Chocolate and Raspberry Goodness

This past weekend I made this yummy and delicious treat (cake?? torte??) to bring with to dinner at our friends home. This deliciousness was inspired by the cover photo on The Best of America's Test Kitchen magazine last month. When I saw it, I knew I had to give it a try!

I'm not much of a baker, I really prefer making savory dishes where I don't have to be as exact with my measurements, but it just looked so darn good that I had to give this a try (adding in a few changes to make it my own!). I think that everyone agreed that it tasted pretty good (in fact both of the guys had seconds!).  I think that this is the perfect dessert for a dinner with friends or celebrating Valentines Day!

Here is how I tackled the recipe.....

First I gathered all of my ingredients:

Those are toasted sliced almonds (just put them in a dry pan for a few minutes to toast them up).

Then I melted the chocolate and butter in a double boiler (just a glass bowl set over a pot of boiling water). I did this step first because the chocolate had to cool off before being mixed with the eggs and other ingredients. Also, if you attempt this recipe make sure to use your largest glass bowl for this step, because you will mix the rest of your ingredients into this bowl towards the end of the recipe. When the mixture was melted, it was smooth and glossy.

While this mixture was cooling off I cut parchment paper for the bottom of my cake pans:

Do you know the little trick that you can use to make perfect rounds? Just fold the paper in half and then in half again (it should be a square). Then fold the two loose edges of the square together to make a triangle and fold a second time to make a smaller triangle. Then trim the end of the triangle until you have the right size circles for your pan.

After setting aside some of the almonds for decorating the cake, I put the rest of the almonds into the food processor and ground them into a fine powder.

I then mixed in the rest of the dry ingredients (flour and salt) in a small bowl. I took a picture of the unprocessed almonds next to the almond-flour mixture so that you could see the difference in consistency.

Next, I whipped the eggs in the same food processor bowl (don't worry about cleaning it out, if a few bits of almond get left behind in the bowl, it won't matter!). To the egg mixture I added in the sugar until the two were mixed together well. 

Around this time, the chocolate mixture was cool (it had been off the heat about 25 minutes), and I added in a small amount of espresso powder and some vanilla. Then I mixed in the egg mixture and finally, I mixed in the almond mixture. The resulting batter was pretty thin and had a course texture from the ground almonds.

I split the batter between the two cake pans and baked them for 15 minutes at 325.

When the cakes came out of the oven, they looked dry and a toothpick came out cleanly. I let the cakes cool for about 90 minutes and then removed them from the pan.  

 

When the cakes were cooled, I made a filling by mixing some raspberry jam and fresh berries. I also melted some additional chocolate, cream and sugar in the double boiler to make a coating for the top of the cake.

I finished off by filling the cake, pouring the glaze on top and decorating with the extra almonds and some berries.

Ymm......let me just take a moment here......

........

As I said, I don't typically make a lot of desserts, and this was a big undertaking, but well worth the time that it took!

Recipe Recap:

Batter

8 oz bakers chocolate

12 Tbs butter

3/4 cup toasted almonds processed fine

1/4 cup flour

pinch salt

5 eggs

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp espresso powder (if you don't want to purchase this item since you only need a little bit, you can skip it, but chocolate desserts usually taste more chocolaty when you add some coffee flavor in the background)

Filling:

1/2 cup jam

1 cup berries

Decorations

1 cup toasted almonds

Whole Berries

Glaze

5 oz bakers chocolate

1/2 heavy cream

2 tsp sugar

Melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler. Process the almonds into a fine powder, mixing in the flour and salt. Whip the eggs in the food processor and then add in the sugar. Mix the cooled chocolate mixture with the vanilla and espresso powder. Then mix in the egg and almond mixtures. Divide the batter into two 8 inch bake pans and bake for 15 minutes at 325 degrees Fill the cake with the jam and berry mixture. Melt the glaze ingredients in the double boiler and pour over the cake. Decorate!

Valentines Dinner at Home: Orzo with Grilled Asparagus

Yesterday it was snowing (finally!) and although my hubby and I had plans to go out for an early Valentine's Day dinner we decided to stay in and enjoy a cozy winter evening at home. This winter hasn't been much of a winter and it was actually a welcome surprise to have a night where all we wanted to do was hole up on the couch and watch movies.

We were both in the mood for steak, but were too hungry to wait for potatoes to bake, so I decided to make a pasta salad using the asparagus I found at the store today.

Here are the ingredients that I used in the pasta salad:

Sun-dried tomatoes, orzo, oil olive, balsamic vinegar (not shown), feta, garlic (not shown), basil (not shown), asparagus and an onion. Sorry for missing so many of the ingredients, but that's what happens when I decide to add things in along the way :)

I started by boiling some salted water and adding the orzo (this took about 9 minutes to cook). While the water was heating up, I chopped up the onion and garlic and cooked them over medium heat.

 While that was cooking I chopped up the asparagus and tomatoes.

Once the onions were cooked, I added the asparagus to the pan along with a few generous drizzles of balsamic. I left this cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes so that the balsamic could reduce and get all syrupy. It looked something like this:

When the pasta was done, I drained and rinsed it under cold water.

Then I threw the orzo, asparagus mixture, tomatoes and cheese into a big bowl and drizzled it all with olive oil. 

I finished up by tossing everything together and adding some basil, salt and pepper until it tasted right.

Served alongside the steak that my hubby had been preparing, this made for a perfect cozy valentines dinner night in!

Recipe Recap:
8 oz orzo
3 oz sun-dried tomatoes
5 oz feta cheese

1 bunch asparagus cleaned and chopped

1 medium onion chopped

2 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup balsamic

1/4 olive oil

2 tablespoons basil

salt and pepper

Cook the pasta. In the meantime, cook the onion and garlic over medium heat until translucent. Add the chopped asparagus and balsamic to the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the balsamic reduces and becomes syrupy. Drain and rinse the pasta in cold water. Roughly chop the tomatoes. Throw the pasta, asparagus mixture, cheese and tomatoes into a large bowl. Mix with the olive oil, basil, salt and pepper. Serve.

Valentines Day Wreath

I took out my valentines day decorations this week. I love decorating for the different holidays, but I realized that I don't have very much v-day decor.....so I decided to make a wreath that was loosely based on one I had seen on pinterest a few weeks ago.

It probably took me about two hours to make this from start to finish, but I broke that up between 3 different days. Its actually made from two packages of cupcake liners (150 total) and then I covered a cardboard heart in some pink glitter that I already had in my house. The whole thing is mounted on a styrofoam wreath that I covered in pink ribbon (I only bought one spool of  thick pink ribbon when I was at the store, thinking that it would be enough.....it was not :(.......and I ended up suplementing with some thin pink ribbon that I already had at home, which was ok).

Not sure how I am going to store this without crushing that entire thing.......but loving it all the same!