Let Them Eat Cake

My dad's birthday was this past week, and I have to say that I think the cake I made for the occasion turned out pretty well! It's very rich, with a chocolate ganache-type frosting. I think this photo does a good job of illustrating its chocolaty excellence, even if it also highlights my less than stellar decorating abilities. While I aim for decorating perfection, the ultimate goal is to have it disappear so fast you don't have time to look, right?

Chocolate Truffle Torte

For cake:
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/2 cup flour
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 oz. hazelnuts, finely chopped and toasted (if you live in Pennsylvania, some people call these filberts)
chocolate chips

For frosting:
12 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease bottoms and sides of 2 round cake pans (if you use disposable cake pans, the cakes come out very easily, which is nice).

Melt chocolate chips and margarine in heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cool 5 minutes. Stir in flour until smooth. Stir in egg yolks until well blended.

Beat egg whites in large bowl with mixer on high speed til foamy. Beat in sugar gradually until soft peaks form. Fold chocolate mixture into egg whites. Fold in toasted hazelnuts. Spread in pans.

Bake 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle of cake comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Run knife around edge of pan to loosen, then take out of pans. Cool completely.

Prepare frosting by heating chocolate chips and margarine in heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate is melted; remove from heat. Stir in cream. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes until it achieves the texture of frosting. If you haven't made frosting before, try picking up a bit of it on your knife. If it drips off, it's still not ready. If it is too thick, and you think you couldn't spread it on anything to save your life, without ending up with more cake on your knife than icing on the top of the cake, then throw it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so (not in the metal pan!) until it is spreadable.

Ice the bottom layer. Top with other layer and frost top and sides of cake with remaining filling. Drizzle with any leftover filling and garnish with chocolate chips.

10 Again

Ten Things I Love About the Holidays

1. Food, of course! Yay food! Christmas cookies, Christmas pudding, and all seasonal things like mince pies, or roast goose, buche de noel and peppermint bark.

2. Maybe peppermint bark deserves a special mention all its own. Yum, yum, yum.



You can buy it from here.

3. Carols and Christmas songs like this one, this one, and this one.

4. Ok, I admit it, I love getting presents. Especially if they are books, video games, or something for the kitchen.

5. I love giving them too.

6. The feeling of camaraderie everybody seems to get around December, as if they've suddenly realized that goodwill towards men includes everyone, and not just the people they like.

7. Christmas specials on tv. My absolute favorite is "The Night Before Christmas" with the mice, but this may be an opinion shared by no one but me.

8. Seeing our stockings hung by the chimney with care, and the house looking all decorated and Christmas-y.

9. Tracking Santa on NORAD's Santa Tracker with my daughter on Christmas eve. We also enjoy hanging out at this website around Christmas-time.

10. Seeing the myriad of fun new ways that others celebrate the holidays, and incorporating their traditions into our own family traditions.

How about you? What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Christmas Cookie Goodness

One of the things you realize when you make a cookie recipe that yields 6 dozen is that nobody needs 6 dozen cookies. It's too many to roll out. It's too many to decorate. And it's way too many to eat. Nevertheless, we have gingerbread cookies around here tonight. Boy, do we. And this is what they look like (decorating provided by Bella):

The Results Are In

So here we have it - our chocolate eclairs, in person. The above photo will illustrate why this is not, in fact, a good potluck recipe. Because that's all there is. Minus the one I ate. Hey, it was for research! There were also a few things that came to light while making the recipe:

1. We only had one cup of milk left, so I substituted vanilla almond milk for the other cup. Worked just as well - maybe even better - but I did have to let it boil for another two minutes, because almond milk appears not to set up as fast.

2. If you use aluminum foil, hoping to save the $4 on parchment paper, some of your eclairs may stick to the pan. I solved this by putting two together to create one, which makes it giant, puffy and decadent. I could see this either being a good or bad thing, depending on your mood. Not so good for potlucks, though.

3. The recipe says to add 1 to 2 tablespoons of hot water to make the chocolate frosting. I don't know whether this is humidity/altitude related, because of living in Colorado, but I added four, and I'm still not sure it couldn't have done with another. Easy spreading was not its forte.

They are exceptionally yummy though. I'm not sure I'd make them again for a while - too labor intensive for the quantity of end result. But I think they were at least a small success. Much tastier than a long john from the doughnut shop!

Food, glorious food

I was idly searching the Internet, looking for a good new blog post idea just now, when I came across a book entitled No One Cares What You Had For Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. Usefulness of the book aside, I have to say - that title is simply untrue. I care what you had for lunch. Especially if it was fabulous or awful, or you'd like to share a recipe. I care so much, in fact, that I have been drawn to blogs entirely on the basis of this. And I own lots of foodie apps, like Urbanspoon, Nigella Lawson's app, and Foodspotting. I wanted to back this up with a picture of my lunch, but alas, the only picture of food on my phone is this excellent birthday cake made by my mother.