TWD: Chocolate Cream Tart

This is going to be a short but extremely sweet post. This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Kim of Scrumptious Photography (recipe is on her blog). I made this delicious tart for Easter and everyone who tasted it really loved it- not just polite, "thank you, that was delicious" but like really wanted another slice and asked for the recipe loved it!


The crust is a chocolate shortbread that you make in the food processor and press into the tart pan. I always press my dough into the pan and then leave it in the refrigerator overnight before baking it- I find that the unfilled shell doesn't puff up as much that way. This is not a sweet chocolate crust- instead it has an intensely chocolate flavor but maintains the somewhat saltiness of normal pie crust. I was skeptical at first- but it pairs magnificently with the chocolate cream!


The cream is a chocolate pastry cream that you cook on the stove- also very easy! The one strange thing is how quickly it thickens- you feel like you are stirring a liquidy, milky substance for a few minutes and then in 3 seconds it becomes the cream! The flavor of the cream is divine and the texture is so silky!

Finally you top it with whipped cream- I doubled mine because I wanted to do it up big for Easter!

Thanks to my mom who took these pictures for me at the party at my aunt's house since they cut the pie while I was putting Helen Mae down for a nap- she's a really great mom!!

Daring Bakers: Cheesecake!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Ok, I really slipped this one in right in the nick of time- today is the Daring Bakers reveal day and I actually woke up and made this cheesecake this morning and let it chill all day before decorating it, snapping a few pictures of it, and serving it! The recipe was for a very simple, basic cheesecake with a graham cracker crust but we were given instructions to do whatever we wanted to flavor it and make it our very own creation! So, because I am not fancy and or experienced with cheesecakes (I can't stand cream cheese so I NEVER eat or make cheesecake!) I made an Oreo crust, a chocolate cheesecake, a little chocolate sauce, and some good old fashioned whipped cream and called it a night. I think my cake turned out remarkably cute although extremely cliché looking! haha! Sort of like those cakes you see in the refrigerated cases at the bakery section of a grocery store! OH well!


Although I could not bring myself to eat a slice- it got rave reviews from my entire family. Here's a little secret: I used 16 oz of 1/3 fat cream cheese and 8 oz of regular full fat cream cheese and nobody noticed! The recipe is so simple and so versatile that I know I will make it again and again because everyone loves cheesecake (besides me). The cake is baked in a water bath to prevent cracking. There was a lot of debate about how to keep the water out of the spring form pan so that the crust doesn't get water-logged. I followed the advice to place the spring form pan into a larger cake pan and then placed that into the water bath- it worked great! I had no cracks and the crust was very crisp.


I ended up with a lot of extra batter so I put a whole Oreo in the bottom of a muffin liner and filled them with about two spoonfuls of the batter. They baked in about 25 minutes and there was only one crack casualty in the whole dozen:


My husband can't seem to keep his hands off the cheesecaklettes because they are just so easy to pop in your mouth and you don' t even need a knife and plate to eat it.


Thank you Jenny for a very good recipe- and be sure to check out the Daring Kitchen to see the amazing variety and astounding results that the Daring Bakers had with this cake!


Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake:
adapted by Emily Rose

crust:
2 cups / 180 g Oreo crumbs
1 stick / 4 oz butter, melted

cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup / 210 g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
6 oz. chocolate melted
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

TWD: Four Star Chocolate Bread Pudding

Bread pudding...I've always found it to be a strange concept- stale bread, soaked in a cream and egg mixture, then baked in a water bath? Let's face it, it's just odd. I've never been the biggest fan, but I figured that I'd try this one out because it is a chocolate bread pudding after all! This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Lauren of Upper East Side Chronicle (the recipe can be found on her blog). I'll be honest with you, I didn't love this dessert- but I didn't dislike it either. The flavor was delicious- creamy, chocolaty, rich, but I just can't get past the strange texture of bread pudding. It just has that weird almost wet, squishy thing going on and I can't stop thinking about the fact that there are pieces of bread in it. Anyway, that's obviously my issue because the bread pudding lovers in my life really enjoyed it!


I used brioche with raisins from a local bakery for my bread and I think that the buttery-ness of the brioche really added to the richness of the dessert and soaked up the liquid really nicely. I cut the loaf up and let it sit out on the counter for two days so that the pudding wouldn't be soggy and that method seemed to work well. I refrigerated the pudding overnight before cutting into it and it held its shape beautifully. I can't say that I'd make this again for myself but I would definitely make it for anyone who requested it because it was very very easy to make!

So, in other news I'm finally in the third trimester of this pregnancy and July seems closer than ever! Pretty much every random stranger in the grocery store, mall, etc. feels the need to tell me that I look like I'm "about to go any day now"...umm ok how about three months from now?! The only person who seems not to have noticed the watermellon that has sprung up in my mid-section is Helen Mae who has absolutely no concept of her new little sibling's impending arrival. Thank goodness she has mad pouting skills:

TWD: 15 Minute Magic Chocolate Amaretti Torte

First of all- I did take some great pictures of this cake- but sadly, I took them with my mom's camera and she took it to Memphis this morning- so pictures will be posted later... sorry!

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Holly of Phe/MOM/enon (recipe can be found on her blog). Wow! This torte was amazing! It tasted like a really fancy, expensive dessert but it really did take about 15 minutes to throw together because the entire cake is whipped up in a food processor! The only thing that seemed to throw some of the TWD bakers was trying to locate amaretti, an Italian almond cookie. I was able to find mini amaretti at World Market for a good price and I have to say that I think they make a huge difference in the cake- so this isn't an ingredient to substitute out! In fact the cake relies on the ground amaretti and ground almonds to act as flour because the torte is flourless. It is dense, very chocolaty and almost fudgy with a distinct almond flavor. The outside of the cake takes on a sort of slightly crunchy amaretti shell which makes it even more delightful.

The only thing I found confusing was the chocolate glaze. You see, mine was a chocolate syrup, I'm not completely sure if it was supposed to be so liquidy or if I didn't let the cream boil long enough but I had to add about a 1/2 cup of powdered sugar to get it to be slightly thicker (even then it never got thick). Well I put the cake on a plate that would catch the extra glaze, dumped the glaze over the cake, and stuck it in the fridge for a few hours. Ok, forget everything I said about the glaze being too liquidy because it tasted amazing! Oh and I was so glad that I put the cake on a plate that caught the extra glaze because I just drizzled it over the top when I served the individual slices! Dorie also included an optional almond whipped cream- which I of course had to make since I had leftover cream from the glaze- I would highly suggest garnishing the cake with the cream because it just makes the dessert that much fancier! Anyway- I am so greatful to Holly for picking this marvelous recipe because it something I can make in a flash and know that it tastes like something from an upscale bakery!