mix, mix…stir, stir

Cherries hidden like precious gems throughout this rich dense chocolate torte lend a chewy texture and bright tart flavor that perfectly disrupts the solidness of the chocolate. A touch of black pepper leaves each bite to linger with a hint of heat and exoticism. Yes, it’s another great Tuesdays with Dorie creation.

This chocolate torte has it’s roots in brownie land; though the flavor is rich and exotic, there is nothing fussy about the mixing or baking process. The cherries get reconstituted, soaked in kirsch, and then grandly flambéed. The torte needs to be made ahead so the only person you will likely thrill with the flambé is yourself, but don’t let the lack of an audience diminish the thrill. I turned out the kitchen light to enjoy the flames in all their glory.

I used a very dark chocolate and think anything sweeter would have bordered on too sweet with the 1 1/2 cups of sugar that get added to the batter. The black pepper is such a nice twist to the classic flavor pairing of cherry and chocolate. The recipe gives a generous leeway on the amount of pepper suggesting  -2 teaspoons; I went with one and will bump it up to 1 1/2 tsp. next time. The heat and peppery flavor were there, but deserved a bigger presence. The velvety smooth creamy topping is a combination of cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, and whipping cream. It’s really elegant and lovely. I’m inspired to play around with this combination as a less-sweet cream cheese frosting that would be outstanding with carrot cake. It’s quite soft from the high proportion of whipping cream, so the ingredient ratios would probably need to be pushed around to make it applicable for a more traditional cake frosting.

The tort is chilled after assembly to set, but needs to come to room temperature before serving. When it’s cold it’s rather difficult to cut through. I was having a very difficult time getting the first slice free and then realized the parchment paper was still stuck to the bottom. The upside to it being such a sturdy cake, is I was able to lift the whole thing up while David peeled the paper off. Even though it’s dense, it’s really delicious and will surely impress anyone you served it to. It’s also a very transportable dessert because it is assembled in a spring form pan to be chilled and could then be easily plated once at the destination.

April of  Short + Rose  has the recipe posted on her site if you would like to give it a try. One little mistake I made that I forgot to mention. Of the 11 ounces of chocolate in the recipe only 7 ounces were supposed to be melted with the balance being chopped and stirred into the batter with the cherries. Not reading very carefully, I melted all the chocolate, and it seems to have turned out just fine.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 97 recipes completed 124 to go!

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted

Tags: black pepper

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Tuesdays with Dorie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.