Sheila tried out a new muffin recipe. I thought she was making cupcakes for dessert because of the mouth-watering chocolate smell in the air, but she said that these were going to be for breakfast instead. There’s less sugar than a cupcake, and they have fruit in them, so that qualifies as a breakfast treat. Works either way for me!
We like chocolate cake and we also like brownies because of the denser consistency. But, if we wanted to have a gluten-free chocolate dessert, neither one of Sheila’s go-to recipes would quite work. Sheila played around with some ingredients for the flavor she wanted, and then we both taste-tested the results.
After we poured the cherry juice over the cherries on top of the chilled torte, the dessert was a lot like a mousse in texture. We ate it with and without the juice, with and without the foam, with and without the ice cream. We taste-tested our way through the entire dessert while the photos were taken. My tummy liked it all.
12 oz. semi-sweet baking chocolate, broken into sections
1/2 cup whipped butter
6 egg yolks
2 cups brown sugar
3 Tablespoons brewed dark roast coffee
2 teaspoons pure almond extract
1 teaspoon sea salt
5 egg whites
3/4 cup fine almond flour
4 cups frozen cherries, pitted
1/4 cup water
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325.
Lightly grease sides and bottom of a springform cake pan with butter or margarine and dust with cocoa powder.
Place 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate and whipped butter in the top of a double boiler, melt, and whisk together by hand until thoroughly mixed together. Remove from heat.
Using large bowl, an electric mixer, and whisk attachment, whip egg yolks, 1 cup of the sugar, coffee, 1.5 teaspoons of the almond extract, and sea salt until thick and creamy.
Add chocolate/butter mixture and continue to mix until blended.
In a separate bowl and with a clean whisk, beat the egg whites until fluffy, about a minute. Slowly add 1/2 cup of the brown sugar and beat for another two minutes or until peaks form. (Should be stiff enough that a spoonful of the mixture will stay in the spoon when held upside down)
Fold the almond flour into the egg whites, then carefully fold that mixture into the entire chocolate mix.
Pour the batter evenly into the cake pan. There may be lots of bubbles in the mixture. If so, gently, but firmly bounce the pan on the counter once or twice to break up most of them.
Place the pan on a cookie sheet in the middle of the oven and bake until the center puffs and cake edges pull away from the pan, about 40-45 minutes.
Remove pan from oven, place on cooling rack for 40 minutes. As it cools, the center of the torte will collapse a little, creating a depression in which to put the cherries later.
Place the pan on a flat cake plate/stand and remove the sides.
Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours.
Place cherries, water, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and remaining 1/2 cup sugar into a sauce pan and heat on medium heat until sugar melts – about two minutes. Stir.
Place cherries and the resulting juice in a covered container in the refrigerator to soak and chill for two hours.
When chilled, strain the cherries and save the juice.
Spread the cherries evenly in the depression on the top of the torte.
Lovely with ice cream and the cherry juice poured on top.
3.5.3251
Cherry Foam:
If you’d like to make the foam shown in the photo below, use the electric mixer and the whisk attachment. Whisk the well-chilled cherry juice until foamy, about two minutes. This only works while the juice is cold, so work quickly. Skim off the foam, about two tablespoons for each slice, and use as a light flavorful topping to the dessert. Or just pour the juice on top of the cherries. The flavor will be the same.
We always serve special desserts on holiday weekends, whether we are having an all day BBQ, guests at a special meal, or a sit-down dinner after church. Sheila and I work as a team on the desserts. She bakes them and I do the taste-testing while she works on the balance of sugar and chocolate. Teamwork pays off!
Sunday’s recipe is a creamy chocolate cheesecake. Sheila says that it was easy to make. It was easy to eat the samples.
standing mixer with large bowl & paddle attachment
Ingredients
1teaspoonvegetable oil for spring-form pan - we use almond oil
202"chocolate chip cookies
4Tablespoonsbutter (salted)
10ozGhirardelli milk chocolate baking chips
10ozGhirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3cupextra fine sugar
12ozwhipped cream cheese
1pintheavy cream
2TablespoonsBailey's Irish Cream
sour cream & fresh fruit for garnish
Instructions
Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and wipe the sides with oil.
Crush the cookies with a rolling pin.
Melt the butter in a sauce pan, remove from heat, then stir in the crushed cookies.
Press the cookie/butter mixture into the bottom (and 1/2 inch up the sides) of the prepared pan. Chill in refrigerator for at least 30minutes.
Place all the chocolate into the top of the double-boiler, with gently simmering water in the bottom. Melt the chocolate, stirring frequently until thoroughly blended and remove from heat.
Add sugar and cream cheese to the mixing bowl and beat on lowest speed until smooth.
Slowly add the heavy cream and beat on the lowest setting until thick and creamy.
Slowly add the melted chocolate and continue to beat on lowest setting until thoroughly blended. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl and beat again.
Add Bailey’s and mix until blended. Mixture should now have thick pudding consistency.
Spoon into the spring-form pan and then level the surface with butter knife or spoon.
Chill in refrigerator for 2-3 hours (until very firm).
Transfer to cake plate and serve with fresh fruit and sour cream. Also nice with ice cream.
If you don’t own a spring-form pan, or are not comfortable using one, the recipe will also work nicely in a 9” deep-dish disposable pie pan. Press the cookie crumb/butter mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the unlined disposable pan, then follow the rest of the directions as written.
Spoon any extra filling into ramekins, chill, garnish with fruit, and serve as individual desserts.