Rich Chocolate Tart

Let's talk about this tart, shall we?
Oh my.

That's all I can say sometimes. Oh. My.

It's rich. It's chocolatey. It's smooth as silk, and the crust... don't even get me STARTED on the crust!

Okay, we'd getter get started. Before I swoon here and now at the computer desk. And then revive myself and go hide in the pantry and gobble what's left of the tart. (Which isn't much.)

We're gonna get started.... with butter.

Because all good things in life start with butter, am I right?

We've got butter. Next, flour.

And salt.

Also, sugar.

Now, add in the cold chunks of butter...

And pulse until it looks something like this: 

Now, in a separate bowl, you will have combined an egg and a couple tablespoons of ice water, and whisked it together.

You may not know it. But that's what you will have done.

 

Into the crumbly mixture it goes.

Pulse again, until it all comes together.

 

Come together..................... RIGHT NOW....

Sorry. Been on a Beatles kick lately.

Now, shape it into kind of a flat-ish disk shape, and swaddle it in plastic wrap.

Did I just say... swaddle?

Okay, refrigerate that for about 30 minutes. Then you can unwrap it, and plop it on a counter covered in flour. We're gonna roll it out!

I was excited to use my new French rolling pin for the second time since I got it at Christmas. (I've been really slacking in the baking area lately. It's sad.)

The beauty of a French rolling pin? No handles. And it's also wider in the middle so it flattens the center of the crust more, and avoids those pesky thin edges. Genius!

Sadly, even the best of French rolling pins cannot compensate for my lack of skill. Look at that! I'm a disgrace.

But it's okay! I fixed it!

Sorta.

Now, you're supposed to put it in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes to "relax". I guess anything being baked by me deserves a little relaxation. I'd be stressed too. Especially after what I'm about to tell you.

I have a really embarrassing confession to make. And I'm not embarrassed that easily. (A matter of self-preservation when you have 4 siblings and 2 parents.) The recipe said to line the tart with foil and cover the foil with weights or dried beans, just to keep it from poofing up when it bakes.

Well, I didn't read the recipe that well, and somehow managed to miss the part about the foil.

"Cool," I thought. "I'll just dump in some dried beans." 
So what did I do?
I trotted to the pantry, grabbed a bag of black beans, lopped off the corner with a pair of scissors and...

Well, you get the picture?

A pastry shell brimming with dried black beans... It wasn't pretty. Sometimes I really wonder about myself. Truly. I was, of course, horrified when I looked at the recipe and noticed the bit about the foil. So I spent the next ten minutes picking little black flecks of bean shell (or something) from the crust.

Do you see the devotion here? I could easily have just skipped this mortifying vignette. But I'm keepin' it real, you guys. Keepin' it real.

Okay. So once you have a foil-lined pan filled with beans or weights or whatever you use, pop it in the oven for about 30 minutes. After it bakes, you're gonna take it out, remove the foil and beans, and then brush it with a beaten egg white.

(Don't be grossed out. It's to assist in the lovely golden brown color we're going for.)

Then pop it back in the oven for another 8 minutes.

Look! Lovely, golden brown!

While the tart shell cools, we're gonna go wild and make the filling.

(Just a warning: this filling contains heavy whipping cream. If you are morally, logically, chronically or healthily opposed to heavy whipping cream, you may want to skip over this.)

You'll need:
1 cup of heavy cream
1 freaky-looking thumb with chipped red nail polish.

Also, 1/2 cup regular milk. (I used skim, subconsciously trying to cancel out the fat grams from the heavy cream, I believe.) But I won't show you the picture. The lighting is weird, and the milk looks yellow by comparison.

Not cute.

But you heat the milks together, stirring often, until it just begins to simmer around the edges.

Then remove it from the heat, and stir in the semi-sweet chocolate, sugar and salt.

Next; eggs. Two of 'em.
They must be beaten.

Pour the beaten eggs into the chocolate mixture...

Whisk it up...

And pour the chocolate filling into the cooled tart crust.

It goes back in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or just until it's set, and the surface is glossy.

 

Yum.

Guess what? I'm a dork. Here's what I look like when I try to photograph myself and the food, and the tart starts sliding, and I almost drop the camera:

I'm screeching. And that's not actually a smile. It's a rapidly mutating grimace.

(Yes, I realize that, to all intents, purposes and appearances, it looks like I have three arms.)
(I'm sorry.)

Note to self: From now on, stay behind the camera, where you belong.

The tart was a huge hit with the family. Therefore, you may rest assured it is delicious. (They're not afraid to tell me when something's gross.)

Click here for the printable recipe: Rich Chocolate Tart.

Happy Cooking!

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Pineapple Cranberry Bread

"Without bread all is misery."
- William Cobbett, British journalist

The winter boredom/blahs were starting to kick in.
And there were 2 bags of cranberries in the fridge, drawing near to a shriveled, fermented demise.
(Do cranberries ferment?)

So I was forced to do two things:

• Change the look and name of my blog.

• Bake cranberry bread.

And I am now satisfied. For the moment.

I found this cranberry bread recipe at All Recipes. It had some of the highest ratings and reviews, so I decided to give it a whirl.
But I don't like raisins. And then I discovered that we didn't have orange juice.
No biggie.
I just omitted the raisins, and decided to see what Pineapple Cranberry Bread would taste like.

It was quite necessary to sort the cranberries, because, well...some of them were a bit past their prime.


Once you've sorted the good, from the bad, from the ugly, it's time to rinse and chop.

The recipe called for 1 1/2 cups of chopped cranberries, but since I was omitting the raisins, I used closer to 2 cups.

Oh, and I have a confession to make: I had never, until the day I baked this bread, tasted a cranberry. Except for the kind in canned cranberry sauce. Which doesn't really count. Due to that fact, I had also never seen the innards of a cranberry. I was surprised by the light color. And the rather dry texture.
I don't know why, but I was expecting them to be full of red, flavorful, stain-inducing juice. That's how ignorant I was in the realm of cranberries.
Now I know. And now you know my deep, dark secret.
Next, whisk together the dry ingredients, and cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.

Transfer the flour mixture to your mixing bowl if you lack foresight like some of us around here, and add the egg, pineapple juice, and cranberries.
And raisins, if that's what floats your boat.

Mix it...and pour it...and bake it...
In a loaf pan. For 70 minutes. That's right. 1 hour and 10 minutes.

After the first, oh...20 minutes or so of baking time, my beloved, experimental loaf started getting pretty browned. It was a nice color and all, but I was thinking of the 50 minutes it still had to cook. 3000 seconds. A long time, under waves of 350 degree heat. So I freaked out, pulled it out of the oven and cocooned that puppy in enough aluminum foil to ward off extraterrestrial creatures for a looooong time. (Signs, anyone?)
Anyway, that seemed to do the trick.
I just removed the foil about 8 minutes before the end of the cooking time, and all was well.


Nice lookin' loaf, if I may say so.

And it tasted even nicer!
I admit I was a little nervous about tweaking the recipe like that - I mean, replacing orange juice with...with pineapple juice? How daring could I be?!
Kidding. But still, I was a little anxious to know how it would turn out. And the verdict? Definitely a keeper. Though if your not crazy about the taste of cranberries, you may want to stick to the recipe and use 1 1/2 cups.

Here's my modified recipe. The original is here.
Now go forth and bake!

Pineapple Cranberry Bread
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup pineapple
2 cups chopped cranberries
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray or grease one 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.
3. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Add egg, orange peel, and orange juice; stir to mix and fold in raisins and cranberries.
4. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from pan; cool on wire rack.


Happy Cooking!

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Coffee-Cocoa Fudge Cake

"And above all, think Chocolate!"
- Betty Crocker

This has got to be one of my favorite cooking-with-chocolate resources of all time:

"The Best of Fine Cooking; Chocolate"

This book isn't really a book at all. It's just a magazine. About yea high:

But this magazine has the unique ability to make me salivate, even if I happen to be thumbing through it while eating a salami sandwich.
Not that that's ever happened or anything. I'm just sayin'. It could. If it wanted to.

It has everything a chocolate lover could possibly dream about:

Chocolate for Breakfast... (glad I'm not alone in that area:)...Cookies...

Brownies and bars... Cakes...

Mousses and Souffles (ok, to be honest, I haven't attempted either - YET)...and many kinds of toppings...

What I'm trying to say, using psycho-babble techniques, and a multitude of useless pictures is this: if you're a chocolaholic, acquire this magazine by any means necessary. Bodily force, if necessary.
You will thank me.
And you'll thank Fine Cooking.

What I'm also trying to say is this: the other night, after agonizing for a good 20 minutes over which recipe I should try from this magazine, I selected this one:

I wasn't real sure how it would turn out, especially since I pretty much dumped it all together like so much goulash.
But let me inform you - it turned out heavenly.

If you care to prepare this food of the angels, here's what you'll need:

10 TBS. very soft butter, or 1 stick plus 2 TBS, if you're a simple-minded baker like me.
White sugar...

2 eggs. At room temperature.
At this point, it was probably around 9:30, and after staring at the words ROOM TEMPERATURE for a few annoyed seconds, I decided to put the eggs in a bowlful of warm water until I was ready to use them. It would have to do.
And it did.
I never knew the difference.
Next, flour. Of the all-purpose variety.

unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)

And then a few of those pesky, unimportant ingredients;
vanilla
salt
baking soda
baking powder...
...And some good quality brewed coffee. Cooled to warm. -ish. Again with the time thing, I just let it sit in a bowl of icy water for a few seconds before I gradually added it in. And once again, no discernible adverse side affects.

So to begin, cream the very-soft butter together with the sugar.
While watching the mixer go round and round, and sneaking a fingerful or two, I pondered this deep thought: I wonder how much butter/sugar creamed mixture I've consumed through my entire life thus far.
And I concluded that it's probably somewhere in the pounds family. Yike.
I wonder, does kilograms sound any less repulsive?

No matter. What's done is done. My thighs may hate me (or vice-versa), but that's another point entirely.

Next, add those hastily water-warmed eggs, and cream until fluffy.

And now, let your eyes rest upon these two heinous words for a few seconds:

I realize there are more than two words...but I was referring to the two prominent ones. By hand.

I hadn't realized how spoiled I'd gotten with the Kitchen Aid mixer doing all the hard work for me. (Hard? I'm hearing some raised eyebrows. Yes, I can hear them.) But whatever. I like whisks. Whisks are cool.
And so came forth the whisk:

Whisk in the vanilla and salt.

Then sift all those dry ingredients right over the creamed mixture.

Before you mix that up, add the coffee, slowly, if you're a perfectionist cooking freak-o, and quickly if you're a chocolate craving non-perfectionist cooking freak-o.
Due to my freak-o status, (guess which one), I dumped it all in rather quickly, and had mixed it up before I even remembered to take a picture.

Looks yummy, no?
No.
It looks yellow. But that's ok. I'm a picture-taking rookie.
Besides, it won't for long.

Pour it into your prepared pan...

...And then realize that it really wasn't your prepared pan. Not completely, anyway. You forgot to flour it. What's wrong with you?!!
Don't feel too bad, because apparently, the same thing's wrong with me.

So, since I just happened to have another identical pan, I just dumped the batter back into the bowl, prepared the other pan - and floured it this time - then poured the batter. Again.

And now bake at 350 for about 43 minutes. A little more, if you are able to abide by the directions and use a 9x9 in. pan. But I don't own one, so I had to use one a bit larger.

And now, as for that frosting...
I had to use a bit of imagination, because I didn't have the ingredients needed for the ganache that the recipe suggested (i.e., heavy cream). I can give you the ingredients I used for my frosting, but I'm afraid that's all. There was no measuring involved.
Besides, you'll probably want to use the ganache recipe, anyway. Because I bet it's good enough to melt your socks off. Or rot your teeth out, if you're a glass-is-half-empty type of person.
Nevertheless, here's what I dumped into a saucepan, melted together and drizzled over my cake:
butter
chocolate chips
sweetened condensed milk
vanilla
very strong coffee
creamer (half and half)

So there you have it. The texture of this cake is perfect: thick, but not too dense. Moist, but not wet. And the flavor is a perfect balance of coffee and chocolate.

Please, I beg you: make and enjoy!!!


Coffee-Cocoa Fudge Cake
10 Tbs. very soft unsalted butter; more for the pan
1-2/3 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. table salt
1-1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour; more for the pan
1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 cups good-quality brewed coffee, cooled to warm

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F. Generously butter a 9-inch-square baking pan. Line the bottom of the pan with a square of parchment, butter the parchment, and then flour the bottom and sides of the pan. Tap out any excess flour.

2. If mixing by hand, put the softened butter and sugar in a medium bowl. Using a wooden spoon, cream them until smooth, about 1 minute. Switch to a whisk and blend in the eggs one at a time. Stir for another 30 seconds, until the batter is smooth and the sugar begins to dissolve. (If using a stand mixer, put the butter and sugar in the bowl and, using the paddle attachment, cream until smooth, about 1 minute. Blend in the eggs one at a time, mixing just until incorporated, about 20 seconds. Then switch to a whisk and blend in the rest of the ingredients by hand.)

3. Mix in the vanilla and salt. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder directly onto the batter. Pour in the coffee. Gently whisk the ingredients until the mixture is smooth and mostly free of lumps.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with a rubber spatula. Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out with only moist crumbs clinging to it, 40 to 43 minutes. Set the pan on a rack to cool for 20 minutes. Carefully run a knife around the edges of the pan, invert the cake onto the rack, and remove the pan. Invert again onto another rack and let cool right side up until just warm.

Ganache
8 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream; more as needed
Granulated sugar (optional)

1. Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil.
2. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk gently until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth. (If using a 70% bittersweet chocolate, the ganche might be a bit thick; add more cream, a tablespoon at a time, to thin it. You might also want to add a couple of teaspoons of sugar when you add the hot cream.

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