{TWD} Chocolate Cherry Torte

One of the best parts about being in the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group is that in most months the assignments tend to even out. In October we've had fairly easy recipes (pudding, muffins, biscuits) and now a fairly spectacular chocolate torte. Even with a month's notice, I had a hard time figuring out the proper "torte" event at which I could pull out this dessert, so in the end I baked a half recipe and placed the torte in a state of suspended animation in the freezer.



- I made 1/2 recipe in deep 6" springform. It's a good thing my pan is very deep - 3" - because I needed all of that depth to fit the cake and the topping layers.

- This was one of those dirty-dish-generating recipes; every step seemed to require a new bowl, pan, or piece of equipment.

- I bought a yummy jar of cherry stuff especially for this recipe, then realized it was jam not preserves. I used it anyway and it didn't seem to matter. For this recipe, dried sour cherries are soaked, cooked, doused with kirsch and flambeed, then simmered with cherry preserves. By the time they were added to the cake batter, the cherries smelled delicious.

- The cake layer tood a good long time to bake. I clung to Dorie's doneness test and left it in the oven until it had moist crumbs that stuck to a testing knife.

- For the mousse layer I combined the appropriate amount of cream cheese, mascarpone, and cream, taking care not to over-mix. The recipe says to "pour" the mousse, but mine was "spreadable" rather than "pourable" so I spooned it in the pan and spread it along the top of the cake, smoothing with an offset palette knife.

- The recipe gives instructions for an optional decorating technique, where cherry preserves are pureed then piped on top of the mousse and formed into beautiful chevron shapes with a toothpick. I was very tempted, but Dorie is specific that preserves, not jam, must be used. I wasn't willing to take my chances with the jar of jam that I had, so I came up with an alternative decorating scheme. I thawed a bit of ganache from the freezer and piped it with the cut corner of a sandwich bag. This was one time where my spidery piping skills were actually appropriate! (Honestly, though, I really need to practice piping...)

- I cut and tasted one slice, then put a parchment collar around the torte and bundled it back into the springform pan then into a plastic bag for protection in the freezer. Fingers crossed that the mousse survives being frozen.

the verdict:

This was a great torte! The brownie layer was dense and fudgy (after an overnight in the fridge) with just a hint of deep cherry flavor. And the mascarpone mousse? Mine wasn't very mousse-y, but I loved it the way it was. Not sweet, just a creamy counterpoint to the dark chocolate of the cake layer.

I'm not usually a fan of chocolate + cherries, but I loved the combination in this torte. The cherries were quite subtle and complemented the chocolate beautifully. In fact, next time I'd increase the cherries by 50% and eliminate the chopped chocolate chunks (which I found a bit distracting).

I plan to serve this torte to my book group next Thursday. We'll see how it survived the freezer. [Update: I thawed the torte in the fridge and it came out perfectly! Everyone in book club loved it; in fact it is their second-favorite TWD chocolate dessert, after the chocolate caramel tart!]

Thanks to April of Short + Rose for selecting this delicious torte. You can find the recipe on April's post or on pages 284-285 of Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.