preparations can involve decorating the chocolate, either by piping a contrasting colour of chocolate on it, or by rolling it in finely crushed nuts. The most important tip for success is making sure your strawberries are washed and very thoroughly dried, as any residual water in their surface will keep the chocolate from setting properly.

A barquillo is a crispy tube of thinly-rolled cookie dough that originated in Spain. Their texture is similar to that of an ice cream wafer cone. The size of the tube varies from region to region. The ones in the image, from the Philippines, are slightly thinner than a human finger.

While the original barquillo was eaten plain, modern versions are often flavoured. Sometimes a barquillo is formed from two different flavours and/or colours of dough. A popular Filipino variant is to use a combination of chocolate and vanilla for the wafer and fill the tube with chocolate - very sweet, but lovely with a short black coffee!