KN, p.236 “Almond Cherry Chocolate Torte”
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.
"Almond Cherry Chocolate Torte"
Author: Sheila Kerrian
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon butter or margarine (grease cake pan)
- 2 Tablespoons chocolate powder (unsweetened) (dust pan)
- 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.
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.
Enjoy! 🙂
Photos: by Patti Phillips
KN, p. 231 “Meatloaf…Comfort Food”
Damp, chilly days require stick-to-your-ribs, tasty comfort food. Sheila and I like to combine weekend shopping trips with lunch at the local all-comfort-food diner, but sometimes the winter weather keeps us home. During a couple of rough weeks with sleet, snow, and ice pounding the area, we needed a LOT of comfort food, but the roads were dicey and we elected to stay indoors. What did we do? We came up with our own version of the meatloaf we had enjoyed so often downtown. The owner wouldn’t share his secret recipe and laughed when we asked, but we did a bunch of taste-testing and we think we came pretty close. There were no bodies lying on the floor after we ate, so we must have gotten it right. Try it and see for yourself. 🙂
"Meatloaf...Comfort Food"
Author: Sheila and Charlie Kerrian
Recipe type: Entree
Cuisine: American
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
- Meatloaf
- 2 pounds ground beef, 90% or 93% lean preferred
- 2 teaspoons onion powder
- 2 heaping teaspoons minced garlic
- 1 teaspoon sea salt (or to taste)
- 1/2 cup + 1 Tablespoon condensed tomato soup
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup Progresso plain bread crumbs
- 1 Tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 Tablespoon A-1 sauce
- 1 teaspoon Gulden’s spicy brown mustard
- Sauce
- 1 cup condensed tomato soup
- 2 Tablespoons light brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons A-1 sauce
- 2 teaspoons Gulden’s spicy brown mustard
- *1/2 teaspoon Canola oil for pan, not for meatloaf mixture
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Lightly coat sides and bottom of a 9x5 loaf pan with Canola oil to reduce cleanup time.
- In a large bowl, thoroughly mix all meatloaf ingredients together.
- Press meatloaf mixture evenly in loaf pan, slightly mounded in the center, lengthwise
- Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
- Increase oven temperature to 425, uncover and bake for 30 minutes more.
- While meatloaf is baking, mix sauce ingredients together in small bowl and set aside.
- Meatloaf will shrink away from the edge of the pan when almost done.
- Remove from oven, spread 1/2 cup of the sauce on the top of the meatloaf and return to oven for 5 minutes more.
- Remove from oven and let stand for ten minutes.
- Heat the remaining sauce.
- Slice the meatloaf in half-inch slices and serve with sauce, greens beans, and mashed potatoes.
KN, p. 228 “Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies”
The ‘Season for Everything Pumpkin’ should include a great pumpkin cookie. 🙂
At the Kerrian household, the time between Halloween and New Year’s Day is when we add pumpkin to lots of dishes. Some turn out to be scrumptious, some we never talk about again, but we had never found the right combo for a pumpkin cookie. Until now. By simply adding pumpkin to one of our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, and tweaking it a bit, this has become a tasty regular snack treat for Autumn.
We (me, any neighbors we could snag, and the mail gal) taste-tested this one until we were satisfied. We might have taken longer than we needed to. Taste-testing is a challenge we take seriously, no matter how many cookies must be eaten.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Author: Sheila, Charlie, and the neighbors
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 20-24 3" cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup spreadable butter or margarine (Land O Lakes butter with canola oil works well for this)
- 1.5 cups firmly packed Domino’s light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup cane sugar
- 2 jumbo eggs
- 1.5 cups pureed (or canned) pumpkin
- 1 teaspoon pure extract vanilla
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 cups all purpose, unbleached King Arthur flour
- 1 cup semi-sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 375
- In large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until creamy.
- Add eggs, pumpkin, vanilla, sea salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg, stirring until thoroughly blended.
- Add flour 1 cup at a time and beat until well-mixed.
- Mix chocolate chips evenly throughout the dough.
- Drop 1/4 cup dough for each cookie onto aluminum cookie sheets, about six per sheet.
- Bake for 15-16 minutes until light golden brown.
- Yield: 20-24 three inch cookies
Eat warm, five minutes out of the oven or let cool completely and serve with ice cream. Sheila had a bowl of ice cream with a cookie and I made an ice cream sandwich with two cookies. Both of us had pecan praline ice cream with the cookies.
Enjoy!
🙂