Food Friday: Valentine’s Day Chocolates

You have got all of this weekend to get your act together for Valentine’s Day, which dawns bright and early on Monday. Go light on the Super Bowl™ snacks, and think about the chocolate and candlelight rewards with all the romance that naturally occur on a Monday. Luke the wonder dog and Mr. Sanders will be obeying current CDC social distancing rules in the living room Sunday night, watching the football game, with a bowlful of popcorn and a fistful of pigs-in-blankets, while I catch up with an Academy Award ™ Best Picture Nominee on my Kindle in the studio. Love is in the air.

Here are my chocolate suggestions:

My favorite chocolate dessert is a flourless chocolate cake. It is easy, practically fool-proof, beauteous to look at, and never fails to impress. Especially when strewn with a handful of plump raspberries and a great lashing of whipped cream.

Flourless Chocolate Cake Recipe
Cake

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 stick of butter, softened
5 large eggs, separated
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a springform pan with parchment paper – it is never pretty. Like hospital corners on the bed, I can never do this tidily.

• Melt the chocolate and butter together in a pan, over a low heat, stirring to blend. Be careful not to rush this process! Set aside to cool.
• Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and pale yellow in color. This can take up to 5 or 6 minutes. Add the vanilla.

Clean the beaters, and now whip the egg white with the salt until they are stiff.
Fold the chocolate mixture into the yolks, then fold in about one third of the egg white, mix gently. Then fold in the rest of the whites, mixing until there are no more white streaks.

• Pour the mixture into the springform pan and bake for about 35 to 45 minutes, test with a toothpick to be sure cake is done. The cake will rise gloriously while baking, and suddenly crash and collapse when you take it out of the oven. Do not worry about this! It will be deliciously and deliriously luscious.
• Cool the cake for about 10 or 15 minutes. Flip the cake onto a cooling rack. Remove the bottom of the pan and the parchment. Let it cool completely before adding the glaze.

Glaze

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tablespoon brandy or bourbon or whatever you have in your desk drawer for emergencies

• Melt the 3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate and butter together in a saucepan, stirring until smooth. Add the generous dollop of bourbon and stir some more. Now pour the glaze over the cake, assuming that you have placed it on a serving dish, and have prepared said dish with some waxed paper. The glaze will drip down the sides. But we like that shimmering pool of molten chocolate.

We sometimes top the slices of cake with whipped cream, and maybe some raspberries. I had this once with a maceration of raspberries and have never tasted anything so delightful since!

https://chestertownspy.org/2012/02/09/food-friday-for-love-and-chocolate/

We finally found the family birthday cake when, after years of experimentation, we discovered that I can doctor a yellow cake mix, and doll it up with custard and the glaze from the flourless chocolate cake, and it resembles a Boston Cream Pie. I quiver just thinking of all the calories.

Although baking is a science, as we are often admonished, sometimes you have to improvise. I do not use the entire batch of boxed cake mix batter for a Boston cream pie. After I make the batter, I only use about 2/3 of the batter. In my mind a BCP should not stand as tall as a two-layer layer-cake. The other third I pour into a couple of cupcake papers and leave out on the kitchen counter to keep the circling cake samplers at bay.

I line a round pan with a circle of parchment paper, and pour the cake batter into the pan, which I then place on top of a cookie sheet, and bake according to directions. After the cake has baked, and cooled, I slice it into two rounds, using a long bread knife so I don’t hack the cake to bits.

Go ahead – get fancy with the filling and use up your precious weekend time trying to out-Martha Martha. https://www.marthastewart.com/316410/creme-patissiere

Or you can default to Jell-O Instant Vanilla Pudding. But, instead of using the milk as is called for in the instructions, use heavy whipping cream. It whips up in about half the time, and is rich and thick as mashed potatoes. Artfully trowel on a good thick layer of the Créme Pat (or the vanilla pudding) on the bottom half of the pie and then carefully place the top half onto the filling.

You cannot change one speck of this magic chocolate glaze! I have been using this glaze since 1989. The cookbook always falls open to this page, which is also the glaze I use for Flourless Chocolate Cake. It is covered with crumbs and splatters.

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 ounces butter, softened
1 tablespoon brandy or bourbon

Melt the chocolate and butter together over a low heat, stirring until smooth. Stir in the brandy. Pour over the top of the cooled cake, smoothing with a spatula, and let it drip down the sides.

https://chestertownspy.org/2015/04/03/food-friday-boston-cream-pie-better-than-jelly-beans/

Last year we suggested chocolate éclairs for Valentine’s Day. Éclairs are still an excellent idea in these long-lasting days of COVID: https://chestertownspy.org/2021/02/12/food-friday-homemade-valentines/

I think our friends at Food52 should have the final word on chocolate cake: https://food52.com/recipes/81635-ultimate-chocolate-cake

Enjoy the football, enjoy the commercials, enjoy the pigs-in-blankets, enjoy all the chocolate. Spring is coming, and romance is in the air!

“Chocolate makes everyone happy. Sharing chocolates with others is a form of communication which says, You can share all your sweet and dark secrets with me.”
― Ruchi Prabhu