Monthly Archives: October 2009

October 23rd was a pretty good day…..and a pretty indulgent day.  Its a good thing the first thing I wanted to do on my birthday was run 8 miles…………not that 800 calories burned came even close to negating even a small portion of what I consumed that day.

handfuls upon handfuls of chocolate covered hazelnuts and razcherries, glasses of delicious west coast wine, homemade battered fish (courtesy of my brother), a plateful of mashed squash (by far my favorite veggie), and then came the birthday cake.

I had originally thought I would just whip up some kladdkaka, but then I decided that one only turns 28 once and one should have something fairly spectacular in the cake department to do so.  Plus, it was my birthday and all I really wanted to do was run, bake, and visit with my family.

I had been eying the Chocolate torte recipe from simplyrecipes.com for a while.  In fact, that’s where I got the crust that I had originally used on the kladdkaka.  This recipe is also known as Death by Chocolate….and good lord, what a way to go.

• 2 1/2 sticks of butter

• 2 cups of heavy cream

• 1 1/2 pounds of chocolate - YES.  One and a half POUNDS of chocolate.
  

I would say that you only serve cheesecake-size portions of this desert, but really, I can put down a decent size piece of cheesecake.  The portion I show in the picture below was far too big for me and was almost too large for my brother.  So please note, in all seriousness, this recipe could serve 20 people!

Chocolate Ganache Torte from simplyrecipes.com

Method

1 Prepare the crust. Chop/process the wafers and pecans until fine, add enough melted butter to press this into the spring-form pan (along the bottom and halfway up the sides). Bake in oven at 350°F for 20 minutes, put aside.

2 While the crust is baking, prepare the filling. In double boiler melt the butter and then add the chocolate. When chocolate is swirl-able, slowly add the whipping cream, stirring slowly, until mixture is blended and smooth. Pour mixture into the prepared shell. Refrigerate for at least four hours.

3 Prepare the sauce before serving (the sauce, served warm, should accompany the torte, served cold.) Melt butter over fairly high heat. Add sugar until saturated (the heat must be high enough for the sugar to dissolve; when no more will dissolve, the solution is saturated). Stirring only occasionally, let the mixture “burn” just enough to turn into a rich caramel. Add the cream, stirring briskly until well blended and smooth. Strain if necessary for smoothness.

This is a picture of the crust before patting it into the pie plate.

In case you were wondering what 1 1/2 pounds of chopped chocolate looked like.

(Sorry about the poor picture quality.  A proper DSLR camera is on my wish list….maybe in a couple of years.  *sigh*)

The final product.  I chose to drizzle the caramel sauce over the pieces individually rather than pour it over the entire torte.  By keeping the caramel in a separate container, we could then reheat the caramel and have the warm gooeyness with the many leftover pieces that would be eaten over the next few days.  And yes, you do need to serve something on the side with this.  I really thought the vanilla ice cream went perfectly.  You could do a simple whipped cream, but this cake is so rich and the warm caramel sauce works well with the cold ice cream.

I call this birthday torte a massive success.  It was not a cheap dessert to make (the chocolate alone was over $9 and I could have certainly purchased higher quality chocolate), but it does make for many servings.  The richness of it really made it a decadent treat that must be appreciated and savored slowly.  There was very little talking in the living room as we all sat contemplating the warm caramel, the dense chocolate, and the perfectly contrasting ice cream.  Or, we were probably all so silent because if we moved, our stomachs may have actually burst from the vast quantities of food we have been consuming all day!

As my birthday approaches (this Friday!) I needed to bring in something sweet to work.  I’m not sure how the tradition got started, but apparently, when it is one’s own birthday, YOU are expected to provide the celebratory treats.  This works out quite well for me as I love to bake but the last thing I need is a bunch of baked goods in my house calling my name.  (almost 2 weeks post-marathon and my favorite jeans are getting tighter as the days go by….)

I decided to bake up one of my faves, Kladdkaka.  Kladdkaka is a rich chocolately brownie-like cake which we should all be eternally grateful to the Swedes for.  It literally means ‘sticky cake’ in Swedish and its a soft, gooey version of a near flourless cake that one can eat with a spoon when warm…..though its best (and most traditionally) served cold with freshly whipped cream.

I thought I would try putting a cookie nut crust on it to see if I like the added texture.  The result?  Not so much.  I adore the Kladdkaka.  I actually quite like the crust.  But they just don’t seem to work that well together.  I was thinking that the Kladdkaka would be soft enough to work well with a crust, but really, the crust just distracted from delicious simplicity of the cake.

So, here’s the recipe…..but skip the crust.  Kladdkaka is just perfect on its own.  ya.

(oh, and I’ll admit.  I overbaked it…even though every direction says not to!  I got distracted by a mediocre television show….*sigh*…….next time it’ll be perfect, I promise!)

The Crust

(From simplyrecipes.com’s Chocolate Ganache Torte recipe)

• One box “Nabisco’s Famous” chocolate wafers, or your favorite chocolate nut cookies – I ended up using Oreos and just scraped off the cream
• 2/3 cup pecans – I used delux mixed nuts
• Melted butter (1/4 cup or less)
• 9 inch spring-form pan

1. Prepare the crust. Chop/process the wafers and pecans until fine, add enough melted butter to press this into the spring-form pan (along the bottom and halfway up the sides). Bake in oven at 350°F for 20 minutes, put aside.

Kladdkaka

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8-inch pie plate.
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt; set aside. Stir the eggs into the sugar until smooth. Add the flour mixture, and stir just until combined. Pour in the vanilla extract and butter; stir until well combined. Pour into prepared pie plate.
3. Bake on the lower rack of the preheated oven for 35 minutes, or until the center has slightly set. Allow cake to cool for 1 hour in the pie plate. Serve warm, or refrigerate overnight and serve cold.