Pasilla Chile Chocolate Cake Continued

Apologies for not posting this sooner. It's taken a while both because I haven't had time and because this recipe needs some tweaking so I was debating whether or not to post it.

My main criticism: not enough or really any heat. I'm not sure if it was my pasilla chiles in particular or the fact that I didn't use the seeds (typically the heat of a pepper is concentrated in the seeds). But, to my mind this recipe is flawed because pureeing the peppers is a tedious process for really no heat yield. Here's the recipe in photos: 

1. Here are the 2 1/2 oz dried pasilla chiles on their cookie sheet waiting to go into my preheated 400 degree oven. 

2. The chiles really only take a few minutes to go from very crunchy and hard to cut to pliable. Also, they have an amazing smell as they're heating. 

Please, when you are working with chiles, even mild ones, wear gloves. This is not so important for your fingers as it is your eyes when you inevitably rub your eyes or worse put your contact in with hands that are "enchiladas." Ouch! As you can see I separated out the seeds and pulled the chiles into bits. 

3. I covered the chiles with hot water and soaked them for about 7 minutes. 

4. While the chiles were soaking, I chopped the POUND of chocolate. Yes, this huge amount of chocolate does make this cake very rich and chocolaty. Here's a tip so you don't get chocolate bits all over your kitchen: put the chopping board you're using inside a baking sheet with short walls. That way when bits go flying they'll stay inside the baking sheet where you can retrieve them as opposed to your floor. 

Voila! It doesn't have to be perfect since it's all getting melted anyway. 

5. OK, back to chile paste making. I drained the chiles and got rid of the water they soaked in (maybe this was a mistake---could the heat have been transferred to this water? Doubt it but possible.) Then I put them in the blender with 1/3 cup water. 

It took about 5 tbsp of extra water to get this to a paste-like consistency. 

7. Then I pushed this paste through a strainer. I got about 2/3 cup out of it, about double what the recipe calls for. This is the point where I finally, with the fear of burning my tongue in my heart, tasted the paste. It tasted sort of fruity and nutty, but really not spicy, kind of like mole. I made D try it. He agreed. Hrmm. OK, maybe it needs some Cayenne. I added a .25 tsp of Cayenne. Nothing. I added another .25 tsp. Still nothing. I added another 1/2 tsp. Still not much. But at this point I got nervous, thinking this was now 3 times what the recipe called for and that was only if you were using Ancho chiles, not Pasilla. Well, I won't make this mistake again. Keep adding chile until it tastes spicy. Here's the other issue: you now see what a pain making this chile paste is. Is it worth it? I couldn't really make out the fruity Pasilla flavor in the baked cake. Maybe you should just be adding Cayenne to your favorite chocolate cake recipe. I hate to say it but I don't think it did much aside from teach you how to make chile paste, which is admittedly pretty cool. You decide.

8. Moving right along. I put the chopped chocolate with the room temperature butter cut up into 1/2 in pieces in my make shift double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, don't fret. Just put one pot on top of another, the bottom one should have a shallow layer of simmering water and the top should fit into the bottom pot without the bottom touching the water. If you don't have pots like this, just put a sauce pan or heat resistant bowl directly into a frying pan with simmering water or whatever you have. The point is not to use direct heat so as not to scorch the chocolate. 

A general tip about room temperature butter: you can put sticks of butter straight from the fridge in to the microwave for 10 seconds at a time to get them to room temperature. Just be careful because they melt very quickly. Or you can put them on your radiator, but again, don't leave them very long or you'll have a mess.

Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted. Yum. 

9. Now you're ready to separate the eggs. To save yourself some cursing, do this over a third bowl. I know, it's more dishes to wash, but it will keep your yolks yolks and your whites whites, even if you blunder with one egg. Whisk the 5 yolks, the 1/3 cup of pasilla paste, 1 1/2 tbs flour, and 2 tsp vanilla into the chocolate (which you've taken off the heat). Don't forget to add Cayenne to taste here.
10. Beat the 5 egg whites and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar into a frothy frenzy on high speed of an electric mixer and then add 1/2 cup dark brown sugar.

Beat until stiff peaks form. Try not to overbeat the whites. You'll know if you do because they'll get clumpy looking. 

11. Take 1/3 of the egg whites and fold them into the chocolate mixture. This will help lighten the chocolate so that the overall batter will stay light and fluffy. 

Once the 1/3 is nice and incorporated gently fold in the rest of the whites. The finished batter has the texture (and taste) of chocolate pudding. 

12. I baked the cake for a lot longer than it said because I'm used to doing the knife test for doneness. I think I may have over-baked this cake because the edges came out very brownie-like and didn't have the delicious taste or texture of the inner cake. So, my advice would be to try and stick to the jiggle test. I also don't agree with the original recipe's refrigerating suggestions. I think this cake tasted the best heated in the microwave with a dollop of ice cream on top. It was decadent, a cross between an amazingly good brownie and flourless chocolate cake. I dusted some powdered sugar on top and a sliced strawberry to garnish. 

Truffle Experiment Results

A few notes on truffle rolling since I didn't exactly follow Martha's directions:

1) I heated the heavy cream in the microwave. About 45 seconds to 1 min brought it to a boil. I added the flavoring and then let the cream mixture sit for 10-20 mins before I reheated it in the microwave and strained it over the finely chopped chocolate. The chocolate mostly melted from the heat of the cream, but I just put in in the microwave for 10 seconds if it was a little chunky. Then I poured it into another clean container, covered it with saran wrap and put it in the fridge.

2) Let the chocolate chill for 30 mins. If you have to leave it in the fridge all day as I did, do not, I repeat, do not try and hurry it up by putting it in the microwave. Chocolate goes from hard to melty mess in seconds so this doesn't work so well. Just wait. Eventually it will become pliable if left out at room temperature.

3) No need to use a melon baller. Though I did go out and buy a melon baller for this express purpose, I found using a spoon to scrape the chocolate worked much better. For me, the chocolate just got stuck in the melon baller and then was hard to get out. I scraped, formed the chocolate into a ball with my fingers, rolled it around in my palm, and then dusted it all in one go, because I didn't see the point in the extra step of putting the balls in the fridge. If you're going to be a perfectionist and/or you mind having melty chocolate on your palms maybe this works best, but I was not so picky.

4) To keep the chocolate from getting super melty in your palms run them under ice cold water and then work on forming the balls. This works, believe me! I got the tip directly from Jacques Torres via Epicurious.

5) Some recipes call for a coating of tempered chocolate on the truffles. I didn't do this. It seems like an extra super fussy step that doesn't seem to add a lot. But hey, if you want to do it that's your business.

6) Roll the balls pretty small. By doubling the Martha recipe, I made about 72 balls. This is less than the 84 I should have gotten from doubling the recipe and I thought I rolled them pretty small. According to D the secret of a good truffle is having one small enough to pop in your mouth whole.

Now to the flavor results. The winner was definitely the ancho chile and cinnamon. Cardamom and coffee came in second, and mint came in third. D and I really didn't care for the plain truffle. It had two strikes against it: 1) it just tasted like the original chocolate, which is pretty good, but why not just eat the chocolate bar which requires no work? 2) I rolled it in cocoa powder (now, we're not talking Valrhona cocoa powder, I just used Toll House) which was bitter and powdery and detracted from the pretty good chocolate ganache. Two strikes and you're out. When I make these for Christmas, we'll try a new flavor.

Ancho Chile and Cinnamon Results

Since I doubled the recipe but then quartered it so I could test out these three flavors (plus the plain control truffle), I was dealing with 1/4 c of heavy cream for each batch of chocolate (about 7 squares finely chopped). Now, anyone who has worked with dry chilies could have told me that if you add liquid to a dry chili, it will absorb all the liquid. So, I mistakenly pre-measured the 1/4 c of heavy cream and added it to the 1 cut up dried ancho chile and 4 cinnamon sticks and what did I get after heating them together (I just stuck the bowl in the microwave for 1 min) and letting it sit? About 1 tsp of cream. D had the brilliant idea that I need to measure the cream after mixing it with the chilies, instead of before, so I added another 1/4 c and then left it alone to soak. Then, I poured the cream through a sieve and measured out 1/4 c. In the end, the ancho gave off a nice sweet berrylike flavor, but not a lot of heat, so I added a 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper. I think next time I may save myself the trouble of the ancho chiles and just use 1/2 tsp cayenne and some ground cinnamon. I rolled this in some coarse sugar and a mix of cinnamon and chili powder. The sugar added a nice crunch to the yummy ganache. We love chilies and chocolate so it's not a surprise this was our favorite, but I have to admit it was very good!

Cardamom and Coffee Results

I used 20 cardamom pods ground with a mortar and pestle and 1 tbs instant Bustelo coffee (yes, we drink instant coffee occasionally, it's the only way to make cafe con leche with hot milk and sugar). This was so fragrant and delicious. D thought it could use even more cardamom so we'll try it with a bit more next time. I worry, though, because cardamom is not everyone's favorite and, like lavender, can start to taste soapy. I rolled these in ground almond.

Mint Results

I chopped up about a cup of fresh mint and put this in the hot heavy cream (again I just used the microwave to get the cream to a quick boil) and let it sit for about 10 mins. D didn't think it would work to flavor the cream but it really did! However, the flavor was one of mint leaves, not mint. So, this basically tasted like weed and chocolate. If you know what I'm talking about, then you know that this is not necessarily desirable. I think the green flavor is pretty interesting and eating them gave me the munchies, but next time I'm just going to use mint extract. I rolled these in powdered sugar. If I'm going to use mint extract, I'm inclined to roll the next batch in crushed candy canes for that extra crunch.

On Dasher, on Dancer, on Cardamom and Cinnamon, on Ancho, on Coffee, and Donner and Blitzen! You're the most favorite truffle of all!