Well, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I always go home for this holiday, an I'm only in charge of two things in the kitchen....the dessert and they gravy. I know, I know BIG responsibilities. But my mom never lets me help and it's definitely because I'm very messy in the kitchen and it drives her nuts. But anyways....I made this chocolate torte with Kahlua whipped cream. And no, unfortunately I can't take the credit. Both these recipes came from the lovely Chew Out Loud duo and they are really wonderful.
There are a few very important things I need to say about this torte. First of all, this torte is not for the faint of heart. It's intensely chocolately. The nice thing about this is that a smaller piece is satisfying, because it's just so dang sweet. Another thing to note is that this cake is flourless (which also makes it gluten free). But the point is this cake is wonderfully dense (and yet somehow still light), and is more of a fudge consistency than anything else. You know when you make a cheesecake and the inner circle is nice and dense and cheesy and then you get to the outer edge (AKA the last bite!), and it's all filmy and yuck? I had expected this cake to have that problem. But it's truly dense and fudgey until the last bite!
See that fudgey edge? Ohhhh yeeeaaaah. Also the Kahlua whip cream was a great touch, and I had a lot of fun piping it on there. I don't get to pipe very often and I'm usually terrible at it, but I was pretty happy with this particular performance.
I was very lucky this Thanksgiving to see some dear old friends...the girls to whom I give full credit for getting me through high school. We took the above picture in 2006 (all of us were 17 or 18) before we went to college. We took the bottom one last night. So fun to see how far all of us have come. And I'm not just talking about our stunning good looks...
As for today we mostly relaxed at home. Playing pool, being weird, and maybe or maybe not sneaking out at 6pm to check out the swarms of people buying TVs.
Ingredients
- ½ cup prepared strong coffee
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 18 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used ghiradelli)
- 1 cup softened salted butter, cut into pieces
- 6 eggs
- pot of boiling water
Directions
- Preheat oven to 300F. Set your water to boil but keep it on medium so it takes a while. This will give you plenty of time to prepare your mixture.
- Line a springform pan with parchment paper. Grease the parchment and sides of your pan. Sprinkle with cocoa powder. Wrap the edges of pan with thick foil.
- Combine the prepared coffee and sugar. Stir over medium heat until sugar is comletely dissolved. Set aside.
- In a double boiler, stir the bittersweet chocolate chunks until melted.
- Transfer melted chocolate into a large mixing bowl. Slowly beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Gently beat in the hot coffee/sugar mixture.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, just until combined.
- Pour batter into prepared springform pan. Place the springform pan into a large baking dish and pour your boiling water into it ensuring you don't accidentally pour water all over the torte.
- Bake for 45 minutes. The center should be wettish and a bit jiggly, with edges and top looking done.
- Let cake cool to room temp in springform pan, and then cover/chill overnight in fridge. Keep chilled until ready to serve.
Whipped Cream Ingredients
- 4 tsp water
- 1 tsp plain gelatin
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 TB powdered sugar
- 1 T Kahlua
Directions
- In large mixing bowl, stir the heavy whipping cream, vanilla extract, powdered sugar, and Kahlua. Put this bowl in fridge to keep cold.
- Mix gelatin with water in a microwave safe bowl. Let sit for about 10 min. Microwave for about 20 seconds.
- Take out the bowl with whipped cream ingredients. Beat on medium until ribbons form. Stop beating and ensure that your gelatin mixture is still liquid and almost cool. Resume beating whipped cream mixture, while slowly pouring in liquid gelatin into the mixture. Beat to stiff peaks. Keep in fridge until ready to use.