So here we are again, another blog post and another version of the ever evolving flourless chocolate cake.  Why do I continually return to this cake, faithful readers might ask?  And why do I do so many mother loving chocolate desserts already?  Well, my answer is this:  I fucking love chocolate, and a flourless cake is a clean way to showcase it’s decadence.  Served at room temperature this cake is smooth, rich as fuck, and chocolatey as a motherfucker.  In the past I’ve typically made this cake with Cocoa Barry 64% and it was good.  This past year I made the switch over to all things Valrhona and have never looked back.  The recipe below uses a combination of Jivara 40% and Couer de Guanaja 80% chocolates.  The result is a sweet and creamy smoothness with a nice strong bitter backbone.  I bake the shit in thin layers and hit the bottom with a crunchy layer of milk chocolate and feuilletine, then glaze the top with a ganache of sorts and then the milk chocolate decorative lines.  The cake itself is pretty standard, nothing I haven’t kind of done before.  The blood orange ice cream, yeah…you’ve seen it before.  The ice cream is perched on a simple chocolate tuile, which is stuck to the cake with an equally simple chocolate cremeaux.  The real joy in this plate for me is in the sauce.  Fernet Menta Caramel suckers!!   Again, not a huge deviance from the formula here, kids.  I been putting booze in caramel from the beginning.  But this is Fernet, and I’ve been wanting to work it into a dessert forever.  So here it is.  Also garnishing the plate is a mint foam, and what I think is a nice, subtle use of the ubiquitous mint leaf.

Valrhona Chocolate Flourless Cake

!5 oz Valrhona Jivara 35%

7 oz Valrhona Couer de Guanaja 80%

12 oz butter

11.25 oz egg

9 0z sugar

4.5 oz water

1. Preheat your convection oven to 275 F and prepare the desired mold.

2. Melt chocolate and butter over a double boiler.

3. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and water.

4. When the chocolate and butter are melted, whisk in the eggs until thoroughly incorporated.

5. Pour into the prepared mold and bake in a covered water bath until just set, like a cheesecake.

To review the methodology for this recipe click here.

Fernet Menta Caramel

12 oz sugar

5 oz corn syrup

6 oz butter

1.25 cups heavy cream

1/2 cup Fernet Menta

1. Weigh the sugar and corn syrup into a heavy bottomed sauce pot.  Caramelize according to your tastes.

2. Whisk in the butter, continue whisking until incorporated.

3. Whisk in the heavy cream until incorporated, return to a boil.

4. Pour the caramel through a strainer into a storage vessel.

5. When the caramel has cooled to room temperature, whisk in the fernet menta. Serve warm.

For the Blood Orange ice cream click here.

To see a video of me plating this bitch up, click here.

To see a video of a kitten riding a turtle, click here.

I hear the phrase “the best thing I’ve ever eaten” thrown around,  and ultimately, I call bullshit.  I mean the notion of “the best” is a fake idea. With subject like food which is completely psychological, The best? Well how many tacos have you eaten, faithful readers? How many burgers have you consumed?  Have you eaten enough chocolate chip cookies to definitively say that that is the best?  The tradition of chocolate chip cookies is well documented, and who the fuck are you to say “this is the best.”  Who the fuck am I for that matter?

As I re-read that last paragraph I realize that I to, am full of shit.  Because you know what? Sometimes things are simply “the best.”  Like my chocolate chip cookies.  I know, I know. But they are.  It’s like the old adage says: “if one person calls you a horse, tell them he’s crazy.  If twenty people call you a horse, go buy a fucking saddle.” And so I have started to believe the hype about these little god dammits.  We give them away for free at the restaurant, as part of out mignardises program, if you have dinner.  I go through about three or four hundred a week.  People come back in to purchase the cookies for a dollar a piece, not bad for a nineteen cent cookie.

The recipe is based upon a now classic by the famous Jacques Torres. I first tasted these years ago,  brought to work for sampling by a very close friend of mine.  The most important step in this recipe is the aging the dough.  Jacques suggests between 24 and 36 hours, and up to 72.  I imagine that this process would improve upon almost any cookie recipe, the flavor and texture improved by hydrating the flour.  I have been told recently that even cake batters can stand to sit and hydrate for a while, a few hours in the fridge improving the quality remarkably.  But that guy also boiled gelatin with a snarky look and kept his sugar and eggs mixed together in the fridge.   These are things that i cannot bring myself to do, even if the pastry chef from Valrhona says I should.

I improve upon Jacques recipe in two simple ways.  I substitute muscovado sugar for half of the amount of brown, and I use both semi-sweet and milk chocolate pistoles. Almost as important as the aging the dough is the selection of chocolate.  Pistoles, disks, or feves are a must, as they create s sort of layering of chocolate unique to the texture of this recipe.  Think you might want to skip the sprinkling of sea salt on top?   Don’t.  These are the best for a reason, and salt is part of that reason.  I believe Jacques likes fluer de sel and I prefer Maldon’s but any quality, coarse sea salt would work.  Also, batters of this nature always come together nicer when all your ingredients are at room temperature, even the eggs.  A note on baking: I typically am baking these from frozen in a 300 degree convection oven.  I like to pull them when they just puff up, and just barely start to brown on the edges.  These are little guys too, maybe a tablespoon of dough.  At that size they take about 12 minutes, with one rotation halfway through baking.  If you make them bigger, they’re going to take longer.  Our Chef at the restaurant enjoys the dough frozen, and I always smile when he grabs a handful.  This recipe makes A LOT!! it’s a rim-rider in my 600 pro-series Kitchen Aid. You might want to cut it in half.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/2 lb all purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

3 tsp salt

1 lb 4 oz butter at room temperature

10 oz muscovado

10 oz brown sugar

1 lb granulated sugar

4 eggs

4 tsp vanilla

1 1/4 lb chocolate pistoles (64%)

1 1/4 lb milk chocolate pistoles (38%)

fluer de sel for sprinkling

Instructions:

• Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and set aside.

• Cream the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy, at least ten minutes.

• Add the eggs on at a time, scraping after the second and final egg. Add vanilla.

• Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.

• Add in the chocolate and mix until it is evenly dispersed in the batter.

• Transfer the dough to a sheet pan and wrap tightly. Refrigerate for 36 hours.

• Preheat the oven to 350. Scoop the cookies to desired size and place evenly on a parchment lined sheet pan. Sprinkle each cookie with a touch of fleur de sel.

• Bake until golden brown but still soft, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.

A fucking bomb went off! Chocolate flourless cake, salty caramel core,  milk chocolate shell and blood orange ice cream.  The dessert is inspired by a pastry I had in Paris, from the shop of the revered pastry Chef Pierre Herme.  It was a bombe, tempered shell and caramel core, I enjoyed it on a park bench in Luxembourg gardens. Mr. Herme ingeniously used a macaron base, his desserts were all marked by inventive skill and imagination.  I employ a compressed devil’s food cake sealed with icing to seal in the oozing salty caramel, just a candle held towards Chef Pierre’s brilliance. The milk chocolate shell is just that, tempered 38% milk chocolate.  Here’s a recipe for my faithful readers.

Blood Orange Ice Cream

2 cups milk

2 cups blood orange puree

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 oz butter

pinch o’ salt

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup egg yolks

P.S.  See this in the Willamette Week?

It’s funny how one idea leads to another and sometimes the most obvious idea is the best one.  Looking at my Fat Spouse dessert, it was good; hell it was great even.  What it lacked however was a warm element.  Something to start melting that malted milk ice cream and pretzel bark.  Something rich and fatty.  Like pootang…BREAD pootang. All peanut butter chips and compressed devil’s food cake stratifying a rich brioche custard.  There’s been some discussion of pootang technique in the kitchen as of late, and one thing again leading to another, I’m now pureeing my base.  It creates an even, dense, almost cakey texture.  The chunks of devils food are compressed in the vacuum sealer then diced.  Finally a good use for that bomber technique.  You can get cool potions this way, but a realized dessert was tricky. Now how about that fancy cruise ship garnish?  I got the idea from a dish wifey had dining when we dined at Spago Beaver Creek.  A simple piped lattice of tempered chocolate onto acetate, scored and bent in a PVC half pipe.  The other tile of tempered chocolate underneath the ice cream is a buffer between the cold scream and the warm pootang.  Cocoa nibs help it grip.  I brought back the dulce dessert Watchmen blood drip plate saucing technique for good measure.  This fucker gets oohed and ahhed every time it hits the table. Here’s the recipe for enjoyment of my faithful readers.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bread Pudding

6 oz butter at room temperature

6 oz sugar

2 oz dark chocolate

4 oz peanut butter

5 eggs

3 cups heavy cream

12 -15 brioche buns

2 cups diced compressed devils food cake that has been diced

1 bag Reeses peanut butter chips

1.  Cream the butter and the sugar with the paddle.  While they are achieving light and fluffy in your stand mixer, melt the chocolate and peanut butter over a double boiler.

2.  When the sugar and butter are light and fluffy, add the melted chocolate and peanut butter.  Mix until well incorporated, scraping the bowl as necessary.

3.  Add the eggs one by one, scraping and incorporating.

4.  Switch to the whisk and add the heavy cream on low speed.  Keep the machine going while you prep the bread.

5.  Cut the bread into large chunks.  Take the custard off the machine, add the bread and mix thoroughly.  You need enough bread to make a messy paste.  Too much and your pootang will be dry, to little and it will be a custardy mess. Cover the mix and let it soak over night.  This is essential to chingon pootang.

6.  Next day pull the base and puree it in the food processor. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in the chunks and chips.

7.  Prepare one half sheet tray with sprayed parchment.  Pour and spread the base into an even layer.  It should ride the rim of the pan.  Cover with plastic wrap, then cover with aluminum foil.  This will create a nice even top.

8.  Bake in a 300 degree convection oven for about 25 minutes, rotating once. It is normal for the pootang to souffle a bit while baking.  When it is done it should be dry (baked looking.)

9.  Cool completely before slicing to de-molding desired shape.  Reheat portions in the microwave for 20 seconds.

Pretzel Bark

6 oz milk chocolate

6 oz dark chocolate

6 oz creamy peanut butter

3 cups loose chopped pretzel sticks

1. Melt the first three ingredients over a double boiler.

2. Stir in the pretzels and pour onto a sheet pan with a silpat or parchment.

3. Chill the bark for 30 minutes before cutting into desired shapes. Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Like most people on Planet Earth do nowadays, I Google a lot of shit.  In fact as of late, I annoyingly bark searches into my hand-held device, and somehow Google finds that shit.  Mostly I get lost on random pics and  silly articles.  YouTube and Hulu of course; Twitter, sure.  Oh yeah and porn, can’t forget about porn.  Often however, I search recipes.  Now there are recipes and there are recipes; but like your mom, this one is HUGE.  This simple ratio can be divided or multiplied to any yield, a supple and smooth mousse for piping or filling.  I’ve tried infusing the cream, I’ve substituted brown butter for half the weight in chocolate.  This versatile recipe is the basic formula for my dulce de leche mousse. I’ve filled cakes and tarts or just scooped it onto a plate.  This particular batch was for rather large off site event a few months ago.  When I was searching for a vessel large enough in which to melt twenty one pounds of chocolate, I didn’t deem it necessary to make certain said vessel had no cracks or holes, which it did.  I poured over a gallon of hot scalding cream into the large square container, then watched white chocolate ganache come oozing out the bottom an onto the floor.  Very unpleasant.  Be sure to double check your equipment always, but especially when working with a recipe of this size.

White Chocolate Mousse

1 gallon 1 qt heavy cream

21 lbs white chocolate

100 grams sheet gelatin

1 1/2 gallons heavy cream

1.  Weigh the gelatin into a bowl and bloom it with cold water.  Drain.  Weigh the chocolate into a large vessel.

2. Heat the first amount of cream to a scald, and pour it over the white chocolate.  Add the gelatin.  Whisk until smooth. Cool to room temp.

3.  Whip the second amount of cream to soft peaks.  Fold into the chocolate mixture.  Chill the mousse thoroughly before use.

in possibly my best effort in plated dessert design to date, I give my faithful readers this fucking thing.  Hopefully, the plate exudes a clean elegance, peppered with a touch of how’ did he do that? Well, I’ll tell you.  The sponge cake base is a classic Devil’s Food cake recipe that I found in one of my new favorite cookbooks, Dessert Fourplay by Johnny Iuzzini. The recipe calls for mayonnaise, which tickles me, and keeps the cake super-moist.  The science of that is kind of obvious: cake batters have eggs and oil, mayo is eggs and oil emulsified.  On top of the sponge cake I pipe a chocolate icing that I found the recipe for on the best food site ever, IDEAS IN FOOD. The icing calls for sweetened condensed milk (like the dulche,) and balsamic vinegar to blend with dark chocolate.  The sticky icing has a nice subtle acid note, a quiet personality.  On top of the icing is a thin piece of tempered chocolate, a nice thin snappy-crunch.  I’ve seen garnish this used a lot; especially in Parisian pastry shops.   With the help of my ChocoBot, some marble slabs, and some precise cuts, this process proved to be quite easy.  Just like Salted Caramel Sauce, easy peasy-smack-a-jeezy.  Really, the only semi-difficult element to this dish is the dulce de leche mousse.  The recipe it self is no brain-tease; just a spin on a white chocolate mousse.  In fact, I was originally going to use caramelized white chocolate, but decided the laborious process wasn’t worth the taste.  It tastes like dulce, so why not just use dulce?  Making dulce de leche is not hard, just kinda weird.  Take a few cans of sweetened condensed milk, place them in a large pot (yes in the can.)  Fill the pot with water, be sure to cover the cans by a few inches.  Bring the water to a boil, and keep boiling for 3 to 4 hours.  Keep a bucket of water nearby to refill the water as it evaporates.  After 4 hours, kill the heat and dump out the water.  Cover the cans with ice to cool them off.  When cooled, open the cans and enjoy the dulceness.  I know this sounds strange, but it’s way easier than the traditional method. So here’s the hard part, molding the cylinders.  Not really hard I guess, just time consuming.  I’ve seen Michael Laiskonis of Le Bernardin make cool cylnders on his blog,  and always wanted to try it.  After a month of experimenting, I have a process.  There’s got to be a better way, but here’s how I do it.  Take your cannoli forms and line one side of each mold with tin foil. Stand them upright in a six pan or secured with a rubber band on a sheet tray. Line each mold with acetate, the thin clear plastic stuff.  When the mousse is ready, pipe it into the molds.  Freeze them shits rock hard, at least 3 hours, better to do it overnight.  \Demold the mousse and plate while frozen, and thaw in the fridge on the plates. Serve with desired components.  Or wrap them shits.

Dulce De Leche Mousse

4 1/2 sheets of gelatin.

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1 lb 5 oz Dulce de Leche

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1.  Bloom the gelatin in cold water.

2.  Weigh the dulce de leche into a bowl.  Bring the first measurement of cream to a boil, and then pour it over the ducle.  Drain and add the gelatin.  Whisk to combine.  Or use an immersion blender.

3.  Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.  Meanwhile, whip the second measurement of cream to soft peaks.

4.  Fold in the cream gently.  Pipe into desired molds, or just into a martini glass.  Chill until set and enjoy.

Emeril Lagasse’s Milk Chocolate Cheesecake

3 pounds cream cheese, softened

2 cups sugar

6 large eggs

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup bleached all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

10 ounces milk chocolate, melted

Beat the cream cheese in a food processor until smooth. Add the sugar and process. Add the eggs 1 at a time, running the processor in between each addition. Add the heavy cream, flour, salt, and vanilla and process until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. With the motor running, add the chocolate in a steady stream. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake (in a water bath) until the center of the cake sets, about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Oreo Cookie

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

8 oz soft butter

1 tsp salt

1 tblsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups A.P. Flour

Cream the butter, salt and sugar well, but not to light and fluffy

Sift in the flour and cocoa powder, then mix to form a dough

Cover with plastic and chill at least one hour before rolling on a floured surface and cutting out cookies

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes

One of the most time consuming and frustrating tasks facing pastry chefs is tempering chocolate.  Chocolate is a finnicky ingredient that has a complex chemichal structure which needs to be handled just right.  Improperly tempered chocolate is streaked with gray, and lacks that characteristic “snap” we all love.  You see, cocoa butter, the fat in chocolate, asorbs heat at a different rate than the other ingredients (cocoa, sugar, etc.) so it can seperate and “float” to the top.  The chocolate needs to be melted to a certain temperature (110-115 F,) cooled to another (80-82) and then rewarmed to yet another (87-91) to work with it.  This process insures the the fat molecules are melted homogenously, and that its structure in relation to the other ingredients creates that perfect gloss, hardness, and shrinkage that makes a good chocolate candy, truffle, garnish or whatever.   There are several methods for tempering; seeding, marbling, in the microwave, or my personal favorite, by robot.  Pictured above is the Chocovision Revolation X3210 4.8.  It takes all the guess work out of the tricky tempering process, and looks dead sexy while doing it.  I’ve been using it to make candies and truffles for mignardes at the restaurant.  Flavors so far include brown butter, white chocolate basil, butterscotch, orange, vanilla cream.  All yummy, all the time.  Interested in experimenting with chocolate?  Don’t have a $1500 dollar robot? Check out this site.