Rose's Alpha Bakers: Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache

To celebrate Valentine's Day, the Rose's Alpha Bakers are baking something deep, dark, and delicious. Up this week is the Chocolate Pavarotti with Wicked Good Ganache...and Caramel Whipped Cream (I finally made the amazing caramel whipped cream from the Chocolate Cuddle Cake week!).

my finished cake with white chocolate "pearls"

time for a slice, with delicious caramel whipped cream!

I had mixed feelings about this cake. The cake was a breeze to make. And I really liked the flavor of the cake - it was very chocolatey but not overpowering - but I felt the texture was a little too crumbly. It looks more firm and dense (in the pictures) than it was and, for me, the heavy ganache needed a slightly more dense cake.

And...that brings me to my next mixed feeling - the ganache. Again, the flavor was delicious, but I thought the ganache was too stiff. It was lovely and very smooth while spreading but was too hard once it was on the cake. The texture of the cake was too soft and crumbly compared to the stiff ganache; the two didn't seem to go together. My decorating plan was to make little valentine's hearts on the top of the cake by putting drops of white chocolate on the ganache and dragging a toothpick through...but the ganache hardened immediately so I wasn't able to. I had to settle for little white chocolate "pearls" on top.

Instead of the ganache, I think this cake would be lovely with some caramel sauce on the plate and a dollop of the caramel whipped cream. Next time!

The ganache was made with both 60% and unsweetened chocolate, so it was very rich and not overly sweet. There were a few more steps than usual for Rose's ganache (melting the unsweetened chocolate first, in the Lyle's Golden Syrup) but was still very easy to make.

ingredients for the ganache

first the unsweetened chocolate is melted in the Lyle's Golden Syrup

the 60% cacao for the rest of the ganache is bashed into bits

Instead of breaking out the food processor for this little bit of ganache, I just made it by hand. The scalded cream is poured over the broken chocolate pieces and stirred gently until it's completely melted, then the other chocolate-syrup is mixed in.

the stages of ganache

gorgeous, smooth Wicked Good Ganache

The ganache sets up for several hours while the cake is made and cooled. The cake was very easy to make, as all of Rose's cake are.

mise en place for the cake

first the cocoa powder is melted in boiling water and set aside

then the white chocolate is melted and set aside

the dry ingredients are combined with the melted chocolate, oil, and butter

and mixed well

then the eggs are added

and finally, the melted white chocolate

such a lovely, smooth batter!

and, voila, chocolate cake

so pretty

time for a slice, with the caramel whipped cream

delicious!

Bye for now...

Rose's Alpha Bakers: Chocolate Cuddle Cake

Week six of my bake-through adventure with Rose's Alpha Bakers is the Chocolate Cuddle Cake, from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Baking Bible. I'm back in school this semester and had some studying and a paper to write this week so I made an abbreviated Cuddle Cake; I omitted the caramel whipped cream topping and just covered the cake with the ganache. I had some darker ganache left over from my Ischler cookies so I drizzled that over the top in a sort of crisscrossing pattern. Not the prettiest cake I've ever made, but it was chocolatey and delicious!

a very light and tender cake

The cake was a chiffon cake, so it's leavened by beating the egg whites into a meringue and folding that into the batter. The recipe called for what seemed like a lot of sugar, so I was a little worried that the cake would be too sweet, like some chiffon cakes are, but the cocoa powder cut the sweetness and it was just right. 

The cake's texture was extremely light (almost fluffy) and very tender. It was also very moist (some chiffon cakes can be dry, in my opinion); going on day 3, it's still very fresh and moist. My only complaint was that the ganache was very firm when it cooled so it was less like frosting and more like...almost like a chocolate truffle topping. The ganache melted in your mouth, so still delicious, but I would have liked a softer ganache as frosting.

The ganache is made first and set aside to firm up for a few hours. Next time I might add a touch more kahlua because the flavor got lost in the finished ganache.

the ganache called for kahlua...yum!

so easy, but I forgot to add the kahlua when it was in the food processor...
no problem, I'll just stir it in

Now on to the cake!

mise en place for the cake

The cocoa powder is melted with boiling water and the cooled slightly. Then the oil, egg yolks, and vanilla are added.

combining the wet ingredients

mixing the wet and dry ingredients

Then the wet ingredients are added to the dry ingredients and mixed well. I only have one bowl for my stand mixer and didn't want to take the chance of my meringue being deflated by any traces of oil, so I just mixed these ingredients by hand. Whisk whisk whisk!

after whisking for several minutes my batter is smooth and shiny

Now it's time for the meringue. This was actually quite fun and easy to make and was very pretty when done. The egg whites and cream of tartar are whisked until soft peaks form. Then some sugar is added and the mixture is whisked again until stiff peaks form. The final meringue was smooth and glossy.

soft peaks...still very foamy and bubbly

now whipped into stiff peaks...a gorgeous meringue!

When you reach the stiff peak stage, you're ready to incorporate the egg whites into the chocolate batter. Gently fold in the egg whites otherwise your beautiful meringue will deflate.

looks like a snowy mountaintop...so cute!

carefully folding the meringue into the chocolate batter

don't completely incorporate the meringue (until the final addition)
or the egg whites will deflate and the cake will be flat

I had to improvise with my pan set-up because I didn't have the required cake strips (which go around the pan and help it bake evenly)...so I just wrapped a few layers of aluminum foil around the side of my cake and it came out just fine.

Before baking a flower nail (used for making sugar flowers) is inserted into the batter which helps the batter rise evenly.

voila, my handy-dandy flower nail

my finished cake! It even has cracks on the top,
just like Rose said it would.

The cake is cooled upside down on this ingenious cooling rack set-up. Cooling it upside down helps to avoid the dip in the center of the cake often seen in a chiffon cake.

the cooling rack is elevated on the edges of some glasses

and here is my upside down cake, cooling

when the cake is completely cooled, the pan is removed and the
parchment strip is carefully peeled away

now it's time to frost!

My crisscross ganache decoration was a bit messy, but tasted delicious!

I'll just pretend I was going for an avant-garde look

the finished cake is lovely

time for a bite...yum!

Bye for now...

Rose's Alpha Bakers: The Ischler

It's week three with Rose's Alpha Bakers and up this week is The Ischler. The Ischler is a light, flaky, almond cookie, traditionally made with a layer of both apricot lekvar and a thick chocolate ganache as the filling. I was in a time crunch this weekend (end of the semester paper time!) so I opted to just make the chocolate ganache filling. Next time I will make the apricot lekvar because the recipe looked delicious!

I think I'll call my cookie The Modified Ischler.

Yummalicious! A light nutty flavor, a very tender cookie, and chocolate. A win-win.

Rolled cookies are generally not my favorite to make...rolling...waiting...rolling...waiting. I'm too impatient! However, these cookies were pretty easy to make and I had them done in about 4 hours on Sunday morning.

The cookie itself tastes very similar to my all-time favorite Christmas cookies. If you like either making or just looking at pictures of gorgeous decorated cookies, I highly recommend the book Cookie Craft: From Baking to Luster Dust, Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions.

powdered sugar and almonds are processed until fine

so far, so good, until...

opps...made a mistake and added the egg and vanilla before the butter...
It was early Sunday morning, I guess I was still half asleep!
Instead of trying to mix it, I just tossed in the butter and hoped for the best.
It came out fine in the end :)

flour is added and the dough is pulsed until it is crumbly and comes away from the bowl

I added a bit more flour here (about 2 T). The recipe says that the dough will be sticky, but mine was super sticky because I had a hard time measuring out 1/2 of an egg. Even with my scale, I couldn't get 22 grams perfectly, so I ended up using a bit more egg than was called for. This resulted in my dough being very wet, so I added a bit more flour to get it to form a ball in the above step.

the dough is divided into 4 parts, pressed between plastic wrap and then refrigerated...
I actually just rolled mine nearly all the way to save time later

after 2 hours of chilling, it gets a final roll and then it's ready to cut

a quick bake and they're done! They smell fantastic.

the cooled cookies and ingredients for my chocolate ganache

the chocolate pieces are melted and the hot cream is stirred in...
voila, smooth and silky ganache

so cute! I love the chocolate peeping out...

delicious! Light and flaky with a bit of chocolate.

Bye for now...