SAMPLE RECIPES:
1. How to Melt Chocolate
2. White and Black Chocolate Cheesecake
3. Michele's German Chocolate Cake
4. Sacher Torte
Chocolate Cake: 150 Recipes from Simple to Sublime
by Michele Urvater
Broadway Books
Date: September 2001
ISBN: 0767906071
Hardcover
ORDER/INFO
Book Description
Chocolate cake is America's favorite dessert, from fudgy brownies to mile-high layer cakes. Now, virtually every rendition of this best-loved dessert is presented in one tempting volume–more than 150 cakes for every occasion.
Bestselling cookbook author and pastry chef Michele Urvater has collected and reinterpreted the finest recipes from American and European baking traditions. Here are easy homemade classics such as old-fashioned Devil's Food Cake and Buttermilk Chocolate Cake as well as more challenging pastry-shop fare such as Sacher Torte, Hungarian Dobos Torte, and a festive Double Chocolate Christmas Log. There are heirloom cakes that date to the beginning of the last century and desserts as up-to-the-minute as individual warm chocolate cakes.
Urvater guides bakers of all skill levels through a wealth of original and tempting variations on the standards, such as Pecan Bourbon Chocolate Cake or Hawaiian Coconut Cake with White Chocolate Ganache. And a plethora of fillings, icings, buttercreams, and glazes allows for nearly endless mixing and matching of layers and frostings.
Each recipe has a designated level of difficulty, so even the novice baker will be able to achieve instant success–and chocolate gratification. Meticulous recipes along with advice on advance preparation, serving, decoration, and storage all make this comprehensive tribute to the ultimate dessert a book that belongs in every baker's library.
About the Author
Michele Urvater is the author of the bestselling Monday-to-Friday cookbook series and former host of the TVFN program of the same name. A baking and culinary graduate of New York City Technical College, she began her career sharing a single chef's job with two other women in a small restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She then worked as a chef in a private corporate dining room and taught cooking classes before beginning her second career as a cookbook writer. Her third career began just a couple of years ago, when she fell in love with the pastry arts and returned to school to earn a diploma as a pastry chef from the esteemed French Culinary Institute.
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White and Black Chocolate Cheesecake
From: Chocolate Cake by Michele Urvater
(Broadway Books; September 2001; ISBN: 0767906071; HC)
Cookbook Heaven @ recipelink.com
This cheesecake, with its generous amount of dark and white chocolates, is incredibly rich. This is to consider for a holiday dinner party or as a centerpiece on a buffet table because it can be made days ahead of serving. A nice touch, which cuts the richness of the cake, is to serve some peeled fresh orange segments on the side.
Makes one 10-inch cake; Serves 16 to 20
- 22 (5 ounces) 2-inch-square graham crackers
- 3/4 stick (3 ounces) unsalted butter, melted
- 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, very finely chopped
- 2 1/2 pounds cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups (13 ounces) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
- 3 tablespoons bleached all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 5 large eggs
- 4 ounces white chocolate, melted and cooled
- 6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
- Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter the bottom only of a 10 x 3-inch springform pan, and wrap the outside of the pan with foil to prevent leakage.
- In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, pulverize the graham crackers into crumbs. (You'll have about 11/4 cups.) Transfer the crumbs to a mixing bowl, add the melted butter, and mix with a rubber spatula. With your fingers, press the crumb mixture over the bottom of the springform pan, reaching all the way to the sides so it forms a bit of a seal against leakage. Bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and immediately scatter the chopped chocolate evenly over the crust. Return the pan to the oven for a minute to melt the chocolate, remove it from the oven, and with a small offset spatula or the back of a spoon, quickly spread the chocolate over the crust. Set aside and lower the heat to 300 degrees F.
- With an electric mixer (or a stationary mixer fitted with the paddle attachment) on low speed, beat the cream cheese for 2 minutes or until soft and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. With the machine running, add the sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the orange zest, flour, and cream, and continue to beat slowly until homogenized. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 15 seconds between additions to make sure each one is thoroughly incorporated.
- Pour 3 cups of the batter into a separate bowl and blend in the white chocolate. Blend the unsweetened chocolate into the remaining batter.
- Alternately and randomly spoon the dark and white batters into the prepared pan. With a knife, or the blunt end of a wooden skewer, swirl the chocolate batter into the white one, but don't over mix.
- Set the pan on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour. Lower the heat to 250 degrees F and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour longer, or until the batter does not look wet. The cake will still appear wobbly, but that is okay.
- Remove the cake to a wire rack and cool it to room temperature in the pan. Unlock the springform and lift out the cake, but leave it on the metal base. Chill the cake in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before serving.
Storage:
Keep in the refrigerator, wrapped airtight in plastic, for up to 5 days. Remove the cheesecake 30 minutes before serving. You can also freeze this cake for a couple of months.
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