Tuesday Treats - An Almost Disaster

Last night I made this cake. I wish I had pictures of the kitchen. From the state of things, it appeared that I had never baked before, and that I was a complete mess when it came to doing anything in the kitchen. There were dry ingredients everywhere (everywhere!), on the counters, on the floor, on the dog - she was almost white at one point - and all over me. I was spilling everything, from cake flour (both before and after sifting) and cocoa powder to dropping eggs (at least one) on the floor. I also added powder instead of soda, then removed the powder, only to discover I needed it as well. Disaster, and ridiculously messy kitchen to clean up at around 10:00 last night. Groan. But the cakes baked just fine, and were nice and fluffy once they cooled.
Frosting the cake this morning was equally as challenging. It's a very tasty frosting, but between the hardness of the frosting and the softness of the cakes, I had lots of difficulties and in several places removed the top layer of the cake.

Anyway, here is the recipe (adapted from Bon Appetit)
Chocolate Cake with Caramel-Milk Chocolate Frosting

Frosting
24 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped (I used milk chocolate chips and did not finely chop them)
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
2 1/4 whipping cream

Combine chocolates in large bowl. Combine water and sugar in saucepan and make caramel, stir sugar into water over medium heat until dissolved, then swirl pan and brush down sides until mixture darkens and turns golden. Add the whipping cream SLOWLY (it will boil and fizz A LOT) and then stir until the caramel dissolves (it will take some time and it's hard to do). Once it is all nicely dissolved, pour the caramel cream over the chocolate and stir the chocolate mixture until the chocolate is all dissolved and the mixture is very smooth. At this point, you can either chill it in the refrigerator or you can let it sit out at room temperature if you plan to frost the cakes as soon as the cake portions cool.

Cake
Nonstick vegetable oil spray and parchment paper
2 cups sifted cake flour (sift, then measure)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups golden brown sugar (packed)
1 cup plus 2 T room temperature butter
3 large eggs (more if you drop one on the floor)
1 T vanilla
1 cup plus 2 T buttermilk
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

First, preheat the oven to 350 and prepare your pans. You will need between 2 and 3 springform cake pans. I used 2, the original recipe calls for 3. Spray pans with cooking spray, then cut parchment paper circles and line the bottom of each pan with one circle. Set them aside.
Sift and measure the flour into a medium bowl. Add the rest of the dry ingredients (through the salt) to the flour. In the mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar and butter and beat until smooth and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to combine between each addition. Add a third of the flour mixture, then a third of the buttermilk, and repeat until all ingredients are incorporated, beating after every new addition. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Distribute the batter equally among pans. Tap the sides of the pan to smooth the tops of the batter. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until the toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let them cool in their pans until they are entirely cool, then pop them out of their pans.

Once the frosting is at room temperature, beat it until smooth and light brown, about 1 minute. Do not over stir it, you want it smooth not grainy. Spread frosting on the lowest level, then stack the next level on top. If you are using two layers, place the layer upside down so the top is flat. Frost all around and on top of the cake. It works best if you use a frosting spatula thing and not a butter knife. Be patient. It takes some time.

Tuesday Treats - Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake

Yum.  Adapted from Epicurious and smitten kitchen.


1 crumb-crust recipe , made with chocolate teddy grahams
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
8 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped (I used 60% bittersweet by Scharffen Berger)
3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla


1. Make your crumb crust.  Take 10 oz of teddy grahams (one box) and turn them into crumbs.  I used the food processor.  Melt 9 tablespoons of unsalted butter.  Mix together the crumbs, the butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt.  Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan (mine is about 9 inches).  If you want less crust on the sides, don't use all of the recipe.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Heat the sugar in a dry saucepan over medium-low heat, until it melts and turns light golden, stirring occasionally to frequently.  This step will take awhile, but yes, the sugar does actually melt.  I went ahead and whipped the cream cheese while I was waiting.

4. Let the sugar achieve a darker golden color, swirling the pan occasionally.  This step takes much less time, thankfully.  I was getting impatient.

5. Remove the pan from the burner and add the cream.  The mixture will bubble and steam.
6. Return the pot to the same lowish heat as before, and stir.  Eventually the caramel will stop being a clumpy lump on your spoon/spatula/whatever and blend in with the caramel.

7. Once it is all melty and smooth, remove it from heat and stir in your chocolate.
8. If you haven't done so already, whip your cream cheese until it is fluffy.  I used the regular attachment (not the whisk) of my KitchenAid.

9. Slowly add the chocolate-caramel mixture.  Scrape the sides and continue to beat.

10. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping bowl before each new addition.
11. Add vanilla, blend.
12. Pour the cheesecake mixture into the crust.  Place the pan on a cookie sheet to catch the leaks.  All that leaked out of mine was lots of what appeared to be butter.
13. Cook the cheesecake for about 55 minutes.  Remove it from the oven when the center is still wobbly but the edges and most of the top surrounding the center is set.
14. If your crust did not go to the top of the pan, run a butter knife around the edges down to the crust to loosen the cake. Let the cake cool completely. At this point, it's time to remove the sides of the pan, and loosely cover it and chill it for as long as you can stand it (the recipe I used calls for at least 6 hours, but we tried ours after about 3, and it was soft, but tasty.  After we taste it again tonight I'll let you know about the extra chilling time).


I prefer my cheesecake coldish, but you can also remove it from the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature before serving.  I served it with fresh whipped cream (1 cup whipping cream, 1 capfull vanilla, and 2 tablespoons sugar, whipped together until it looks like whipped cream and not like liquid).

Amazing Caramel Chocolate Truffles

Caramel-Dark Chocolate Truffles with Fleur de Sel (courtesy of Bon Appetit)

3 notes before I get to the description.

1 We halved this recipe, and used the little bit of extra chocolate in the second part to dip strawberries. It was perfect for that.

We did not follow the instructions exactly as written in the recipe. We followed the ingredients, but the process is where we changed. More on that below.

3. Fleur de sel is available in bulk at Central Market (gourmet grocery store in Austin, of the HEB chain). It might be available at similar groceries in places that are not fortunate enough to have Central Market.

We used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate, available in the baking aisle. The husband chopped it up into small pieces, then it went on the stove. The recipe called for a metal bowl on top of a pot of water, but we used one of the pyrex ones instead, and stirred almost constantly to keep the chocolate melting at an even temperature and to keep it smooth. That got set aside once it was melted and we started on the caramel. There is a very delicate point when boiling sugar and water where it goes from being completely clear to having a gorgeous amber hue to it, and this one was no exception. (The husband wanted me to interject with a comment on the recipe. It says to “brush down” the sides of the pan while all of this sugar water boiling is happening. It is tricky to brush down the sides of the pan. We found that keeping a small bowl of water nearby, and dipping the brush in the water before and after brushing down the sides, kept the brush from getting too sticky. We also tended to brush around more than down. It must have worked ok, because the recipe came out great.) Back to my beautiful amber gooey pot. The hardest part of this recipe was this step, the addition of the whipping cream to the caramel. It said to stir until smooth, but we did not know exactly when that point was. The caramel was clumping at the bottom of the pot, and the cream did not seem to want to combine with it, but it eventually did. Keeping it over the warm burner (it was turned off) helped. The addition of the salt and the caramel to the chocolate was no problem, and the whole thing went into the fridge for 3 hours, which ended up being more like 4 hours by the time we got it back out.

When the filling comes out of the fridge, it will be HARD. The husband was afraid he had broken our melon baller trying to make little balls. The ice cream scoop worked well, and his hands got very messy rolling the filling, but he did say that the heat from his hands helped soften the filling enough to roll it, and enabled the cocoa powder to stick easily.

The next part of the recipe is where we substantially changed our procedure. Because it was Sunday already, and we wanted these little guys for dessert Sunday night, we did not chill the rolled balls over night. I doubt we chilled them for more than an hour before coating them, and they were still amazing. The salt provides a nice relief from the sweet caramel, and the bittersweet chocolate tops off the deep richness.