Chocolate World

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Three confections revel in chocolate

by Kathie Smith

Dazzle holiday revelers with a classic chocolate dessert that will leave a lasting memory.

Real chocolate desserts don’t have to be difficult to make. With the help of convenience items, careful planning, and elegant presentation, pick from three intensely chocolate creations.

Think trifle, strudel, and truffle cake.

An English trifle consists of sponge cake or ladyfingers doused with spirits usually sherry, custard, whipped cream and a garnish of fruit.

Triple Chocolate Trifle is made with a package of cook-and-serve chocolate pudding mix and one layer chocolate cake or three large chocolate chip muffins. Optional flavor comes from creme de cacao liqueur. Garnish with red, green, and black seedless grapes.

Strudel is a type of pastry made with many layers of thin dough spread with a filling, then rolled and baked until crisp and golden brown, according to the Food Lover’s Companion. Popular in Germany, Austria, and much of Central European, it is most commonly featured as apple strudel.

For intensely flavored chocolate, bake Chocolate Walnut Strudel. Smooth melted chocolate is combined with crunchy, chopped walnuts.

The recipe is easy enough. The microwave can be used to melt the chocolate. The thawed pastry sheet is rolled to a very thin rectangle and then spread with the chocolate mixture followed by the sprinkled walnuts. There’s less chocolate in this recipe than other such as the Chocolate Truffle Cake, but the thinness of the puff pastry layers showcases the flavor in a big way.

The baked strudel is pretty and flaky. One strudel yields 12 servings.

A chocolate truffle is a rich confection made with melted chocolate, butter or cream, sugar, and various flavorings such as liquors, spices, vanilla, coffee, and nuts. After the mixture is cooled, it’s rolled into balls and coated with coverings such as unsweetened cocoa powder, chocolate sprinkles, or crushed nuts. Some truffles are dipped in melted white or dark chocolate, which becomes a hard coating, when cooled.

Chocolate Truffle Cake is a recipe from the American Dairy Association which uses some of the same principles as the chocolate truffle candy. It’s an awesome presentation, easy enough to make, but a little time consuming. The secret is to make it in steps. Make the cake in the morning and the ganache later in the day.

Or the intensely chocolate, moist cake layer can be baked ahead and frozen for up to 2 months, then awed prior to frosting.

Ganache is a rich icing/filling made of semisweet chocolate and whipping cream, heated and stirred together until the chocolate has melted. The cooled mixture is poured over a cake or torte. It can be used to glaze cakes, pastries or tortes.

(When used as a filling, the cooled ganache needs to be of spreadable consistency. If it is cooled too long, it becomes thick enough to be rolled into truffle bonbons, according to Dorie Greenspan in Baking: From my home to yours (Houghton Mifflin, $40.)

What makes this cake so dazzling is the garnish of white chocolate drizzle made by melting white chocolate baking bars or white chocolate chips in the microwave. Using a pastry bag with small round tip, pipe horizontal lines of melted white chocolate evenly space on top of the cake. Then draw the tip of a small knife or wooden pick vertically across the horizontal lines to form a design. Your guests will think you been to cake decorating classes or pastry school.

Then press chopped pecans along the side of the cake and garnish with fresh raspberries. Store this cake in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Note that if you don’t want to use the white chocolate garnish, there are other options.

• Completely cover the frosted cake with chocolate curls. To make the curls, use a vegetable peeler to shave off pieces of chocolate from the chocolate bar, which should be at room temperature. Greater pressure forms thicker, more open curls; lighter pressure makes tighter curls.

• Using a pastry bag with a large tip, pipe dollops of whipped cream along edges of cake and plate. Top each dollop with a single raspberry and mint leaves.

• Garnish the cake with truffles or chocolate covered strawberries.

by KATHIE SMITH, BLADE FOOD EDITOR
Contact Kathie Smith at food@theblade.com or 419-724-6155.

posted by All About Home @ 2:39 AM

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