Death By Chocolate

I thought I'd post last night, but it was just late and I was completely tuckered.

We had a fabulous celebration if I do say so myself. And it's just the first one...there will be more fun to come over this long weekend.

For dinner, I made Indian food...Chicken Curry served with rice and curry naan (a favorite around here) which I don't do often because of the time-intensive nature of it, but I sure love that stuff.

And then we had The Cake. It was so amazing that I plumb forgot the fruit sorbetto that I'd purchased to go along with it. Doc pronounced it the most beautiful and amazing creation yet. I'm so glad he liked it! Happy Birthday to my Sweetest! ♥

Pictures, followed by the recipe for those who are interested. Feel free to skip.

Blessings:
1. Chocolate
2. Fruit
3. Four decades of life









DETAILS:
In a springform pan (which I purchased just for this occasion), I baked an extremely rich fudge brownie. When it was done baking, I cut Priulene-type cookies in half and created a "fence" around the pan, sticking them into the brownie. Then I made a truffle filling using 79% cacao gourmet chocolate bars which I chopped up instead of chocolate chips. This was some rich chocolate truffle. I spread half of it on the brownie layer and chilled it. Using the other half of the truffle, I whipped up some sweet cream and mixed it with the truffle, to create a mouse layer on top of the truffle layer. Then I topped that with a sweet cream layer.

After chilling the cake for 5 hours, I mounded it with fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. After releasing the springform pan, I tied a slim ribbon around the cookies for decoration. Just before presenting it, I spent an hour (kidding!) adding the candles. Good thing our rogue smoke detector is missing it's batteries right now, or we'd have had the fire department visiting (and they'd have probably eaten the rest of the cake). I swear it weighed about 18 pounds...and now I weigh a bit more, too. Sigh.

Here's How I made it: It took me many hours.

ORDER OF OPERATIONS (to help you in planning your time).
Bake Brownies.
While brownies are in the oven, cut cookies in half.
While Truffle layer is chilling, wash the fruit. Place gently on paper towels to dry. I put mine in the freezer for a while to firm up and stay cool.
When Truffle is chilled, pour 1/2 on brownie.
Make the cookie fence.
Whip the first batch of sweet cream and add it to remaining truffle mixture.
Layer it on top of the truffle layer.
Make the 2nd batch of sweet cream and layer it on top of Mousse layer.
Chill for at least 4 hours.
After chilling, add fruit.
Remove the springform pan side.
Tie ribbon around cookies.
If you're doing candles, I used a little pin to carve out space in the tops of the cookies to create a hole for the candles.


RECIPE:
FIRST LAYER: BROWNIE BOTTOM
However you want to do this is up to you. If you have a killer homemade brownie recipe, more power to you. I personally felt just fine using a Ghiridelli Ultimate Fudge Brownie mix. You can use any brand you like, but make it using the fudge, not cake, recipe.

CRITICAL POINT: Bake in a 9 or 10 inch spring-form pan. You'll never get this cake out of a pan otherwise! Be careful not to over bake your brownie. Brownies don't look totally baked when you should take them out of the oven, but they cool to perfect doneness. Let the pan cool a bit, and then put it in the fridge to continue chilling.

SECOND LAYER: TRUFFLE
1/3 cup water
1 envelope unflavored knox gelatin
1 T Nutella. Oh Nutella!!!
1 1/4 cups butter. None of that margarine nastiness here.
12 ounces of the highest-quality chocolate you can afford to buy. I got 79% cacao gourmet bars and chopped them. You could downgrade and use something like Hershey's semi-sweet chips. You could. But if you're trying to impress anyone...
3/4 cup sugar
5 large egg yolks (get rid of all the whites)
3 Tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla

First, chop the chocolate with the sugar till reasonably fine. I used my VitaMix Blender for this, but you can certainly use a food processor if you're the lucky owner of one.

Next, you place 1/3 cup water in a heavy 2-quart pan, sprinkle with gelatin. Let stand for 2 minutes, until gelatin is softened. Add butter and Nutella; heat, stirring, until mixture is boiling, butter and Nutella are melted, and gelatin is dissolved.

Now, with the VitaMix running, I poured the boiling butter mixture into chocolate mixture and processed it until the chocolate was melted. Whatever you're using, the goal here is to just get the chocolate melted to a satiny smoothness.

Then added the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla and 3 Tablespoons water to the chocolate mixture; process until smooth.

Now pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook, stirring, over medium heat until it thickens.

Next, pour chocolate mixture into a large bowl. Place this bowl in an even larger bowl of ice and water to chill. Stir often until thickened.

Once it's thickened, place half of the chilled mixture over the cooled brownie in pan. Leave the other half chilling in the ice water for now.

NEXT STEP: COOKIES
2 cans of Pirouline-style cookies. I actually used Pepperidge Farms brand, which come in assorted flavors. I got Chocolate and Hazlenut...they make Vanilla too if that excites you. One can would barely be enough to get around the whole cake, and a number of them were broken so I'm glad I got two cans. Plus, Leftovers! (we never buy cookies around here)

Cut the cookies in half so they are about 2 1/2 inches long. Stand them up around the edge of the spring-form pan, with the bottom of the cookies resting in the truffle layer. Makes kind of a "fence" around your cake.


NEXT STEP: MAKE BATCH ONE OF SWEET CREAM
1 C heavy cream
1/4 cup of powdered sugar

Pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream in a chilled bowl and beat until stiff with mixer.
Once it forms peaks, add 1/4 cup of powdered sugar and beat until very stiff.

THIRD LAYER: MOUSSE
Gently fold the remaining chilled truffle mixture into the sweet cream and mix till blended to a consistent light brown color. Spoon this mousse mixture on top of the truffle layer.

FOURTH LAYER: SWEET CREAM
Whip up your second batch of heavy cream (same recipe as above) until very stiff and place on top of the mousse. This can be piped on to make it look more decorative if you don't plan to hide it with fruit like I did.

If not putting fruit all over the top, you could garnish the cream with chocolate curls or shavings at this point. Either way, put the cake in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours until firm, or overnight.

FIFTH LAYER: FRESH FRUIT
Place the fruit of your choice (I used strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. But sliced kiwis or mangoes would be awesome too. Whatever floats your boat.) on top of the Sweet Cream layer, arranged however you like.

FINAL STEP:
When ready to serve, remove spring-form ring from base. Wrap a ribbon around the cookies and tie in a bow.

WARNING: Before cutting this cake, you should be aware that it is one of the densest and richest things you will ever have the pleasure of savoring. Cut wedge shaped servings - 2, 3 or 4 cookies wide depending on each guest's appetite! Two was plenty for me. Doc had a hard time finishing a 4-cookies-sized wedge. I think sorbet or sorbetto would be the perfect compliment to this cake...assuming you have enough room left to accomodate it.

Serves at least 12 gluttonus pigs, but you could feed about 24 reasonable people with it too. Mine was 51 cookies around.