Flourless Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

So, as is not uncommon, this year my birthday fell on Passover. The first night, to be exact. So, of course, I made cake. Flourless chocolate cake "crust," raspberry cheesecake layer, and classic vanilla bean cheesecake layer. I made this cake the last time my birthday fell on Passover, too, decorating with chocolate curls. This year, I went all-out with chocolate ganache and shiny glazed raspberries.

 

Alright, so we start with the chocolate "cake" base. Bake it in whatever size spring form pan you're using for your cheesecake and use whatever recipe you love or your Bubbe has passed down. Splurge on a really rich recipe, like this, and bake it up according to the directions.

Pouring the vanilla cheesecake batter over the chocolate. Bake it again, and meanwhile...

Take a whole bunch of raspberries (fresh or frozen work fine, but I find fresh to have a stronger flavor) and puree them.

Simmer for about 20 minutes--we're reducing them to concentrate the flavor because when you add too much liquid to the cheesecake batter it messes with the texture. Reducing the mixture evaporates some of the excess liquid while leaving the tasty flavor.

Combine the raspberry sauce with the other half of the cheesecake batter. 

And pour over the baked vanilla cheesecake later, baking again until it's done. 

 

We seem to have skipped a few steps, but I covered the top of the cake in my beloved chocolate ganache and dressed this gluten free cake up with chocolate curls. 

 

 Yumm... Rich, creamy, and gluten free/Passover friendly birthday cake.

 This treat is incredibly rich, so serve it in small slices.

 This year's cake used tons of fresh, juicy raspberries.

 

I covered the cake in chocolate ganache, topping with fresh raspberries and brushing a honey glaze onto the raspberries to give them that extra shine. 

 

Happy Passover, and happy birthday to me!

Ganache Magic!

Chocolate ganache is magical. Is really is the most magical food you can make and every time I whip a batch up, I'm enchanted. A very forgixving recipe, even if you mess up the proportions it'll probably still come out okay. Part of what's so magical is how easy it is to whip up and how versatile this concoction is. It's my single most-made recipe. Observe:

Chocolate (8 oz, chopped, ish) in a bowl with a lump of butter (say maybe a tablespoon). Heat heavy cream in a saucepan (3/4 cup give or take, basically enough to cover the chocolate in the bowl completely), pour hot cream over chocolate. LEAVE IT ALONE FOR 5 MINUTES. Seriously, don't rush this part or the magic won't happen.

One your timer goes off, whisk.

And keep whisking gently.

Have faith - it'll come together. Just keep whisking.

There we go! It's starting to get beautiful and shiny.

And all of the sudden we have a beautiful bowl of shiny rich versatile chocolate. If your cream wasn't hot enough or you didn't wait long enough before whisking (tsk tsk), just toss the bowl in the microwave for a few seconds and then try whisking again. It'll come together.

Chill it and turn it into truffle filling. Pour it over a cake or pastry or cheesecake. Swirl it into ice cream. Use it to fill a tart or  a macaron. Dip cupcakes in the glaze before frosting them.  Pour it over anything you want to make look fancy. Spread it on some toast. Whip it up and use it for frosting. Eating it with a spoon. 

You know you want to and I promise, I won't judge. It's ganache, just go with it.


By the way, this is a great vase for a bunch of other yummy treats. Add fruit sauces, peanut butter, flavored extracts, or anything else yummy to make fabulous fancy flavored ganache. Use it in anything. Scratch that - use it in everything.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cheesecake Macarons

I made some more french macarons!

These little guys are strawberry flavored. I sliced strawberries thinly, stuck them into the oven on low for a few hours until they were dried out, then ground them up and put them in the batter. Pretty light flavor, but still tasty.

Some have cheesecake filling and some have strawberry-chocolate ganache.

I accidentally over baked most of these, so I brushed them with pink luster dust to disguise the dark color! Oops!

Still quite tasty, though, especially dipped in chocolate.

Oreo Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red velvet cupcakes with oreos at the bottom. Dipped in chocolate ganache. Cream cheese frosting on top.

Silver dragees and edible glitter to top them off. Why? Why not!

What more can you ever want?

Yummy Mousse/Chocolate/Cheesecake/Raspberry Thing

I don't really have a name for this fabulous dessert, so I'll just explain what's in it, layer by later. 

At the bottom, I cut out a ring of flourless chocolate cake.
 

Above the chocolate cake layer is a tin but decadent layer of dark chocolate ganache. 

The pink layer is a tart raspberry mousse, made with raspberry and whipped cream. That was my favorite and I used the leftovers to fill a cake. So tasty and it helped lighten up this super-rich dessert quite a bit.

The chocolate layer in the middle is a mixture of mini chocolate chips and chocolate ganache. This added some nice texture with a crunch from the chips.

The light layer almost at the top is vanilla bean cheesecake. Deliciously perfect. 

It's all drenched in gooey chocolate ganache. 
 

And drizzled with homemade raspberry sauce. 

I was happy with how all the elements went together nicely. Even though this was a very rich dessert, most of us completely polished off out plates! Next I have to try this with a layer of ice cream...

More Macarons - Lemon, Strawberry, Chocolate, and Mint

I went crazy with the macarons and made about 100 little sandwiches over the course of one weekend.

 3 flavors of shells: lemon, chocolate, and strawberry.

The lemon shell was made with fresh lemon zest (easy peasy) but the strawberry was a bit more complicated.

Strawberry. I made this flavor by slicing strawberries very thin and baking the berries in the oven at a low temperature for a few hours to dehydrate them. When they were dry, I put them in the blender to turn them into intensely flavored strawberry powder and mixed that in with the macaroni batter.

3 kinds of fillings: swiss meringue butter cream, strawberry cheesecake, and chocolate mint.

The strawberry cheesecake was made using my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe and adding fresh strawberry puree.

The chocolate mint is a mint infused chocolate ganache. I soaked fresh mint leaves in simmering milk before making the ganache and combined with the dark chocolate it was the perfect hint of flavor.

These french macarons were gobbled up in no time.

They have a fabulous crunch on the outside but are soft and almost cake-like on the inside. 

 After 100 of these, I think I'm done with macarons for at least the next week.

My Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Birthday Cake!

It was my birthday last month, so of course I made myself a cake. And yes, I do make my own birthday cakes. I wouldn't have it any other way. 
 

 My suitemates did make me a brownie cake though, and that was pretty awesome. 

 Anyways, this towering little cake is red velvet. 

4 layers: two with mini chocolate chips and 2 without. 

That's a HUGE glop of chocolate ganache on top. Then I dumped some chocolate chips on it. 

Why? Because I can. 

The pink frosting, by the way, is cream cheese. So easy to make and oh so delicious. I didn't take any pictures of the insides because we were too busy eating it. It was my birthday, cut me some slack!