Dark Chocolate Torte with Ganache

My sister is leaving for France and for her goodbye party I was asked to make her a cake, her request?
Something dark...preferably my torte! Ok sis you asked for it!

This recipe is originally from Fork Knife Swoon but I made some changes.

One thing to keep in mind - the better the quality of chocolate, the better your cake will turn out! I prefer to use Trade Joe's 72% Dark Chocolate, and it takes almost a whole pound for the cake.

Here is my version:

Dark Chocolate Torte with Ganache

Ingredients:

For the Cake:
3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1/4 Cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
10 oz. bittersweet dark chocolate, chopped into small bits
1 & 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature cut into pieces
1 & 1/4 Cups white sugar
3 oz red wine
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature

For the Ganache Glaze:
1 Cup heavy cream
8 oz. bittersweet dark chocolate
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature cut into pieces

Cake Instructions:

1. Preheat oven 325* degrees F. Generously butter a  9 inch spring-form cake pan, set aside.  
   
2. Sift & combine: flour, cocoa, and salt.  Set aside.
3. Using a double boiler: melt 8 oz of chocolate with the butter, 1/2 Cup of sugar, wine, and vanilla. Stir constantly until combined. The chocolate should be smooth and shiny. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. In a mixer, beat together the eggs and remaining sugar for 2 minutes on high speed until light and fluffy. With the mixer still running, carefully and slowly pour the melted chocolate into the eggs until combined. *It's important that you pour slowly to avoid cooking the raw eggs.*
5. Turn the mixer off and gently stir in the flour mixture and remaining chocolate pieces until just mixed.
6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 40-45 minutes until the top has just set and beginning to crackle. The cake should still be slightly gooey with melted chocolate when a cake-tester is inserted into the middle. 
7. Remove from oven and let cool on a baking rack.

Ganache Instructions - Make while the cake is cooling:

1. In a sauce pan combine cream and chocolate. Bring the cream to just a boil over medium heat. Whisk continuously until fully melted. Add the butter and gently stir until just combined. *Avoid over mixing to ensure a glossy finish. Remove from heat and let sit for a minute or two to thicken.
2. When the cake is room temperature, remove it from pan and gently pour ganache glaze over the top, allowing it to spill down the side. Top with fresh berries if you desire and serve!

Other great toppings include: Shredded coconut, any sort of berry, caramel sauce, ganache with peanutbutter, whipped cream..be creative!

Here is my finished cake!

Preserving Basil

I Love Fresh Basil

Basil just so happens to be one of my favorite herbs, I plant it every year and enjoy it as much as I can every summer season. The one problem I run into though is in the winter....I don't typically use dried basil, I prefer fresh and the winter is just not basil's season.

This year I decided to do things differently, instead of purchasing fresh basil during the upcoming winter months I made up my mind to make my own preserved basil from my garden which is currently overflowing in yummy leafy basil which I definitely don't want to go to waste!

I've seen this idea many times online and decided to give it a go myself! 

Frozen Fresh Basil in Oil and Water

Step 1: Gather your herbs - you can do this for any herb that you enjoy cooking with.

Step 2: Wash your herbs, pick the leaves you are going to use and discard the rest. Then dry your herbs gently on either a paper or hand towel.

Washed and Picked From Their Stems.

Fresh From My Garden! Washed and Ready!

Step 3: I used a food processor because it's much easier and quicker but you can also hand mince your herbs with your favorite sharp knife (non serrated please!). Deposit your minced basil into a bowl.

Step 4: Using a muffin tin or ice cube tray, divide out your basil accordingly. I used the muffin tin for 1 tablespoon scoops of my basil, and an ice cube tray for 1 teaspoon portions of basil. Don't pack them in tightly, but rather gently and somewhat loosely pressed into the bottom. You want to give your liquid a chance to completely encase the basil.

Prepped and Ready

Herbs in the Bottom, Don't pack them too tight!

Step 5: Now for the fun part! Using your favorite oil, or water go ahead and just cover the top of the pressed basil. I used mostly Grape Seed Oil for my basil because I use oil in a lot of different cooking recipes, but I also used water for a whole ice tray for recipes such as soup where I might not want to add oil.

Just cover the top of the herbs

Step 6:  Toss it in the freezer for a few hours and then bag it!

Enjoy!

Pic from: fatandhappyblog.com

Author's Update:

Upon removing my supposedly frozen cubes from their trays, the oil was a complete mess! As soon as I took it out of the freezer it began to melt! The shapes did not hold up as planned.

For future reference, the water cubes worked great! And I think melted butter would be a better choice rather than oil, melted butter freezes super solid.

Bright Lights, Big City Part III

Day 4 Sunday:
Well we hated to admit it but we were beat....we ended up sleeping in, having a leisurely breakfast, and watching Netflix marathon style until early afternoon. We were hoping that in the early afternoon we'd miss any traffic I mean it is Sunday right? How bad could it be?

Boy were we wrong! According to my gps, it took us a whole hour to go 5 miles!!

This threw off our plans a bit as we didn't end up having as much time as we would have liked.

First stop, Ocean Beach!

Ocean Beach is not very warm, and its not a tourist location so parking was free and plentiful!

Such a beautiful day for going to the beach too! After some overcast clouds it ended up clearing up and reaching a nice 72 degrees F.

After hitting the beach we went to Golden Gate Park and checked out the SF Botanical Gardens. I hate to admit it but we spent the remainder of our time their so we didn't get to see much of the Golden Gate Park, but it was well worth it.

When we just couldn't take it any longer we headed out to check out Japan Town, being told that the food there is amazing by several different locals.

Their was a Japanese Celebration going on when we arrived, we stayed and watched for a while but our stomachs were driving us on to find food.

After much debate we settled on a yummy looking Japanese Sushi restaurant. My sister is not a big fan of sushi (Or so she thinks! I'd like to change her mind about it someday.) so she settled for a delicious curry noodle dish. What was fun about the restaurant was that they served green tea instead of water. And I was able to teach my sister how to use chopsticks! **Although if you ask her, it was starve or use them. I wouldn't let her ask for a fork.**

Sushi for dinner!

Yay Chopsticks!!

After dinner we headed through the Japanese Mall area to a place called Belly Good Crepes. They make delicious stuffed crepes both sweet and savory, if you get one with ice cream they will make a little animal out of it for you!

We had a strawberry, vanilla ice cream, nutella stuffed crepe!!

What a fun trip! But we were both exhausted....and it was time to head home come Monday.
We ended up leaving during a rush hour, and since neither one of us wanted to deal with the 6 lanes of hellish traffic, we ended up taking a longer route home that showed us some beautiful country but kept us from sitting in traffic. It added an hour to the trip which we decided was at least what we would have spent sitting in one place.

Bright Lights, Big City! Part II

Day 3 Saturday:
Back to the Pier! So much to see, so little time! Turns out parking is crazy expensive, luckily though we found an all day parking garage for $18.00 for the whole day. Most of the other garages were $45.00 I was also happy about our parking spot, we were right near the entrance with lots of foot/car traffic. It felt safe to leave our car their.

Mirror Maze on Pier 39

The Mirror Maze was a lot of fun if you ever get the chance to go through it i'd recommend checking it out!

Hand dipped and carved candles!

I love candles! This shop hand dips and carves designs into their candles, another cool thing about them is that the whole candle glows when you light it up, further emphasizing the design work!

We then made our way to Fisherman's Wharf.

The wharf was crowded and busy but we saw some fun stuff!

Boudin Sourdough Bakery

Rain forest Cafe!

After all the walking we were really tired but wanted to go check out China Town so we flagged down a gentleman who had a bicycle taxi and he gave us a ride to China Town with a small tour of famous buildings along the way. When we were dropped off I learned that it was about a 30 min walk back to the Wharf and the pedal taxis don't typically hang out in the area, bummer!

Took a bicycle trolley to China Town

TransAmerica Tower! This tower is built on rollers so that if their is ever an earthquake it will move and not fall!

Stopped for drinks at a Chinese Bar.

Their was a tree inside the entrance to the restaurant/bar where we stopped.

Mai Tai!

I really enjoyed all of the small shops in China Town, some were trinkety but others had fun more cultural things to see. I would have loved to go home with a tea or Saki set. We ended up walking for hours, and we wanted to make sure and get back before dark, we also wanted to have dinner at the Wharf. Before heading back to the Wharf for dinner we took a break and hit a bar for their happy hour appetizers and drinks!

After a short recovery we started the long hike back to the Wharf, luckily it was mostly downhill.

Beautiful Church

Fire Station

Overall we had a great day! And it ended with some yummy seafood at a local restaurant in the Wharf.

Bright Lights, Big City! Part I

San Francisco, California 

Days 1& 2

Last Thursday my younger sister and I headed out on our first road trip together to the big city of San Francisco (SF)! Our mission: Get her to the French Consulate for validation of her student visa (she is going to be an exchange student in France this next school year and is leaving in August 2014).

Day 1 Thursday:

We took off early Thursday morning, with one stop in Medford, Oregon for a couple hours to visit some family and we arrived at our motel that evening.

*Something to note....our motel was located in Oakland, California. Any of you who are unaware as I was when the room was booked by my sister should be warned that Oakland is a dump and is well known for its violent crimes and understaffed police force. Not the best place to visit!! My poor hubby was not very happy about it. But we played it safe and luckily hotels/motels tend to be little islands of security, but not anywhere else in the city.

Common Sense & Safety Precautions

• Always lock your doors
• As soon as you get in you car - lock up!
• Upon entering your motel/hotel room - lock up!
• Park in well lit areas
• When at your hotel/motel park in the front where your car is easily visible even if it means a longer walk (like in our case)
• Top floors are safer
• Especially in a motel where all of the doors are on the outside of the building.
• Keep your windows up and room windows closed!
• Don't walk to any location no matter how close, drive everywhere.
• Don't be out after dark.
• Keep friends/family appraised of where you will be and what you will be doing, have designated check in times so that if something were to happen someone will know to look for you.
• When walking to your car or motel room - have your keys in your hand and ready to go in the lock. 
• You should never fumble around at your door, your back is exposed and you aren't watching your surroundings if you are looking for your keys.
• Keep a phone on you and charged.

I'm kind of a safety nut, my father was in security we have lots of military in my family and I married a U.S Marine who does Federal Security. I'm also a strong advocate for women being able to protect themselves, for example learning self defense (and practicing regularly!) or taking up a martial art and learning a combat sport.

Day 2 Friday:

Good thing we left an hour and a half early, we barely made it to the French Consulate in time what with the hellish traffic and terrible toll bridge that causes a huge traffic bottle neck! Near disaster averted! 

After the stress of barely making it to the Consulate on time we decided to stop for coffee before making our way to Pier 39.

Their weren't many seals but it was fun visiting all of the shops!

Carousel at the Pier

My very favorite part of our visit was Alcatraz Island! We took a ferry out to the island and did a day tour we ended up spending about 3 hours on the island.

I recommend reading up on the history of this place.

Dinner for the night: homemade clam chowder and fresh sourdough bread bowls!

My sister!

We then swung by a local Trader Joe's for some snacks and juice.

What was cool about it was that the Trader Joes had its own parking garage area so we didn't have to pay, I also liked how one of their entrances was attached to the garage. It looked really cool!

One of the great things about California is that their is hard liquor in grocery stores, it was fun seeing high end and reasonable prices of liquor at Trader Joe's. I ended up picking up a nice scotch called "Monkey Shoulder" for my husband.

Swedish Meat Pies & Cosmos!

I love a good dinner, how about you?

I've been looking forward since the beginning of the summer to the Scandinavian Festival that is held every year in Junction City, Oregon. I must be honest....it's the food...I go for the food.

But its so delicious!

Aebleskivers!!

 

 Their is also dancing, crafts, homemade goodies for sale and vikings in full attire walking around!

Anyways I just couldn't hold out, I love the Swedish Meat Pies the best and decided that rather and wait for August to roll around I would make my own. And the recipe I used was a sure winner!!

Here is the original recipe (makes about 4 meat pies). I doubled it and made a few other changes as well.

Here is my version:

Swedish Meat Pies 
~ Recipe by, Aavery Nelson ~

 Filling Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. butter

2 Pounds of beef

1/2 Cup chopped onion

4 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped

1 tsp. allspice

2 tsp. dried dill weed

1 tsp. nutmeg

4 large red potatoes, grated
2 Cups. Shredded Cheddar Cheese
2 & 1/2 Cups. Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Crust Ingredients:
4 Cups. All Purpose Flour
2 Tsp. Salt
1 & 1/2 Cups Shortening
3/4 Cup. Sour Cream

Directions - Preheat oven 400* F

1. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion until golden brown, add the potatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes just enough to give them a head start over the meat.
2. Add the beef, parsley, allspice, dill, and nutmeg to your skillet. 
3. Cook and stir until the meat is browned. Drain any excess grease from the pan.
4. Turn off the heat and stir in the cheese until melted. Set aside to cool.
5. In a large bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Mix in the shortening with a fork until pea sized lumps form. Stir in the sourcream until a soft dough forms. Knead briefly on a floured surface. Divide into balls - should make about 8.
6. Roll each ball of dough to about 1/8 inch thinkness in the shape of a nice circle or oval. Place a heaping scoop of filling about (1/2 Cup) onto each flat round. Fold over into half circles, and seal by moistening the edges with warm water and pressing together with a fork. Place on a large baking sheet.
7. Bake about 20 min until golden brown.

I baked what I thought we would eat for dinner, the rest I froze without baking first for quick meals at a later date!

They were amazing! My husband was in heaven, and I think they turned out even better than the ones I usually get at the festival!

Served of course with Cosmos! Happy Monday Everyone!