Happy Halloween! Chocolate Red Wine Cake

 This isn't my first foray into the chocolate/booze experience.  The first was this chocolate rum cake-- good, but I didn't rave about it.  I tried these red wine brownies and had a mixed reaction.  I even tried a red wine chocolate cake once before, but was unimpressed.  So why try again?  Because I'm convinced this is a delicious combination-- I just have to find the right mix.  Is it the recipe that makes the difference?  Maybe.  Food & Wine, the source for today's recipe, has a well-deserved reputation.  Review comments on this recipe, however, seem to put great stock in the wine used.  Seems Bordeaux is the prime choice, while Cabernet Sauvignon did not work well.  Not very helpful, since Bordeaux reds are a blend of grapes, one of which is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Not willing to invest a quality wine to what might end up a mediocre bake, I bought a bottle of Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, otherwise known as 2-buck Chuck (now $3.99 Chuck).  Despite its low cost, Charles Shaw wines regularly receive surprisingly good reviews, probably because it's actually drinkable, while other wines at that price point are better reserved for salad dressing.  That said, the wine in the final result was completely undetectable, even in the ganache.  I didn't point out it was a red wine cake when I served it, and no one asked about any subtle flavoring.  It was, however, an amazing chocolate cake!

I was bringing this cake to a Halloween party, so I baked it in my Wilton skull pan, but kept it simple.  (I've used this pan previously here and here.)  No fancy decorations this time.  The original recipe is for a 12-cup Bundt; I halved the recipe and baked it in just the face half of the skull pan.  It would probably work fine in an 8" x 4" loaf pan, or a single 9" round cake pan.  Here's what I used:

1 cup all-purpose flour 

3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)

5/8 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

7/8 cup sugar

1 large egg 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

5/8 cup dry red wine 

Confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 325°. Butter and flour a 6-cup pan. In a bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  In a large bowl, using a handheld electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar at medium-high speed until fluffy, 4 minutes. Add the egg and beat until incorporated. Add the vanilla and beat for 2 minutes longer. Working in two batches, alternately fold in the dry ingredients and the wine, until just incorporated.

 

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a rack; let cool completely. Drizzle or streak the ganache around the sides of the plate and just a little in the center (to help hold the cake in place.) Dust the cake with confectioner's sugar, then place on the plate. Serve with whipped mascarpone cream.

 

Ganache:
2 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons red wine

pinch of salt

Heat the chocolate and butter in a double boiler until melted; stir together.  Add the wine and salt and stir until smooth.

 

Topping
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup (118 grams) chilled heavy or whipping cream
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whip together until soft peaks form -- don't over whip. 

 

I over baked this cake, and it still turned out great, but I'm frustrated with Wilton-- they included a recipe with the cake pan for a pumpkin cake that requires a long bake time.  I think it must be the moisture in that particular batter requiring that lengthy bake, because I keep over baking the cakes when I use another recipe.  It was nice of Wilton to include the recipe, but guidance for a standard cake recipe would have been more helpful.  I used a thermal cake strip around the pan, which is supposed to help the cake rise more evenly.  I baked it for 65 minutes, and even though it was overdone, it sank in the middle.  The edges were a bit crusty, but the whole thing was delicious.  The pan probably needs only a normal bake time.

 

Conclusion: This was amazing! Semi-sweet, and so good! Rich and moist and chocolatey, made even more so with just a little bit of the ganache -- you don't need a lot.

Recipe:  Chocolate Red Wine Cake via Kristin Donnelly at Food & Wine

April ABC Challenge: Kersenvlaai (Dutch cherry pastry)

This is an interesting change on cherry pie -- the filling is baked into a casing of enriched bread dough instead of pie crust.  It's apparently very popular in the Netherlands.

I had to make a lot of changes to the original recipe in order to work with what I had.  For starters, I didn't have a vlaai pan, which is just a large, round pan about 1" deep.  I had an 11" pan that was 2" deep, so I worked with that.  The instructions I gave in the recipe are how I would do it next time.  What I actually did was roll out a large circle of dough and then let it relax for 10 minutes as instructed, then cut it into a 13" circle.  But when I loosened it from the board, it shrank dramatically and thickened.  I should have loosened it and THEN cut it.  I tried rolling it back out again, but the dough was very springy and wouldn't cooperate.  I globbed the whole mess back together and rolled it out again, and I'm afraid all that handling might have caused the bread to be tough.  Anyway, I think what I described below would be a better method.

The recipe called for a jar of dark sweet cherries in light syrup, which I couldn't find.  However, I had cherries in the freezer and sour cherry juice on hand, so I improvised.  It took a little doing, getting the right quantity, the right consistency, and the right sweetness.  The first go, it must have cooked down because I didn't end up with nearly enough.  I made a second batch, and while it was cooking I noticed an unfinished bottle of red wine on the counter that was too old to drink.  I thought that might be a tasty addition, so in it went.  I had also added cloves because I always wanted to try that with cherries.  (My hunch was right -- it's a good combination.)  I had a little leftover cream cheese, so of course I had to use that.  Then on half the pie I sprinkled chocolate chips to see how that would work out. 

Because the cherry juice was fairly sour (no sugar added), I skipped the lemon juice in the original recipe, but I had to guess at how much sugar to add.  (I erred on the side of less.)  I also had to use a lot more corn starch than I had expected.  In the future I would try to use a different thickener, like tapioca, which might have given a lighter results, but the corn starch work okay. 

The recipe for the filling is so drastically changed from the original that I haven't shown my changes.  Here's what I used:

For the filling

2 cups unsweetened sour cherry juice

1 cup red wine

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon cup corn starch*

1/8 teaspoon cloves

350 grams (about 2 cups) previously frozen cherries, halved

3-4 ounces cream cheese or mascarpone

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

For the dough

300 grams flour

6 grams instant yeast

120 grams lukewarm milk

20 grams sugar

3 6 grams salt

30 grams unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

coarse sugar for sprinkling pie lattice

In a small dish, whisk together the corn starch with about 1/2 cup of the juice until thoroughly mixed.  Pour the remaining juice, the cornstarch mixture, and sugar into a pan and heat to boiling, stirring constantly.  Lower heat and boil gently for 2 minutes.  Check consistency by cooling a small amount in a dish.  It should be about the consistency of semi-firm gelatin, or a loose jelly, thick enough to hold some shape, but not firm.  If it's still too thin, cool some of the mixture and add a teaspoon more cornstarch to it, whisk thoroughly, and add to the mixture in the pan.  (Never add cornstarch to a hot liquid or it will clump.)  Stir to fully incorporate and repeat the process of boiling for 2 minutes, then checking consistency.  Repeat until the right consistency is achieved.  Add the cloves and the cherries and stir to combine.  Set aside.  (This can be done in advance, and the mixture kept refrigerated.)

For the dough, dissolve the yeast in the milk and let prove. Whisk together the salt, sugar, and flour, then add the milk and egg and bring it together. When it starts forming a ball, add the butter.  Knead for 8 to 10 minutes by hand. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover and let it rest for 1 hour in a warm place.

Preheat oven to 425ºF.  Lightly butter an 11 x 2-inch round pan.  Roll the dough into a large circle about 3 mm/0.12-inch thick, about 15 inches in diameter, and fit it into the prepared pan.  Cover it and let relax for 10 minutes.  Carefully trim the side of the dough so that it is only 1" high all around; set the extra dough aside.  Spread the bottom of the pie with the cream cheese, then add the cherry filling and distribute evenly.  Sprinkle with chocolate chips.  Make a lattice with the leftover dough and cover the pie decoratively; sprinkle the lattice with course sugar.  Bake in the preheated oven for 22-25 minutes. (Check after 15 minutes -- if it's browning too quickly, reduce the oven temperature to 350.  I turned my oven down after 10 minutes.)  Leave to cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then carefully lift it out with the help of a spatula or pie server. (The curved spatula that's used for woks worked well.)  Cool completely on a cooling rack.  This is typically served with a dollop of whipped cream.

Conclusion:  I'm not sure what I think of this.  I'm having a hard time envisioning it as a dessert -- it seems more like a breakfast food or snack to me.  Partially it's the bread, and partially it's that I didn't make mine very sweet.  Also, this is not a rich dessert -- there's nearly no fat.  (And yet I didn't much like adding whipped cream.)  And I can't imagine how one could eat this with a fork because the bread is too firm.  It just makes sense to pick it up and eat it like pizza.  The dish seems too casual for a real sit-down dessert.  

Do I like this better than traditional cherry pie?  No, I don't think so, although I'd really like to try a "real" one, by someone who knows what he or she is doing.  I might think differently.  My bread was slightly overcooked, probably due to the dark pan I used, so it was a bit tough.  (It got much tougher after a day or so -- this is not a recipe that keeps well.)  Besides, it's so much easier and faster to make pie crust than bread dough.  I'd also like to try macerating the cherries in wine, kirsch, or cherry brandy before using.

I liked the addition of the red wine, and the cloves, but I did not like the chocolate.  I don't know why -- it seems like a no-brainer.  Also, I wish I'd had more cream cheese -- what I'd put in wasn't detectable for flavor or creaminess as far as I could tell.  I'd double the amount next time, though I'd have to cut down on the cherry filling or make the pie higher.  And I think I'd like this much better if the bread had been a little more crumbly; perhaps adding more butter would help. 

Original recipe:  ‘Kersenvlaai’: A Very Cherry Pie with Bread Dough via Weekend Bakery

Fresh Fig and Almond Crostata

This was an easy and straight-forward recipe.  Nothing very tricky about it, although I always struggle with butter pastry.  (It doesn't help when one leaves it in the refrigerator too long and then attempts to roll it out straight away.  Patience is not one of my virtues.)  I replaced half the flour with whole wheat pastry flour, and instead of mascarpone cheese I used a combination of cream cheese, Greek yogurt and heavy cream.  Since it was being mixed in with other ingredients and layered with even more, I'm sure that change didn't make any difference and now I don't have to figure out how to use up the rest of the container.  😎  Here's what I used:

 

1¹/₂ 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
1 lemon, zested
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
10 tablespoons (1¹/4 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons ice water
3¹/₂ ounces almond paste, at room temperature, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/3 cup mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup combined cream cheese, Greek yogurt, and heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons honey
6 large or 12 small fresh figs, sliced, stems removed or 20 dried figs, reconstituted*
1/4 cup apricot jam

Combine the flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, lemon zest, and salt in the bowl of a food processor; pulse until blended. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. With the machine running, gradually add the water until moist clumps form. Turn the mixture out onto a work surface and form into a ball. Flatten the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap; chill for 1 hour.

In a clean food processor bowl, combine remaining sugar, almond paste, mascarpone cheese (or alternative), vanilla extract, and honey. Blend until smooth. Position an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

The filling seems like a lot

 

On a large sheet of parchment paper, roll out the dough into an 11-inch circle. Transfer the dough to a large, heavy baking sheet. Spread the almond filling over the dough, leaving a 2-inch border. 

 

 

 

Spreading on the apricot jam.

 

 

Arrange the figs on top of the almond filling, then spoon the jam over the figs. 

 

 

 

All tucked in and ready.

 

 

Fold the dough border over the filling to form an 8-inch round, pleating the crust loosely and pinching to seal any cracks in the dough.  

 

 

 

 

 

Bake the tart until the crust is golden, about 40 minutes. Place the baking sheet on a rack to cool for 10 minutes, then slide a metal spatula under the crust to free the tart from the parchment. Transfer the tart to a platter and serve.

*To reconstitute dried figs, simmer in water for 5 minutes. Let the mixture cool completely. Strain before using.

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to buy fresh figs at Farmer's Market -- they would have been perfectly ripe and sweet!  But these came from the grocery store.  Far too much pale flesh.  However, other comments in the recipe state you really have to use fresh figs in this, that reconstituted dried ones simply don't work very well.  And it's fig season!

I did not use parchment paper, and had no trouble getting the crostata off the lightly greased baking sheet.  However, I do wish I had used an air-bake pan.  I should have thought of that, as anything with a high fat content over-browns on the bottom in my oven unless I do.  

Conclusion:  This was delicious, though very rich and fairly sweet.  It would go best with some vanilla ice cream.  It was easy to put together -- with my substitutions, the only thing I had to buy was the figs.  I would add a bit more salt, perhaps another 1/4 teaspoon, as I think salt helps to balance the richness.

Recipe:  Fig and Almond Tart via Giada De Laurentiis at the Food Network