Hi Alex--

I appreciate your comments on my Grand Prize winning recipe and wanted
to clarify a few things.

1. When I make this cake at home, I always use a higher % chocolate
product (at least 60%) than what was specified in the published
version. I "softened" it a little to make it more appealing to the
average chocolate consumer. Unfortunately, not everyone is as crazy
about dark chocolate as you and I are!
2. I haven't tried the original recipe you referenced, but I'm
guessing it is a bit more dense than my version. My intention was to
create a texture that was somewhere between a pudding and a flourless
chocolate cake - hence, doubling the number of eggs and increasing the
butter.
3. You could absolutely use unsweetened chocolate as a garnish. For
me, the sweetness of the white chocolate (which we all know isn't
really chocolate) was a nice balance. In the summertime, I top it with
fresh raspberries or strawberries and nothing else.
4. My original version of the recipe that I submitted to the contest
indicated that you use all the ganache (in fact, my recipe made double
the amount), but the test kitchen made an editorial change (probably
based on their own personal preferences).
5. Again, my original version of the recipe that was submitted to the
contest indicated that the cake be served at room temperature. I guess
the test kitchen couldn't wait for it to warm up and dove right in
after removing it from the fridge.

Thanks again for your comments. I hope you will give the recipe a try
and modify it to your personal taste. That's what making cooking and
baking so much fun - recipes aren't rules, just guidelines.

Gigi Burton


Alex Rast wrote:
> at Sat, 29 Apr 2006 21:04:52 GMT in
> .com>,
> (Rusty) wrote :
>
> >Truffle-like cake wins 'intense' chocolate recipe contest
> >
> >Gigi Burton, a 35-year-old housewife from Plainsboro, N.J., decided to
> >push the envelope and create an entire cake that mimicked the soft
> >texture and rich taste of her favorite dessert candy. Her creation,
> >Triple Chocolate Truffle Cake, which combines milk chocolate,
> >semi-sweet chocolate and white chocolate, captured the coveted grand
> >prize award in the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company's "Is Your Dessert
> >Intense Enough?" recipe contest.
> >...
> >2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for pan
> >3 cups Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
> >8 large eggs, cold
> >1/4 teaspoon salt
> >1/2 cup heavy cream
> >1 cup Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Chips
> >2 ounces Ghirardelli Classic White Chocolate Baking Bar, chilled
>
> Obviously the judges weren't *serious* chocoholics. This isn't particularly
> intense, as evidenced by the relatively low chocolate concentration. I
> always think it's humorous when people concoct recipes with 3 different
> *types* of chocolate, and imagine that makes it more intense. In reality,
> it makes it less intense, because, as for instance in this recipe, the milk
> and white chocolate simply dilute the concentration over what you could
> achieve if you were to have used all dark chocolate. This particular recipe
> goes even further astray in that the "dark" chocolate used is semi-sweet
> (she didn't even go to the trouble of using the Double Chocolate (or 60%
> bittersweet) chocolate chips) For real chocolate intensity, you want at
> least bittersweet all the way, preferably 70% and above, or unsweetened.
> And it really needs to be more heavily concentrated. (This cake, btw, is
> pretty much nothing more than a diluted Chocolate Decadence)
>
> IIRC one of the judging criteria for the recipes was "ease of preparation"
> and OK, one must concede that if you want to publish a recipe in a popular
> cookbook it should be considerate of most peoples' finite time
> availability. For pure chocolate intensity and simplicity of preparation,
> it's pretty hard to beat the straightforward Chocolate Decadence recipe
> (easy enough to look up on RecipeSource.com). This, in fact, I think would
> have been the challenge of the competition - how to invent something
> intense with chocolate that's simple to make and hasn't been done before.
>
> I'd improve on Ms. Burton's recipe by:
>
> 1) replacing semisweet and milk chocolates with Ghirardelli 72%
> bittersweet.
> 2) probably subbing the original Chocolate decadence recipe for this one
> (original uses 1 lb chocolate for only 4 eggs and 10 tbsp butter)
> 3) using unsweetened chocolate for the shavings.
> 4) using *all* the ganache.
> 5) serving at room temperature (chilling mutes the flavour of chocolate)
>
> --
> Alex Rast
>
> (remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)