Chocolate Torte

For the past couple of years, we have participated in an "Iron Chef" competition. The Elder's quorum at church has put it on. One team has won overall judges choice every year, this year included. This year my team won overall people's choice. This is the dessert I created for our team. I made it up today from scratch and it won the judge's choice for dessert and the people's choice for dessert. I was told it was absolutely wonderful. I am so glad. I love to create new recipes.

Chocolate Torte

Chocolate Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
• 3 cups white sugar
• 5 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup hot water
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325'. Grease and cocoa (like you would with flour for a cake pan) a jelly roll pan.
2. Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the hot water and buttermilk. Pour batter into prepared pan.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

***Note*** 3-14-13 So I made this for the Relief Society Birthday Party today and I added Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels to this cake recipe to give it a little different twist. Oh my goodness. It was quite divine and I am going to be doing this from now on. It was wonderful.

Filling

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 8oz pkg cream cheese
• 2 cups homemade whipped cream
• 1 small box white chocolate instant pudding

Directions

1. Make homemade whipped cream (see below)
2. Microwave cream cheese for 30 secs in microwave safe bowl. Slowly add milk and mix with cream cheese.
3. Spoon whipped cream over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle pudding over whipped cream. Mix together till fully incorporated.

Whipped Cream

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoon powdered sugar

Directions

1. In a large bowl, whip cream until stiff peaks are just about to form. Beat in vanilla and sugar until peaks form. Make sure not to over-beat, cream will then become lumpy and butter-like.

Hershey's hot fudge or homemade hot fudge
Hershey's candy bar grated curls (using a vegetable peeler run over edge of chocolate bars to make curls)

To assemble the torte:

• Cut cake into three equal parts.
• Cut off the edges of cake.
• Spread hot fudge on top of each section of cake.
• Place one part of the cake with hot fudge spread on top, onto serving platter.
• Using a piping bag or the Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator with open star tip, pipe filling around top edges of cake on platter. With a spoon fill in center.
• Place next layer on top and repeat directions from above with next layer.
• On top of remaining layer, do a fancy border around edges and then fill in center with remaining filling.
• Now, you can put some hot fudge into piping bag and pipe a design on top or you can just drizzle hot fudge on top.
• Finish up with Hershey's chocolate curls.

Oreo Trifle

We invited over a couple of families over for dinner and I asked Jensen what we should have. He suggest Black Forest Trifle. Well I was all aboard. Not all the kids were on board with it though so I therefore was asked to make an Oreo Trifle for those that do not like Black Forest Trifle (previous post). So I made up my own and I am quite happy with it. I am so not a photographer but let me tell you... it was amazing. I don't even really like Oreo's that much.

Oreo Trifle

Ingredients

• 1 pkg. (9 oz.) devil's food cake mix (plus ingredients to make cake)
• 1 pkg. Oreo's
• 2 cups cold milk
• 2 pkgs. (3.3 oz.) chocolate instant pudding and pie filling
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut an 8 1/2 square parchment paper and lay in bottom of square baker. Prepare cake mix according to package, spread over bottom of baker. Bake 25 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center come out clean. cool completely.
2. Loosen cake from sides of baker and invert cake onto cutting board. Cut cake into 1 inch cubes set aside.
3. Coarsely chopped two rows of Oreo's; set aside.
4. Make homemade whipped cream by adding the two cups heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla in a bowl and mix on high speed with mixer until stiff peaks form; set aside.
5. Pour milk into classic batter bowl, whisk in pudding mixes until mixture begins to thicken. Fold in 1/4 of whipped cream..
6. To assemble trifle, place half of the cake in bottom of Trifle Bowl. Layer half of the chocolate pudding mixture. Sprinkle with half of the chopped Oreo's; top with half of the 1/2 of remaining whipped cream, pressing lightly. Repeat Layers up to the pudding mixture. End with either piping swirls of remaining whipped cream and crushed Oreo's in middle and then cutting last row of Oreo's in half and placing in-between whipped cream swirls (see photo) or finish it with the last remaining layers as you did the first.
7. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

Yield: 10 servings

Black Forest Trifle

When Pampered Chef came out with their dessert cookbook I found this recipe in there. It was wonderful and I thought it would make a great Valentine's Day tradition. So it became a tradition. Then after a while I thought it would be better if we didn't have it since it isn't really "healthy". But then after thinking about it, I decided it is okay to indulge once in awhile. Granted we haven't had it every Valentine's Day, It is fun to make once in a while. We invited over two families for dinner and I asked Jensen what he would like for dessert since he picked the dinner. He chose this. Half of the kids complained so I had to make a second one and ended up creating a Oreo Trifle. That will be the next post after this one. :) But please note that I am NOT a photographer so these pictures do not do the desserts any justice. I will say, homemade whipped cream makes EVERYTHING dessert taste better. :)

Black Forest Trifle

Ingredients

• 1 pkg. (9 oz.) devil's food cake mix (plus ingredients to make cake)
• 2 bars (1.55 oz. each) milk chocolate candy, divided
• 1 can (30 oz) cherry pie filling
• 1 tsp. almond extract
• 1/2 cup cranberry cherry juice
• 2 cups cold milk
• 2 pkgs. (3.3 oz.) white chocolate instant pudding and pie filling
• 1 (8 ounce) container of whipped topping (I made it with homemade whipped cream today. Oh my goodness, divine!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut an 8 1/2 square parchment paper and lay in bottom of square baker. Prepare cake mix according to package, spread over bottom of baker. Bake 25 minutes or until cake tester inserted in center come out clean. cool completely.
2. Loosen cake from sides of baker and invert cake onto cutting board. Cut cake into 1 inch cubes set aside. Chop 1 1/2 of chocolate bars using food chopper. Reserve remaining chocolate for garnishing.
3. Combine cherry pie filling and almond extract in small batter bowl, remove 1/2 cup for garnishing and set aside. Stir juice in cherry pie filling in classic batter bowl.
4. Pour milk into classic batter bowl, whisk in pudding mixes until mixture begins to thicken. Fold in whipped topping..
5. To assemble trifle, place half of the cake in bottom of Trifle Bowl. Layer half of the cherry pie filling mixture evenly over cake cubes. Sprinkle with half of the chopped chocolate; top with half of the pudding mixture, pressing lightly. Repeat Layers.
6. Garnish top of trifle with reserved cherry pie filling and chocolate curls made with reserved chocolate. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before serving.

Yield: 10 servings