make life sweeter!

Before I started making this tart I thought I'd play around with the flavours you find in Nutella: milk chocolate and hazelnuts. The idea was to make a crust with toasted and ground hazelnuts and a filling with milk chocolate. I didn't want to use just milk chocolate because I was afraid the end result would be too sweet. Not that I wouldn't like that :) but I was taking this tart to a lunch date with 3 of my favorite girls: C, J and H. And not everybody is into intense sweet like I am. So instead I made a ganache with a ratio of 1:2 bittersweet (65 % cocoa) and milk chocolate.
I miscalculated the amount of ganache I needed to fill the crust. Somehow I thought a ganache made with 175 ml (¾ cup) cream and 300 g (10 ½ oz) of chocolate would be enough to fill a 23 cm (9 in) crust but it didn't. I used up all the milk chocolate so I had to use bittersweet chocolate (with less cocoa than the other) instead to fill the tart up. Instead of a ganache I made a chocolate glaze with butter and water. And in went another 200 g (7 oz) of chocolate and 115 g (4 oz) of butter. For those who are counting, this tart has a filling of 500 g (1 lb) of chocolate, 175 ml (¾ cup) whipped cream and 115 g (4 oz) of butter. This is not a tart for those who count their calories :) I warned my friends not to eat too much lunch and leave room enough for the tart.
While the chocolate glaze was setting I made caramel covered hazelnuts (for the first time). Making caramel makes me a bit nervous but it went well if you don't consider the droplet of hot caramel that fell on my thumb. I used my old silpat to pour the caramel on, not realizing that this would leave an imprint on the caramel. Not a big problem but next time I wouldn't use it for that reason.
I was afraid to stick the caramel covered hazelnuts in the still warm chocolate glaze because I wanted them to be at an angle and not flat on the surface. I waited till it had set before sticking them in, unfortunately this caused the glaze to go up :( Not sure how to solve this one...anyone tips?
I had some fears that maybe the ganache layer and the chocolate glaze layer wouldn't have (more or less) the same degrees of firmness but luckily this turned out ok. You didn't feel nor taste the difference.
What I thought might be a Nutella-y experience wasn't. The chocolate filling was way too overpowering for the crust. You could barely taste the hazelnuts. So much for that. Next time I'll have to incorporate hazelnuts into the filling.
But did the tart taste good despite it not tasting Nutella-y? Yes, very much so! I think I maybe even have to agree with my girlfriends that it was the best chocolate tart I ever tasted. But I'm not sure about it yet, have to make more to see ;) The next one will have more or less the same ratio of milk chocolate and dark chocolate as this one only I'll make one layer because that's less work ;) Also I'll try a different crust, maybe with pâte sucrée. See if that makes for an even better tart.



Sweet shortcrust pastry (from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay)

270 g (2 cups) flour
3 tbs caster sugar
150 g (5 oz) cold butter, diced
55 g hazelnuts, toasted and finely ground
2-3 tbs ice water

Process the flour, sugar, butter and ground hazelnuts in a foodprocessor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the motor running add enough water for the dough to cling together. Knead lightly and wrap in plastic wrap. Allow to sit in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 2-3 mm (⅛ in) thick. Line a 23 cm (9 in) tart tin. Blind bake for 10 minutes. Remove the baking weights and bake for another 10 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Ganache

175 ml (¾ cup / 6 fl oz) whipping cream
200 g (7 oz) milk chocolate, chopped
100 g (3 ½ oz) bittersweet chocolate (65% cocoa), chopped

Bring the whipping cream to a boil. Pour over the chocolate. Tap the bowl a few times. Allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir until combined. Pour into the baked and cooled crust.

Chocolate glaze (from I Want Chocolate by Trish Deseine)

200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate (56% cocoa)
115 g (4 oz / ½ cup) butter
60 ml (¼ cup) water

Melt all of the ingredients in a bowl over hot water. Stir until smooth. Allow to cool slightly before pouring over the ganache.

Caramel covered hazelnuts

8-10 hazelnuts
150 g (5 oz / ⅔ cup) caster sugar

Place the hazelnuts well spaced on a heat proof surface like marble, silpat or a slightly greased baking sheet.
Heat the sugar on low to medium heat. Shake it around every now. Let the sugar turn a deep amber brown. Remove from heat. Using a spoon pour enough caramel over each hazelnut to cover it.
Allow to cool down and set.
Stick the caramel hazelnuts in the tart.

This is actually a cake I already posted 2 years ago but I'm reposting it to enter Art You Eat hosted by Molly of Phe/MOM/enom. This first edition of Art You Eat is all about pretty looking chocolate recipes. Luckily old recipes were allowed otherwise I wouldn't have time to enter.
I made this cake for A's birthday two years ago. Besides tasting good it also looked pretty. I don’t remember how many hours it took to make it but I remember that making the decoration was time consuming. Unfortunately I didn’t temper the chocolate (because it didn’t say so in the recipe and also because it’s not a very easy job and I had 3 different kinds of chocolate in very small quantities) so the chocolate decorations don’t look as good as they should. You can see the cocoa butter that ‘seeped’ out while the chocolate was setting.

Chocolate ganache covered orange sponge cake with planetary chocolate decoration (from Wacky cakes & kooky cookies by Gerhard Jenne)

Sponge
6 medium eggs, separated
a pinch of salt
170 g (¾ cup) caster sugar
grated zest of 2 oranges
125 g (1 cup) flour, sifted
1 ts baking powder
85 g (6 tablespoons) (salted) butter, melted and cooled

Chocolate butter frosting
115 g (½ cup) butter, softened
110 g (1 cup) icing sugar, sifted
45 g (¼ cup) bitter sweet chocolate (70%), melted

Chocolate ganache
+/- 180 g (1 cup) bitter sweet chocolate (70%), finely chopped
225 ml (1 cup) whipping cream

Chocolate decoration
60 g (2 oz) bitter sweet chocolate
60 g (2 oz) milk chocolate
60 g (2 oz) white chocolate

(For the sponge:)
Line the bottom of a 25 cm (10 inch) springform pan with baking paper. Grease with butter and dust with flour.
Preheat the oven at 175ºC (350ºF).
Beat the egg whites with the salt at low speed to break them up. Beat at higher speed and add 2 tbs of sugar. Continue beating and adding sugar until you’ve used ⅔ of the sugar. The egg whites should hold stiff peaks.
Add the remaining sugar, egg yolks and orange zest. Gently fold in the flour and baking powder in 3 batches, using a large metal spoon.
Pour the butter over the surface of the mixture and gently fold it in. Spoon the mixture in the cake pan. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes (the center is cooked if the surface springs back when lightly pressed).
Let cool in the pan and turn out when cold. Cut the sponge with a large serrated knife into 3 layers.

(For the frosting with chocolate:)
Beat the butter until creamy. Gradually beat in the icing sugar until the mixture is white and fluffy. Add the chocolate and stir well.
Spread ⅔ of the frosting onto the 2 layers. Sandwich the layers together, then cover the top and sides of the sponge with the remaining frosting. Chill for 1 hour.

(For the chocolate ganache:)
Bring the cream to a boil and pour it over the chocolate. Stir well until smooth and glossy. Cool.
Cover the top and sides of the cake with half the ganache and chill for 1 hour, or until set. Coat the cake with a second layer of ganache (reheat if necessary). Level the surface with a palette knife. Chill for at least 1 hour, or until set.

Draw different kinds of stars, suns and other shapes you like onto baking paper. Turn the paper over.
Prepare 3 paper piping bags and melt the 3 kinds of chocolate in 3 separate cups. Pipe chocolate stars, suns or other decorations onto baking paper. Leave to set. Attach the shapes with a little melted chocolate onto the cake. Pipe dots of chocolate onto the cake.

1 serving - 520 kcal
100 g - 410 kcal

carbohydrate 49 g - protein 7 g - fat 34 g (saturated fat 20 g) - fibre 0 g

This was not what I had in mind for the November edition of SHF. But if plan A fails, plan B just has to do. When I read that Leslie at 'definitely not martha' wanted to see beta carotene packed recipes I thought I had the ultimate recipe, nice and sweet, orange coloured and packed with beta carotene. My idea was to make carrot and white chocolate truffles. Instead of using cream to make the ganache I used homemade carrot juice (I steamed the carrots before juicing). The ganache had a pretty orange colour due to the very intense orange of the carrot juice. I used more chocolate (100 g / 3 ½ oz) than carrot juice (75 ml / 2 ½ fl. oz) and also added some butter. I put the ganache in the fridge to firm up, and here we get to the core of the problem....it didn't firm up. I gave it a day more, and it seemed a bit firmer (but still liquid) and just to be sure I gave it another day....but as you already saw in the picture this didn't give the result I was looking for. So much for the truffles....
Plan B was excecuted in a hurry so it doesn't look very pretty. I used some orange chiffon cake scraps that I still had in my freezer from the Daring Bakers Oktober challenge and filled it with the clementine and lemon curd that was left over from the tart I made last week. I topped it off with the carrot and white chocolate ganache. This resulted in a very citrusy tangy sweet petit four. The ganache did not have a carrot taste (you could smell it a bit though) but it sort of mellowed down the sweetness of the white chocolate and and of course it added plenty of beta carotene! The ganache in turn mellowed down the tartness of the clementine and lemon curd. All in all it was a delicious combination.
I think the glaze would be excellent over carrot cake too or any other cake that happens to need an orange coloured glaze.

Btw the curd and chiffon are good sources of vitamine A too because of the eggs and egg yolks. Vitamine A is the vitamine beta carotene is transformed into in the human body. Just thought I'd share my infinite wisdom with you ;)

Recipe for the orange chiffon cake here.
Recipe for the clementine and lemon curd here.

Carrot and white chocolate glaze

75 ml (2 ½ fl. oz)carrot juice (made from about 350 g steamed carrots)
100 g (3 ½ oz) white chocolate, finely chopped
10 g (2 ts) butter, softened

Bring the carrot juice to a boil. Pour over the chocolate and butter. Allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir until smooth. Chill for at least 2 hours.

This cake was the reason I bought Wacky cakes & kooky cookies by Gerhard Jenne 4 years ago...and yes, it took me that long to finally make it. It has never really been off my mind since I first saw it but the marzipan covering looked like a difficult job so I kept putting it off. Finally an occasion arose to make it. Our dear friends A and C (and their little one, J) from Israel came to stay with us for a week in October. C is a wonderful baker herself so I needed to make something to impress ;) This was the perfect cake for it.
I like working with marzipan but this chocolate marzipan was different to work with than regular marzipan. It was hard to roll out. Not that it crumbled or something like that but it took like only forever to flatten. It's good that I can be very patient but I think it took me an HOUR to flatten it to the required thickness. I thought it had to do with the fact that it was chilled (the recipe required it so I did what the recipe required...this time). A week later I rolled out the left-over marzipan for another recipe without chilling it but that didn't make a big difference. Probably the amount of cocoa powder and the corn syrup did something to the marzipan to make it more difficult to roll. Also I rolled it between baking paper instead of the recommended thick plastic sheets...
The colour of the chocolate marzipan was a very deep dark brown. I suppose you could use brown food colouring but you'd end up using a lot to get a dark brown shade and you'd probably taste it too. And of course you'd miss the chocolate taste of the marzipan. So in sum I wouldn't recommend using food colouring.
I didn't use the chocolate sponge recipe but instead used a chocolate cake recipe I made in the early days of my blog. Now that I think about it, I didn't even have my blog when I made it but I had a photograph of it and used that for one of my first posts.

Gerhard Jenne's book is not a good as I had hoped though. I don't like the measurements he uses in the book. Who uses cups to measure chopped chocolate for a ganache and not even state how finely the chocolate has to be chopped? I'm used to the metric system but can switch to cups if needed but then I need a little more info to feel assured that I'm using the right amount than simply 1 cup of chopped chocolate. I searched everywhere to see if there was some standard for a cup of chopped chocolate but as I suspected there was none. Still not sure about how much chocolate you had to use...I just chopped it in ½ x ½ cm (1/5 x 1/5 in) pieces and it worked out ok.
As for the recipes in the book, only a few ones I really liked with this one being my favorite. Another really pretty cake was this chocolate cake with star and dot decoration that I made a few years ago for A's birthday (my A that is).

I loved the contrast between the very dark chocolate and hazelnut taste of the cake and ganache against the sweet chocolate and almond taste of the marzipan. I made the cake the evening before our friends came and served it the next day at room temperature. It was even better the day after when we ate it chilled. The ganache and the cake became more brownie-like. I thought it was definitely better chilled.
One piece of advice when your take a bite: do not inhale ;)

Chocolate hazelnut ganache cake with chocolate marzipan covering (from Wacky cakes & kooky cookies by Gerhard Jenne)

serves 8

Chocolate marzipan

1 tbs light corn syrup
500 g (1 lb) marzipan
55 g (2 oz) cocoa powder, sifted

Knead the corn syrup into the marzipan. Add the cocoa powder and knead it into the marzipan. Wrap in plastic wrap until needed.

Chocolate hazelnut cake (from Culinair met Chocolade by Patricia Lousada)

45 g (1 ½ oz) hazelnuts, roasted and peeled
70 g (2 ½ oz) caster sugar
90 g (3 ¼ oz) butter, diced
90 g (3 ¼ oz)dark chocolate (70%)
2 eggs, separated
½ ts vanilla extract
15 g (½ oz) flour

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Grease two 15 cm (6 in) springforms bottom lined with baking paper.
Ground the hazelnuts together with 1 tbs of the sugar. Melt the butter, turn off the heat and mix in the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to melt, stirring a few times.
Beat the egg yolks with 45 g (1 ½ oz) of the sugar until they are a light colour. Stir in the warm chocolate mixture and the vanilla extract.
Beat the egg whites until soft peaks. Add the remaining sugar and keep beating until the egg whites are stiff.
Mix a big spoonful of egg white into the chocolate mixture to make it airy. Fold the remainig egg white in. Bake the cakes for about 30 minutes. The middle of the cake should still be moist. Allow the cake to cool down in the springform on a wire rack.

Chocolate ganache

180 g (1 cup) dark chocolate (70%), chopped (½ x ½ cm - 1/5 x 1/5 in)
225 ml (1 cup) whipping cream

Bring the cream to a boil. Pour over the chopped chocolate and allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir until all the chocolate is melted. Allow to cool down and firm up up enough so it's not really liquid but also not to firm because you have to add diced cake and mix it in the ganache.

Assembly

Cut one of the chocolate cakes into 2 layers, one thicker than the other (the thick layer will be the base, the thin layer the lid). Cut the second cake into 4 x 4 cm (1 ½ in) cubes.
Mix the cubes with ¾ of the ganache, trying not to break up the cubes too much.
Stick the cake base onto a cake board or flat metal tray with a little ganache. Scoop the cubes in the ganache on top of the thicker layer and pat inot a dome shape. Put the sponge lid on top. Cover with plastic wrap and smooth with your hands to form a neat dome shape (it will not look very neat but that doesn't matter because it will be covered with marzipan). Chill for 1 hour.
Remove the plastic and spread the remaining ganache over the cake (probably you'll have to heat up the ganache a tiny bit for it to spread, like a few seconds on half power in the microwave).
Roll out the marzipan to about 3 mm (⅛ in) thickness. Place on a flat metal tray. Mold the marzipan for a wavy effect. Then slide it onto the cake. Carefully adjust the waves for extra drama. Gently press the marzipan against the base of the cake. Trim the excess marzipan from around the base with a pizza cutter.
Dust the cake generously with cocoa powder. Move and tilt the tray with the cake as you dust so the cocoa powder can collect between the folds.

What do ya know...I made a layered cake! That makes it eligible for 'Waiter, there is something in my....layered cake', an event from Johanna, The Passionate Cook and Jeanne, Cooksister, hosted by Andrew at Spittoon Extra.
It's actually a mini-cake I made for my father-in-law's 60th birthday. So unfortunately I cannot show you the actual layers. To make the 11 x 11 cm (4 ½ x 4 ½ in) cake I used some chiffon cake that was left over from another recipe (still have to blog about that one) as cake layers, filled them with a very dark chocolate ganache flavoured with some orange peel. And sealed the layers in a chocolate glaze. Decoration is simple butter star cookies that I glued to the cake with some ganache.
Because I used very bitter chocolate the ganache wasn't very sweet. If you like a sweeter taste use chocolate with less cocoa content. The same goes for the chocolate glaze.

Orange ganache

100 g (3 ½ oz) bittersweet chocolate (70%), finely chopped
100 ml (3 ½ fl oz) whipping cream
¼ orange peel (only the orange part)

Bring the cream and peel to a boil and allow to simmer for 10 minutes. Pour over the chocolate and allow to stand for a few minutes. Stir the mixture until it becomes a nice thick ganache. Allow to set for a few hours before using.

Chocolate glaze (from Chocolade by Patricia Lousada)

90 g (3 oz) bitter chocolate (70 %), finely chopped
60 g (2 oz) butter, at room temperature, cut in small pieces
½ tbs light corn syrup

Melt the chocolate, butter and syrup for the chocolate glaze. Pour a little bit over the cake and spread it out in order to fixate the crumbs. Pour the rest of the glaze over the cake, helping it going down the sides by carefully tilting the cake a little bit.

Star cookies (from The Ultimate Cookie book by Catherine Atkinson)

makes 9-10

60 g (2 oz) butter
25 g (1 oz) sugar
90 g (3 oz) flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F) Cream the butter and the sugar. Mix in the flour. Knead it through to get a smooth dough. Roll out the dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 4 mm. Chill for about 10 minutes. Cut out stars. Transfer the stars to a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until just starting to brown. Allow to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet. Transfer to wire rack to cool down completely.

To assemble

Cut 2 squares of 10 x 10 cm (4 x 4 in) out of the chiffon cake. Spread one of them with a layer of ganache. Place the other square on top. Spread ganache on the top and the sides (if the ganache is too firm, warm it up slightly by popping it in the microwave for just 3-5 seconds on half power). Allow to firm up for about an hour. Pour the chocolate glaze over the cake. If necessary, help it spread with a spatula and/or by tilting the cake. Allow to firm up for about an hour or until it doesn't look shiny anymore. Glue the cookies to the sides and top of the cake.