FFwD: Michel Rostang's Chocolate Mousse Cake

Aidan was the biggest fan of this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe for Michel Rostang's Chocolate Mousse Cake.  He wanted me to tell you that these were "totally awesome, so yummy, so yummy."  Like cold, brownies that are creamy and light like ice cream.  Direct quote from the boy's mouth.

I loved it also, I mean really, what's not to love. We all know about my deep and abiding love of chocolate so the fact that I loved it too shouldn't come as a surprise.  I wasn't entirely sure that I actually whipped the eggs correctly - in fact I think I over beat them... again... what else is new!  That said, it still turned out great.  

We went for the bake, chill, bake, chill method which Dorie mentions in the book as her favorite way to eat this cake.  I haven't tried the other ways, but I really liked it this way.  

I didn't change the recipe at all, but I didn't have an 8-inch spring form pan either, so I did use a 9-inch instead which is why mine looks a little thinner than the picture in the book.  I think ours is possibly a layered a little differently as well as far as the thickness of the two separately baked layers goes. The top of our cake was fairly thin and very crackly.  I think, no matter what you do to this cake, bottom line, its going to be good.

For more chocolate mousse cake madness, head on over to the French Fridays with Dorie site and see how the others fared this week.

Dark Chocolate Crème Brûlée

Do you love chocolate? Do you love easy desserts that are just super impressive? I know the answer for me is yes on both counts.

This Dark Chocolate Crème Brûlée has been on my hit list for a while but I finally made it a couple of weeks ago when we had friends over for dinner.

The Crème Brûlée couldn't have been easier to make and so perfectly silky and chocolatey. Just make sure to plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time

for the dessert to chill. Also, it is best to use a high quality chocolate that you love the taste of, because that is the taste that is really going to come through.

Here's to 2010 - I hope this is the best year yet for you all!

Dark Chocolate Crème BrûléeBon Appétit | March 1996

From the Enchantment Resort in Sedona, Arizona. Yield: Serves 8 2 cups whipping cream 2 cups half and half 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped 8 large egg yolks 1/3 cup plus 8 tablespoons sugar Preheat oven to 300°F. Bring cream and half and half to boil in heavy large saucepan. Reduce heat to low. Add chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk yolks and 1/3 cup sugar in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in hot chocolate mixture. Strain. Divide custard among eight 3/4-cup custard cups. Place cups in large baking pan. Add enough hot water to pan to come halfway up sides of cups. Bake until custards are set, about 50 minutes. Remove from water; chill 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Preheat broiler. Sprinkle each custard with 1 tablespoon sugar. Broil until sugar turns golden, watching closely to avoid burning, about 3 minutes. Refrigerate until custards are set, 1 to 2 hours.

TWD: Chocolate Souffle

Well, after my first ever hiatus from Tuesdays with Dorie, unintentional as it was to have missed the past two weeks, I am back! I can't say that I won't miss any future weeks, but I hope not to and to make up the weeks I do miss at some point. I just have to be realistic with myself and come to terms with the fact that till this baby arrives - hopefully as close to on time next Feb/March as we can get. Until then, this is as good as it gets. I do have several things I want to post about, but just have to find the time and energy!

I was so excited to make this week's recipe for the Chocolate Souffle for a number of reasons. I've had this bookmarked since I first got my copy of BFMHTY and am ashamed to admit that I've had two souffle dishes for even longer that have never been used. This is my very first foray into making a souffle, but I know it won't be my last!

This week's hostess is my darling friend Susan of She's Becoming Doughmesstic (where you'll find the recipe). Susan is absolutely wonderful, creative, funny and an incredible friend - and she makes the coolest cookies ever - seriously! I just wish she didn't live on the other side of the country! I really wish we lived next door to each other - that would be so perfectly awesome it would be ridiculous!

Thanks Sus for choosing this recipe! I seriously **heart** you sooo much!

I knew that Chocolate Souffle would have to be a hit at our house, at least with me. I was surprised at how much Aidan looooved this too though. He snarffed down his whole serving and gave it a chocolatey grin and two thumbs up. I thought it was heaven - chocolately, light, dreamy and soft.

Out of self preservation to save myself from eating too much souffle though, I did only make half the recipe. The amount fit perfectly in four little individual ramekins I had (6oz each I believe). I filled them just about 3/4 full with batter and set the timer for 16 minutes - which is when they looked perfect. I wasn't sure if they were done though and decided to give them 3 more minutes - which is when they fell a bit in the oven. So, I guess it would have been safer to check them at 15 minutes and take them out a bit earlier. They had crested over the rims really beautifully, but I didn't get a shot of that since I took them out a bit too late. Thanks to Nancy for even getting me that close since she gave me a heads up via Twitter about the results she had with making smaller portions as well.

I garnished only with a bit of confectioners' sugar, as Dorie suggests. It really didn't need anything else, but I'm sure a bit of whipped cream or creme anglaise would have been delicious too. All I know is that we will make this again, hopefully soon.

Make sure to check out how the other TWD Bakers made out this week!

TWD: Brioche Plum Tartlet

Happy Bastille Day!

This week was almost the first week I really thought I just wasn't going to be able to make the recipe happen for Tuesdays with Dorie. It would have been the first time I've missed a week since I started back in April '08 and I was really sad at the prospect. I sent out a tweet to my friends on Twitter and got back the support and encouragement I needed to just go for it. The recipe this week was chosen by Denise at Chez Us, and I'm glad I didn't miss out.

I've made brioche before - which is why the amount of time I needed to make it was worrying me. I really wanted to make this recipe because it was just so intriguing to me to be using the brioche dough as a tart crust. It was that time commitment which just seemed to be out of my realm of possibility this week. It was yesterday afternoon when I sent out my tweet and had my friends give me just the boost I needed.

Yesterday was my oldest son's 6th birthday and I just didn't know when I was going to fit this in. Thank you Kayte, Caitlin, Nancy, Tracey and Di for being there to give me just the boost I needed! Tuesdays with Dorie is an amazing group - and I'm telling you people, when you add that to the power of Twitter, incredible things happen!

I threw the brioche together in my KA mixer yesterday while I was making dinner. After we ate I put the dough in the fridge and ignored it until I could do something with it this morning. I made the entire brioche recipe (because I figure I'll find something to do with it) and only made one small little 5-inch tart. I used what I had on hand for the filling and just let the chips fall where they may.

My filling consisted of seedless black raspberry jam, two little plums I got from my friend Lisa (check out her new food blog at - cutest word EVER - Gourmified - I made the header for her so I'd love to know what you all think). I then sprinkled a few sliced blanched almonds I got from Oh Nuts! and some sugar for the topping.

This tart really did remind me of the Bakewell Tarts we recently made for Daring Bakers, but overall, I still preferred the Bakewells - probably more than anything though just because of the almond cream. While the brioche dough did take a long time before it was ready - the actual active time on my part was miniscule. I am so glad that I have great foodie friends who encourage me!

Make sure to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll for oodles of variations and fillings!

TWD: Dacquoise with Caramelized Bananas and Cocoa Cream

Check out our swanky new logo! Jaime of Good Eats n’ Sweet Treats told her friend Lisa of Surviving Oz and this is one of the versions she created (there is another color variation). Don't you just looooove it!

Sheesh. This was almost the Tuesdays with Dorie challenge that didn't happen. It would have been the first one I've missed since I joined over a year ago. I had all good intentions of making the recipe exactly as it was in the book, but as you can see, that didn't happen.

This week's hostess was Andrea of Andrea in the Kitchen where you'll find the recipe for the Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise - my subs are all detailed below.

What did happen was a lot of planning, then a lot of Father's Day stuff, then remembering Monday afternoon that I still hadn't made this yet!

There was quite the discussion between me, as well as a few friends on Twitter last week all about this week's dessert - Maria, Clara, Janet, Natalie, Rebecca, Kayte, Tania, Nancy, FujiMama, and Sarah - first, who in the TWD crew was planning to go for it this week and second, what I could sub the pineapple for. I didn't have pineapple, and I don't like pineapple. I wanted to try this so, I wanted something I would actually want to eat.

We discussed the possibility of strawberries - and though most of us agreed that it would probably be quite tasty - at some point I got the idea to use bananas - specifically banana slices with some caramelized sugar on them, my personal favorite - as the topping. Replace one tropical fruit with another! It ended up being the perfect substitute and we all loved it.

Nancy was kind enough to let me know the weight of the dry ingredients for the actual dacquoise (193 grams) so making a half recipe was simple enough at that point (96.5 grams).

I traced a 3 6-inch circles on my parchment on one sheet and put the dacquoise mixture into a piping bag and piped the circles (fairly thick - they were almost 3/4-inch tall). Where I messed everything up was when I put them in the oven. I had been using the oven for something else and was too impatient because it was still too hot. My discs sort of melted down into the thin layers you see, which I really have no idea if it is normal or not, but there you go. Either way, I let them bake the alloted amount of time with the oven now cooled to the correct temperature until I basically thought they were done. They were quite possibly more crunchy than they should have been, but with the cream filling it was a nice contrast.

I also obviously replaced the filling. I wanted something simple, fast and light so I just made a simple cocoa whipped cream. It is just a combination of 2 cups heavy cream + 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder + 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar = beat until as thick as you want - it is great for a light frosting on other cakes too - especially chocolate!

After searching online and finding a post at Zoe Bakes about dacquoise (and also a very helpful tweet from Zoe herself about not assembling the components too early before serving since it would get soggy) that really this was something that you can make and use as a filling between cake layers. Who'd a thunk it!? Not me. Maybe next time, when I actually don't mess up the temperature, it will be even better!

Don't forget to check out how the other TWD Bakers fared this week - check the blogroll!

TWD: French Yogurt Cake with Strawberries and Cream

I hope that the fact that my French Yogurt Cake turned into such a tall and lovely creation will make up for the fact that I am making this post extremely brief.  I have been chasing two sick kids around to various doctor appointments today and, at this moment, one of them is beyond ready for a nap.  

I decided to take Dorie's recommendation in the playing around section and try this cake as a kind of Strawberry Shortcake version - only mine ended up being quite tall.  

I went ahead and baked the cake in the loaf pan, then I just cut 1/2-inch thick slices and used a 2 1/2-inch round cutter to cut some small rounds to stack with some lightly sweetened whipped cream and sliced strawberries that had been soaking in a bit of vanilla and sugar.  

The black flecks in my cake come from the use of some vanilla sugar I had on hand and the only other change I made was to use orange zest instead of lemon.

Overall, I really liked this cake, but funny enough, my favorite part was the caramelized outsides of the cake even more than the tender and moist insides seen here.  I think I would like these as cupcakes (without liners) to get even more of a 'crust' to cake ratio.  Cutting it the way I did left quite a few nice scraps for me to nibble on though, so who knows!

Don't forget to stop by and say hello to this week's hostess, Liliana at My Cookbook Addiction! , and to head over to the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll to see all the other creations.

If you haven't already entered my apron giveaway, you have till midnight tomorrow (MST) (3/18/09) to enter.  Just check it out here!

TWD: Floating Islands

Well, to be completely honest, this week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie, Floating Islands, chosen by darling Shari over at the fabulous Whisk:  A Food Blog, was something that until recently, I had never even heard of.  It was an enigma to me.  While I could read the recipe and figure out what I thought this would be like, at the same time, perhaps because of that, I just really couldn't imagine this dessert was something I was going to be in love with.  I had been eyeing the picture in our Baking From My Home To Yours book though in curiosity ever since I saw it though, so I was happy to try to make it and find out what it was all about.

Nonetheless, I forged on and made the components anyway.  As I made the creme anglaise I realized that it basically was the same type of custard I make for ice cream, without the freezing. I knew that I would at least like that part.  What I wasn't so sure of was the actual floating islands themselves.  You see, for all intensive purposes, the 'islands' are poached puffs of meringue, without anything else really done to them.  I am not that much of a meringue person all by its lonesome, so that didn't really appeal to me.

I would like to tell you that I ended up loving this dessert... but I just didn't.  There was certainly nothing wrong with it, it just isn't my kind of dessert.  I will tell you that I had just baked a few more of the WP Cookies off my log stashed in the freezer and that those, dipped in the creme anglaise were perfectly fabulous.

For my floating islands, in honor of the upcoming Valentine's holiday, I decided, actually at the last minute, to add a little bit of red powdered food coloring and then to pipe the meringue into heart shapes.  I really wish I had pictures of how lovely and fun they were when I molded them or when they were poaching, but my camera was no where to be found at that point and I was already in the process and didn't think I should delay any further.   I also decided to do a few little chocolate swirls with a bit of melted dark chocolate on the islands and floating in the creme as a bit of decoration instead of the caramel strings.

Since I have nothing to compare these too, I don't know if mine were at all over-poached or deflated too much, but they still tasted good.  As I said, there was nothing at all wrong with this dessert, but it wasn't something I loved either.

Don't forget to check out all the islands floating around on the other Tuesdays with Dorie baker's blogs today!  (See that, I made a completely lame joke with a totally straight face.  Yeah. I'm a dork... but strangely, okay with that.)