Flourless Chocolate Cake

A friend of mine recently told me he was cutting down on the white foods, flour and sugar, for health concerns. But being a chocolate addict, he asked me to whip him up a nice dessert so I decided to try out a flourless chocolate cake. I couldn't completely eliminate the sugar but I could greatly reduce it. And the addition of some nice Grand Marnier liqueur certainly helped. The cake itself is nothing very pretty to look at. When it comes out of the oven, it has a soft cracked shell on the outside. However, the rest of the cake holds its own. One bite, and you would never know there was no flour. As a side note, the cream I served it with is absolutely necessary. It cuts through the denseness and brings this cake to a whole new level.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
6 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
splash of Grand Marnier
optional: orange zest

Cream topping:
2 cups whipping cream
splash of vanilla extract
optional: 1-2 TBSP powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you want the overall taste to be)

Need: 8 inch pan lined with parchment paper

1. Melt chocolate in double boiler. Add softened butter and let the two combine.
2. In one bowl, whip two eggs, 4 yolks, and half of your sugar. Gently add your melted chocolate to your mixture.
3. In another bowl, whip your 4 egg whites until white and foamy and then add the remainder of your sugar until soft peaks. Carefully incorporate your white mixture into your chocolate mixture.
4. Add your chosen flavorings. Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes or until the center is no longer wobbly.
5. For your cream topping: In a bowl with whisk attachment, whip your cream, vanilla, and powdered sugar to soft peaks. Put a generous dollop on top of your slice once your cake has cooled.

HOMEMADE OREOS

On a recent trip to Boston, my good friend A turned me onto Flour, a bakery opened by JoAnne Chang (which is conveniently located next to the Children's Museum in Boston as well)!! I love this woman as her story is close to my own. She started out in math/economics and at one point in her life, switched over to pastry. Her cookbook is thorough as she explains the science behind why certain things happen. I highly recommend it for beginning and experienced bakers. So for a recent and very important event at A's school, I made these homemade oreos from Ms. Chang. These are absolutely delicious, I know every ingredient going into them and cannot recommend them enough. I love how I can control the size and the amount of icing that goes into them as well! If you love oreos, you have to give these a try.

Homemade Oreos

By: Joanne Chang from the Flour Cookbook

 Makes 16-18 sandwich cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly

1 egg

1.5 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder

1 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

Vanilla Cream Filling

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 2/3 cup confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 TBSP milk

pinch of kosher salt

1. Whisk together the butter and sugar until combined. Whisk in vanilla and chocolate. Add egg and whisk thoroughly.

2. In another bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda until well mixed. Stir in the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. The dough will seem floury. It will resemble Play-Doh. Let set at room temperature for about 1 hour to firm up.

3. Transfer dough to parchment and shape into a log about 10 inches long and 2.5 inches in diameter and roll into parchment. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm.

4. Heat oven to 325 F.

5. Cut the dough log into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place about 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheet.

6. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until firm to the touch.

7. Filling: Using a stand mixer with paddle, beat butter on low. Add confectioners sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add milk and salt.

8. Scoop about 1 TBSP of the filling onto the bottom of one cookie. Top with a second cookie, then press the cookies together to spread the filling.

9. ENJOY with a glass of milk!!!

Sweet friends

Some days I feel very lucky. Especially when I realize what great friends I get to connect with. This month,  I took an amazing trip with two amazing women to a location in Arizona where we had an unbelievable, cathartic, mindful, cleansing weekend filled with thoughts of letting go, getting out of our comfort zone, and trying new things. I have to thank M and S for such a memorable time. It's moments in time like this that really lift us and carry us through anything that life gives us. The food was inventive, the beauty was one of a kind, the horseback riding was ...well, challenging but exciting nonetheless.

I am also thankful for friends closer to home. This past weekend, I attended the funnest party I've been to in ages. It was filled with laughter, love, food (think empanadas), culture, fond memories, new bonds, and hope. Of course I had to make a little something sweet for such a sweet group of people. My caramel mousse cake with a hidden walnut base was a major hit for these discerning palettes.

Now I need to figure out what to make for this belly dancing group for our next gathering......

fig tarts

Hello dear friends! A few people have asked me if I have left cyberspace and I have not. I have, however, been adjusting to a new work schedule and my modest little blog here has taken the brunt of my neglect. On top of that, my position as an assistant pastry chef has left me a little lazy to work on desserts at home. But, now that I'm a month in and a little more adjusted, I have renewed energy!

At work, I'm surrounded by and deal with tarts, tarts, and more tarts all day long. The star of the tart is the fruit you put on it. So before all the beautiful fruits start disappearing from the farmers markets and it starts getting brisk outside, I wanted to try baking these beautiful figs into a traditional french crust with frangipane filling. The figs were juicy and sweet.  If you have underripe figs or get figs out of season (outside of summer), I recommend sprinkling a little sugar or brown sugar on top to bring out their sweetness before baking.

A secondary motive I wanted to use figs in this tart is because I recently scored the black slate you see in my pictures. The chefs in pastry school always used these black slates to display their desserts and I just think it looks so striking. The first thing I thought of when I saw the slate in the store was figs would look so good on top of that!!  For my friends from school--Donc, voila--a fig tart.

Easy Sticky Buns

Just call me a sucker for delicious morning pastries. This one is sure to please the crowds (especially my niece and nephew!). These cinnamon buns are so delicious and easy; plus, you probably already have all the ingredients in your pantry. Serve with a tall glass of milk. I will be making this for company in the coming weeks...

Easy Sticky Buns
Barefoot Contessa 2008, Ina Garten

Ingredients
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces
1 package (17.3-ounces/ 2-sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
For the filling:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.

Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold 1 sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of the raisins. Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down. Trim the ends of the roll about 1/2-inch and discard. Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups. Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch. Be careful - they're hot! Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper (ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon) and cool completely.

Raspberry and Passion Fruit Mousse Verrines

My friends T & M are coming over for dinner tonite and since they just recently returned from a tropical getaway, I wanted to surprise them with a tropical-y dessert so that no one would notice that it's actually cloudy and chilly outside. What could be more tropical-y than passion fruit and raspberries? Nothing. I couldn't help but top them with the handful of blackberries and kumquats I had leftover from making fruit tarts. Whether the flavors would marry or not was not the issue (although they did!). The verrines just needed a nice pop of color and these did the trick. It also helps my campaign of getting the word out about kumquats!

Fruit Tarts

Over the weekend, my friend R hosted a girls' nite filled with creativity, cordials, and crafts. And although I couldn't be a part of it, I wanted to contribute to it. So I sent over some fruit tarts topped with my new favorite find--kumquats! I see them all the time,  had no idea how to eat them, but  remembered my friend G talking about working with them when she worked at Pierre Herme. Because I love the bright orange color, I decided to just buy a batch of them and see what they were all about. They are spectacular--anyone who likes citrus will dig these. They have a sweet outer skin and a tart inner flesh so you're supposed to eat the whole fruit.  They're packed with vitamins A&C, and have traces of calcium and iron. They really complimented the strawberries, blackberries and pastry cream I put into the fruit tarts. Because some of them have seeds, I recommend eating them sliced.  Hope the ladies' enjoyed them as much as I do!