16 May ~ From Me to You

16 May is my boyfriend's birthday. This is the first time I'm celebrating birthday with him together. :)

I baked his favourite flavour (chocolate) cake for him. Like what I usually do, I'd do a thorough research, browsed through many recipes and finally settled with Alice Medrich's Fallen Chocolate Souffle Torte. I then covered it with a layer of ganache (chocolate coating) and wrote some wordings with melted white chocolate. The wordings were quite ugly as I didn't use a proper piping nozzle. I simply filled a small bag and cut a hole through. I thought I can get creative with the wordings :P Haha...well I definitely need to practice more on that, and not to be too lazy!

Wondered what those 2 white hearts are? They were actually white chocolate modeling paste I made using glucose and melted chocolate. When hardened, it formed a dough which I could cut out shapes using cookie cutters.

Thanks to Happy Homebaker who gave me this inspiration after seeing her post - Chocolate Gateau she made for her birthday. The cake looked so gorgeous. There's no whipped cream or mousse so there won't be fear of melting when taken out of the house. :)

Fallen Chocolate Souffle Torte

Ingredients:

• 30 g ground almonds
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 90 g bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped fine
• 75 g unsweetened dutch processed cocoa (I used Hershey's cocoa powder)
• 250g sugar (I reduced to 180g)
• 125g boiling water
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tbsp brandy (I used vanilla extract)
• 4 egg whites at room temperature
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:

1. Position rack in the lower third of the oven, preheat oven to 180°C. Line and grease an 8-inch pan, 3 inches deep (I used 6-inch heart-shape pan).
2. Combine the chopped chocolate, cocoa and 140g of the sugar in a large mixing bowl. Pour in the boiling water and whisk until mixture is smooth and chocolate is competely melted. Whisk in the egg yolks and vanilla. Set aside.
3. Combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually sprinkle in the remaining sugar and beat on high speed until stiff but not dry.
4. Whisk the flour and almonds into the chocolate. Fold about a quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold remaining egg whites. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and level the top if neccessary.
5. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the centre comes out with only a few moist crumbs clinging to it.
6. Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Torte will sink like a souffle.
7. To remove, slide a knife between the torte and the pan and run it around the pan to release the cake completely.
8. Serve with a light dusting of icing sugar (that's how they were served traditionally).

Recipe Source: Alice Medrich - Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts

Chocolate Coating

Ingredients:

• 50ml Milk
• 50g whipping cream
• 10g glucose
• 200g dark / semi chocolate

Method:

Boil milk, cream and glucose, then add in the chocolate. Stir until dissolve.

Recipe Source: Phoon Huat

Note: I replaced milk with whipping cream as I did not have milk but lots of leftover whipping cream. I didn't get the glossy texture like what I saw when I attended one of Phoon Huat's workshop organised by my company a few months ago. I guess it could be the cream used in place of the milk. The coating became very thick, and lose their shine.

Chocolate modelling paste

Ingredients:

• 190g plain dark/white chocolate, chopped
• 3 1/4 tbsp golden syrup or liquid glucose.

Method:

1. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat and beat in the syrup/glucose until mixture forms a paste that leaves the side of the bowl. Cover with cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes until firm.
2. Remove from fridge once it's firm enough. flatten and cut out shaped using cookie cutters as desired.

Recipe Source: Fresh From the Oven: Over 70 Recipes for Delicious Home Baking by Hamlyn

Actually this is the first time I'm making modelling paste out of chocolate and not sure whether I've gotten it the correct way. After adding glucose, the find the wite chocolate doesn't taste as nice. It becomes thick and chewy, exactly like you are chewy chocolate sweets. To know more about chocolate modelling paste, you may refer to here.

I actually wanted to decorate with more hearts as there's too much modelling paste left! But I think that would look ugly and complicated. :) I lined the border with mint chocolate sticks. That was not my plan too as I had wanted to keep it simple and 'classy' with just a layer of shiny chocolate coating; but as I mentioned, the coating was too thick thus the sides were'nt smooth enough.

Someone have asked me to make known his existence. But he didn't want his face published. Oopsz! I have disclosed your age too! Know you would'nt mind one la hor :P