Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (7 page)

Turn half of the mixture into each of the prepared pans. Gently smooth each layer.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the layers spring back when lightly pressed with a fingertip and begin to come away from the sides of the pans.

Remove from the oven. With a small sharp knife carefully cut around the sides of the layers to release them. Cover each layer with a rack, invert pan and rack, remove pan, peel off the paper lining, cover layer with another rack, and invert again to let the layers cool right side up.

While they are cooling the layers will sink and the sides will buckle and look uneven but don’t worry. That is to be expected in this recipe. The filling and icing will cover them and they will be light, moist, and delicious.

When the layers are completely cool, prepare a flat cake plate as follows. Cut four strips of wax paper, each one about 10 × 3 inches. Place them around the outer edges of the plate.

Place one layer upside down on the plate and see that the wax paper touches all the edges of the cake.

FILLING

¾ teaspoon unflavored gelatin

1½ tablespoons cold water

1½ cups heavy cream

⅓ cup confectioners sugar

¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

Sprinkle the gelatin over the water in a small heatproof cup. Let stand for 5 minutes. Place the cup in a small pan containing about an inch of hot water. Set over moderate heat and let stand until the gelatin dissolves, then remove from the hot water and set aside.

Reserve 2 or 3 tablespoons of the cream and place the remainder in the small bowl of an electric mixer (if the room is warm the bowl and beaters should be chilled). Add the sugar and vanilla. Beat only until the cream has increased in volume and holds a soft shape. Then quickly stir the reserved tablespoons of cream into the warm, dissolved gelatin and, with the mixer going, pour the gelatin all at once into the slightly whipped cream and continue to beat. The cream should be beaten until it is firm enough to hold a shape.

Place the whipped cream on the bottom cake layer. Carefully spread it evenly. Cover it with the other layer, placing the top layer right side up. Place in the refrigerator and prepare the icing.

ICING

8 ounces semisweet chocolate

2 ounces (½ stick) butter

1 tablespoon dry instant coffee

¼ cup boiling water

2 cups heavy cream

¾ cup confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Break up or coarsely chop the chocolate and place it in the top of a small double boiler over hot water on moderate heat. Add the butter. In a small cup dissolve the coffee in the boiling water and pour it over the chocolate. Stir with a rubber spatula until the mixture is melted and smooth. Remove it from the hot water and transfer it to a medium-size mixing bowl.

Now the chocolate must cool to room temperature. You can let it stand or, if you are very careful not to overdo it, stir it briefly over ice and water—but not long enough for the chocolate to harden. In
any event, the chocolate must cool to room temperature—test it on the inside of your wrist.

When the chocolate has cooled, place the cream, sugar, and vanilla in the small bowl of the electric mixer. Beat only until the cream holds a soft shape. It is very important that you do not whip the cream until it holds a definite shape; that would be too stiff for this recipe and would not only cause the icing to be too heavy but would also give it a slightly curdled appearance. Everything about this cake should be light and airy, and the chocolate will stiffen the cream a bit more.

In two or three additions fold about half of the cream into the chocolate, and then fold the chocolate into the remaining cream.

Remove the cake from the refrigerator.

If you have a turntable for decorating cakes or a lazy Susan, place the cake plate on it.

Use as much of the icing as you need to fill in any hollows on the sides of the cake—use a spoon or a metal spatula—and then smooth the icing around the sides. If you are working on a turntable, rotate it while you hold a small metal spatula against the sides to smooth the icing.

Now the cake can be finished in one of two ways (depending on whether or not you want to use a pastry bag). You can either use all of the icing to cover the top very thickly, or you can spread it very thinly and reserve about 3 cups of the icing and decorate the top with a pastry bag and a star-shaped tube.

Place the icing on the top and spread it smoothly. Then spread the sides again to make them neat.

To decorate the top, which will be completely covered with rippled lines of icing, fit a 15-inch pastry bag with a #6 star tube and fold down a deep cuff on the outside of the bag. Place the icing in the bag. Unfold the cuff. Close the top of the bag. To form the icing lines, begin at the edge of the cake furthest from you, at the middle of the edge. Squeeze an inch or two of icing out of the tube in a line coming toward you. Continuing to squeeze and without stopping the flow of the icing, move the tube back away from you over about half the line you have just formed, making another layer of icing on the first. Still without stopping the flow of the icing, bring the tube toward you again and make another 1- to 2- inch line, then double back over half of this distance again. Continue across the whole diameter of the cake. The finished line will be along the middle of the cake. Make another, similar line to one side of the first, touching it. I find it easier to work from the middle—one side all the way and then the other side all the way to entirely cover the top of the cake with these wavy lines.

Remove the strips of wax paper by pulling each one out toward a narrow end.

Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight and serve cold. To slice this cake without squashing it, insert the point of a sharp knife in the center of the cake. Then cut with an up-and-down sawing motion.

Torta di Cioccolata

8 T
O
10 P
ORTIONS

This comes from the Isle of Capri. I got it from Marilyn Evins, a fabulous hostess famous for her terrific parties. It is an elegant no-flour chocolate cake, very rich, dense, dark, extremely moist. It looks very plain, and is really easy to make, but it may be served at your most important parties.

Although this does not have any flour, it does not sink (it doesn’t rise either)—it will be quite flat on top, 1½ inches high. This is served without any icing but with plenty of whipped cream on the side.

In ltaly it is always served warm, but it may be made early in the day or the day before, or it may be frozen (remove it from the freezer at least half an hour before serving). When very fresh it is quite soft, moist, and scrumptious—after standing, or if it is cold from the freezer, it is more firm and drier but still scrumptious.

8 ounces (1£ cups) blanched almonds

7 ounces (7 squares) unsweetened chocolate

½ pound (2 sticks) sweet butter

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

4 eggs (graded large), separated

Optional: Confectioners sugar

Adjust rack one-third up from bottom of the oven and preheat oven to 300 degrees. Butter an 8- or 8½-inch spring form that is 2 or 2½ inches high. Line the bottom with a round of baking-pan liner paper or wax paper cut to fit, and butter the paper. (It is not necessary to flour or crumb the paper or the pan.) Set the pan aside.

The almonds and the chocolate have to be ground together to a fine powder. This may be done in a food processor, a blender, or a nut grinder. If you use a processor, chop the chocolate coarsely by hand first and then place all of the nuts and the chocolate in the processor bowl fitted with the steel blade and grind until the mixture is fine. If you use a blender, chop the chocolate coarsely by hand first and then grind the nuts and chocolate together, but only part at a time. Set the ground mixture aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat to mix. Add the egg yolks all at once and beat to mix. Then add the ground nut and chocolate mixture and beat on low speed to mix. Remove from the mixer and set aside.

In the small bowl of the electric mixer with clean beaters beat the egg whites until they hold a rather firm shape—but not until they are stiff or dry.

The chocolate mixture will be stiff. Stir about one-quarter of the beaten whites into it, then fold in the remaining whites.

Turn into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Let the cake cool in the pan until it is tepid or until it reaches room temperature.

Remove the sides of the spring form. Then cover the cake with anything flat (a board, plate, or the bottom of a loose-bottomed quiche pan or cake pan), and invert. Remove the bottom of the pan and the paper lining.

Cover the bottom of the cake with another flat cake plate or a serving board and very gently and carefully invert again, leaving the cake right side up. Let stand at room temperature.

OPTIONAL
:
The top may be sprinkled with confectioners sugar.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or cold whipped cream—have plenty of the cream, the cake needs it.

WHIPPED CREAM

1 pint (2 cups) heavy cream

¼ cup strained confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a chilled bowl with chilled beaters, whip the above ingredients until the cream thickens and holds a soft shape, like a sauce. If the cream is whipped ahead of time and refrigerated it will separate slightly; just stir it a bit with a wire whisk before serving.

Spoon a generous amount of the cream alongside each portion.

NOTE
:
Any brandied fruit may also be served with this, ice cream or whipped cream on one side and fruit on the other
.

Hungarian Rhapsody

12 P
ORTIONS

This is an important cake. It is a large three-layer, light-as-a-whisper, Hungarian walnut sponge cake (made without folding in beaten egg whites), filled and covered with a silky-smooth, dark, rich, rich chocolate buttercream that is divine. It has optional chopped walnut trim and buttercream rosettes which, if you do it all, results in a terrific-looking production (get your camera ready); and it tastes heavenly.

You will need an electric mixer on a stand for the long beating. And you need four racks for cooling three layers.