Mom's Neutron Torte

This is my mother's (in)famous chocolate torte recipe (also known as "neutron torte" or "instant heart attack inducer torte"). She has kindly given me permission to post this recipe. For those people in my department, this is what I brought to the MMG department party two months ago.

I've adjusted mom's recipe to make only one torte. She always makes two and freezes one if she doesn't need the second one immediately; I simply don't have the freezer space to do so. I've also added hazelnut to the glaze, which I quite like.

Recipe:

Snap out the bottoms of an 8" springform pan (flat bottomed preferred). Cover bottom of pan with foil, snap it back in, butter the sides and the foil-covered bottom (or spray with pam, that's what I do).



CAKE:

Separate 3 eggs (save both whites and yolks).


Mix together:
2 melted sticks butter
1.5 C sugar
1 tsp bourbon vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

Add in and beat together until totally blended:
1/4 C cream
3 egg yolks.

Mix together in a separate bowl:
1 C flour
2/3 C cocoa powder (NOT hot chocolate mix). Either dutch processed or normal cocoa will work, they'll just give slightly different flavors. I use whatever I have on hand.



Add to butter mixture and mix until till smooth.



Beat separately:
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp. cream of tartar. Underbeating is better than overbeating.



Side note: do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph white whipped egg whites in a white bowl sitting on a white stove? Yeesh.

Fold egg whites into chocolate mixture:



You really don't want to over-mix, or you'll lose all that air that you so carefully beat into the egg whites. Here's what it should look like shortly before you put it in the pan:



And here's what it looks like before baking:




Put in the pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Center will not be solid, and cracking should appear. Run a knife carefully around outer edges; cake will fall.

Cool at least an hour. Loosen springform sides and remove. Put a plate on bottom of cake and flip over. Peel off bottoms of pans, then the foil. Glaze when fully cooled.



GLAZE:

Chop:
1/2 lb (250 g) bittersweet chocolate (we use Trader Joe's pound plus bars)

Add:
2/3 to 3/4 C cream
1 tsp hazelnut extract (this is what I do, mom has done mint before, which is also very good. My next plan is to try raspberry extract).

Melt chocolate in cream using a double boiler or microwave (I use a microwave). Try not to incorporate extra air in as you stir or you'll get bubbles, which are annoying. Also, it is important that every edge of every piece of chocolate be dunked in the cream before heating or that piece of chocolate may seize into a hardened, unmeltable lump.

When glazing, mom makes a backwards J from the center, turns the cake slightly, and repeats all the way around. If you use the smaller amount of cream the indentations will be clearer. When I make these I then stick the glazed torte in the fridge until the glaze sets. Once it has set you can run a knife around the bottom, insert a spatula under the torte and lift the whole thing to a new (clean) plate, which is prettier than leaving it on the plate you used while glazing the torte.

Note: my mom uses manufactoring cream for this recipe, which has a higher saturated fat content, so it holds shape better. I just use regular heavy cream, and I think it works just fine.

So much for the healthy eating resolutions...

Somehow I managed to commit to making two cheesecakes this week... one for church and one for a friend. Here's the first of the two.

Note: I've found that all cheesecakes generally work best if you make them the day before you plan to serve them, and this one is no exception.


(My apologies for the poor picture quality, this is the lone survivor of the church potluck, as people were nice enough to take home most of the extra so I wouldn't have to figure out a way to dispose of a quarter of a cheesecake all by myself).

This recipe is an adaptation of a much love recipe I found in a bargain priced cookbook at Barnes and Nobles.

Melt together on low heat:

½ C Butter
4 oz chocolate (or ½ C chocolate chips)

After chocolate is melted, add the following

1 C sugar (I reduce it to ¾ C if I’m not using bittersweet chocolate)
2 eggs, beaten

Add 1 Tbsp instant coffee to 1Tbsp boiling water, stir until dissolved, then add milk to equal ¼ cup total liquid. Add this liquid to the chocolate mixture.

Stir in until just blended:
1C flour

Add to greased and floured 9” springform pan. Cook at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

While chocolate base is cooking, mix together the following:

2 ¼ C cream cheese at room temperature (I use reduced fat. Nonfat won’t work well, though).
2/3 C sugar

Add in one at a time:
3 eggs (it works best if these are also at room temperature).

Mix until well blended, then add 1 tsp vanilla.

Take 1-2 tbsp instant coffee (I use two for a strong coffee flavor) and add to 1 tbsp boiling water as before. Then add plain yogurt (or sour cream would work, I guess) to a total volume of ½ C. Stir this mixture until fairly well blended, then add to the cream cheese mixture. Mix everything together, then pour over cooked base. I generally give the base about five minutes to cool down before adding the cream cheese mixture, but I don’t think it matters all that much.

Bake cheesecake at 350 for 45-55 minutes or until not quite set. The edges should be set but the center won’t quite be there yet. Run a knife around the edges to prevent cracking, then allow to cool to room temperature. Once it’s at room temperature stick it in the fridge (the more gradual cooling helps prevent cracking). Keep in fridge at least a couple of hours until chilled.

Topping (from Dorie Greenspan's cookbook):
In small saucepan mix the following:
1 ¼ C sour cream (I use low fat)
½ C powdered sugar.
Heat and stir until warm (but not hot) and well blended, then pour over top of chilled cheesecake. Put cheesecake back in fridge for at least another two hours to set the topping. I also grate bittersweet chocolate over the top right before serving just because I think it’s pretty.

Other Notes:
I’ve made this cheesecake without the coffee, and it works great. I’ve also made it without the topping, which is fine. I think the topping is nice when you do have coffee in the cake, though, as you get the three-color visual appeal.

Why Sam needs to bike this weekend: exhibit A

Background for why I'm baking during the week: During the summer I am able to go to Tae Kwon Do classes on Thursdays. Unfortunately, once the school year begins the Thursday TKD class is switched back to what I like to think of as "Crazy People TKD" class, wherein competitors try to kill each other and themselves. I don't attend this class. Luckily for me, though, I've managed to arrange general socialness this weekend (read: Sam offloads baked goods on unsuspecting friends).

I decided to try this recipe, as I respect any recipe that has a LOT more chocolate than all the other ingredients put together.

Mostly I followed the directions as listed. I did make a few changes, though. The most basic change stems from the fact that I am a poor grad student, and poor grad students (even psycho baking ones) don't have tons of high-grade chocolate on hand. I therefore replaced the unsweetened chocolate with a couple squares from an 85% lindt chocolate bar I picked up on sale not long since, and replaced the six ounces of bittersweet chocolate with 3/4 cup (which is roughly equivalent volume/weight) semi-sweet chocolate chips. (Costco sells 10 pounds of semi-sweet chocolate chips for $17.99. I love Costco). In order to compensate for these changes I dropped the sugar from 2/3 C to 1/2C.

The second change came about because I always freeze my raisins because I buy them in bulk from the local co-op; bulk foods are notorious havens for nasty little bugs, so I like to be careful. Unfortunately, this can lead to interesting baking if (like me) you don't have a microwave to thaw things out quickly. Also, I was suspicious about how good raisins would be in chocolate cookies. My solution was to take about a cup of raisins (I didn't bother to measure) and cook them in a splash of rum. This had the advantage of tastyifying the raisins while simultaneously thawing them out.


In order to not throw off the liquid/dry ingredient balance I made sure the rum was all cooked away before adding the raisins to the cookie dough.

Next I melted the chocolate chips/lindt bar squares with butter as directed. I've found it's a good idea to turn off the burner (if you have an electric stove like mine) halfway through; it will retain enough heat to gradually melt the chocolate. Do not turn your back on this step; chocolate melts and burns quickly! This is what it should look like right before it's done; at this point you can see small bits of butter remaining, but it's basically smooth. I recommend removing the pan from the burner entirely at this stage; the chocolate is warm enough to finish melting all on its own.



I am a huge fan of my stand-alone mixer. That being said, I did (and would strongly recommend that others do as well) follow Ms. Greenspan's directions about mixing in the last ingredients by hand. I chose to use 3/4 cup each semi-sweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips, and about 3/4 cup pecans. There are, at this point, way more add-ins than dough.



Luckily for me, someone gave me a silicon sheet several years ago. I placed this on a cookie sheet and very carefully scooped cookie dough onto it. The dough at this point is almost more like brownie batter than normal cookie dough, so you must use a spoon to drop it.




I tried (in the spirit of scientific experimentation) using pan spray in addition to the silicon sheet, and using only the silicon sheet. The verdict was clear: don't use pan spray. The cookie with pan spray spread out and burned on the edges; the other one did not. Here's a picture of the finished product:



I only cooked the two trial run cookies; my get-together isn't until later in the week. I'll try to update with a better picture once I've baked some more cookies. All in all I'm extremely pleased with this recipe and will make it again. I'm just hoping that a rich, distant and unknown relative will die and leave me a chocolate factory so that I will be able to make them frequently without having to worry about replenishing my baking chocolate supply.