(Almost) Flourless Chocolate Cake with Port & Balsamic Glazed Cherries

I have been DYING to make this recipe for a long time ever since I saw the pictures the blog, designspongeonline.com (which I will post here and cannot, by any means, take credit for). I mean, look at them. If you're mouth isn't salivating then you must be crazy.

Well, my good friend and dance buddy, Lauren, from Cal Poly came in town last Saturday to visit. She traveled all the way from the warm farm town of Yuba City to enter the June Gloom of San Francisco. Besides her inappropriate summer clothes, she brought with her a HUGE basket of bing cherries - picked from a tree in her very own back yard! My am I jealous! Then again, I'd have to live in Yuba City... Since we were hanging out for the day we decided it'd be fun to bake something with them. We both decided that chocolate would have to be the vessel (naturally). Finally, I found my excuse to make this lovely and delicious cake.

This cake is nuts. It is beyond good. I'm not sure about the readers here but sometimes I swoon when I eat certain foods (truffles, chocolate, balsamic vinegar, to name a few). I was swooning. This is super dense but still moist. I've made flourless chocolate cake before that was very dry and disappointing. This was not! The addition of cinnamon and espresso powder to this dish is what really makes it stand out. The bonus? Well, you have to use port for the reduction sauce which means you'll have leftovers to drink with your cake!

The Cake:

• 12 - 14 oz chocolate ( I prefer 56% or higher cacao)
• 2 Tblsp Cocoa powder (dark, dutch process is best!)
• 1 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• 1 1/4 tsp espresso powder
• 5 Tblsp Flour
• 5 eggs
  
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2 sticks unsalted butter (1 cup)
  

Cherries:

• 1 pound cherries, stemmed, pitted (I recommend buying a pitter for this, Lauren saved me!)
  
• 3/4 cup ruby Port ( I used Justin 'Obtuse' Port)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions:

1. Butter and Flour a 10" springform pan (or you can use a fluted torte pan so long as it has a removable bottom)

2. Set oven to 375º

3. Mix all dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside

4. Melt and stir butter and chocolate together over double boiler until everything is melted and smooth.

5. Beat eggs and sugar in mixer until starting to thicken.

6. Add remaining dry ingredients to mixer, and fold in slowly.

7. Slowly fold in melted chocolate to dry mixture so eggs do not curdle. You can temper it by adding a little of the warm chocolate mixture to the egg mixture first to raise the temperature.

8. Pour into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

9. While cake is baking, prepare cherry mixture

10. Stir cherries, port, sugar, and vinegar in heavy large skillet over high heat until sugar dissolves.

11. Bring to boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer until cherries are soft and wooden spoon leaves path in sauce when drawn across bottom of skillet, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat.

12. Pull cake out of oven to cool.

13. Serve cake with cherry compote.

Buon Appetito!
- Lindsay

S'mores indoors!

From The Sandlot:

Ham Porter: Hey, Smalls, you wanna s'more?
Smalls: Some more of what?
Ham Porter: No, do you wanna s'more?
Smalls: I haven't had anything yet, so how can I have some more of nothing?
Ham Porter: You're killing me Smalls! These are s'more's stuff! Alright, now pay attention. First you take the graham, you stick the chocolate on the graham. Then you roast the 'mallow. When the 'mallows flaming... you stick it on the chocolate. Then cover with the other end. Then you scarf. Kind of messy, but good!

Simply put, s'mores are amazing. I probably love them so much because I have so many childhood memories with them. My dad used to take me and my two other sisters on these father-daughter camping trips when we were younger and I know for a fact that s'mores were half the reason I actually went. I would get so excited about making s'mores. As I got older and my perfectionism (OCDism) developed further, getting the perfect brown marshmallow became a game to me.

Now, living in a city I often miss the great outdoors. Obviously there are a ton of options close to San Francisco that I could travel to for camping, but that's a whole other issue I don't want to get into right now. So how nice would it be to bring the warm-fuzzy feeling of roasting some marshmallows with friends to your very own living room? Well, that's how indoor s'mores came about.

What's different about this recipe is that instead of using graham crackers as a base I used matzo. If any of you are unfamiliar with matzo it's a cracker like flatbread made of flour and water. However, the dough is pricked in several places and not allowed to rise before or during the baking process which creates the flat bread.

My roommate Jenny is my live-in Martha Stewart protogé and she sent me a link to this Marta Stewart recipe that used matzo as a base. In this recipe she drizzle the matzo with chocolate to give it the sweetness. What make it extra special is by using the lightly salted matzo there's a nice combination of salty and sweet that you don't normally get with the typical graham cracker.

Now how did we roast these mallows you ask? Well, being scared of what kind of toxic fumes might be in the DuraFlame logs we opted for the sterno can. A sterno can is what is often used in the food service industry to heat buffet platters. It's a little can that is filled with a flammable jell. You light it with a lighter and it stays lit for a long time. It's small, portable, and clean. Much easier than logs! Martha Stewart suggests putting them under the broiler. Alternatively, you could also use your gas stove if you have one.

Ingredients

For the ganache:

• 2 oz dark chocolate
• 1T butter
• 1T milk or cream
  

For the s'mores

• Chocolate bar of your choice (Hershey's is classic but you can go gourmet if you like)
• Marshmallows
• Streit's lightly salted matzo
• Sterno can
  

To make the ganache heat chocolate and butter over a double boiler stirring often. Be careful that the bowl doesn't touch the water. When melted, add a touch of milk or cream until it's at a consistency that drizzles well. I added roughly 1-2T.

Lay out matzo pices on a piece of wax paper and break up into desired size. Drizzle chocolate over the matzo pieces. Let rest for roughly 30 minutes at room temp or put in the refrigerator for 5 minutes if you need to speed the process.

Now you're ready to assemble your s'mores. If you don't know how to make a s'more that's very unfortunate. I suggest you follow Ham Porter's advice above. That or just follow Zach's method below.



Boun Appetito!
- Lindsay

Chocolate Soup with Raspberry Hazelnut Salad

So I tried this Michael Chiarello recipe for Chocolate Soup about a year ago when I had a dinner party at my place. It was a big hit that night but for some reason I never made it again. Perhaps it's the richness of the dish or the fact that your literally spooning melted chocolate in your mouth. Not that liquid chocolate is worse than solid chocolate for you, but the indulgence factor is most definitely over the top.

Anyway, Zach has been begging me to make this dish for months now. I told him I'd make it for him before I left for vacation but failed to do that. So I made it up to him this past weekend as a belated Valentine's Day gift. The best part was that I surprised him with it after dinner. He was beyond ecstatic.

Directions

Ganache for the soup:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 pound bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 1/4 cup raspberry liqueur (recommended: Framboise)

Raspberry Salad:

• 1/2 pint raspberries
• 2 tablespoon hazelnuts, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint, thinly sliced
• Small pinch salt
• 2 tablespoons raspberry liqueur (recommended: Framboise)
• 4 ounces (1/2 cup) sweetened whipped cream, for garnish
• Small piece bittersweet chocolate to shave, for garnish

For the ganache:

In a small saucepan bring the cream, butter, and sugar to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped chocolate so that it melts completely. Stir in the raspberry liqueur. Let the ganache cool to room temperature and reserve.

For the salad:

Gently combine the raspberries, hazelnuts, mint, small pinch of salt and raspberry liqueur.

In a wide, shallow soup bowl pour about 3 ounces of the room temperature ganache to fill a shallow pool in the bottom of the bowl, about 1/8-inch deep. Place a nice spoonful of the raspberry/hazelnut salad in the center and garnish with a small spoonful of whipped cream and shaved bittersweet chocolate. Top with chopped hazelnuts as well.

And if you're going to go all out and make this decadent dessert, the you may as well do everyone a favor and serve this with a ruby port. The combination is beyond words.

Buon Appetito!
- Lindsay