Christmastime Chocolate Torte
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about holiday traditions — how remarkably unvarying they were throughout my childhood, but defined by constant change and evolution throughout my adult life — and what this might say about me.
When I was a kid, we celebrated Christmas Eve having dinner and exchanging gifts with my stepdad’s side of the family, Christmas morning at home opening presents and having breakfast together, and Christmas day at our grandparent’s house for a late-lunch/early-dinner (IYKYK) followed by opening presents with my mom’s side. In my memory, the meals were always exactly the same: roast beef on Christmas Eve, French toast and eggs Christmas morning, and ham for Christmas dinner…and accompanied by exactly the same side dishes year after year after year after year as well (including my grandmother’s cranberry relish which remains the best I’ve ever had - props, Grandma!).
After I went away to college (and never moved back to my home town), there was a year or two I didn’t make it home because of either money or time off work or weather, at least one I spent with a friend’s family, and easily two or three attributed to estrangement from my family after I came out and prior to my mom’s death, which ultimately ended everything. In some ways, I find myself feeling like I’m still figuring out how to fill the gap.
If you’ve read over the bio story here, you already know that moving away for college played a significant role in sparking my culinary adventures. Well, it was those sans-family holidays that laid the foundation for how I approach entertaining, my desire to authentically express myself through celebration, and how I’ve come to (oh so loosely) define ‘tradition.’
Spent with friends who were absolutely chosen family (each creative in their own way and prone to “go big or go home” sensibilities long before that was a thing), those holidays were marked by these dear friends and I making and eating truly incredible meals…and the fact that we never ever made the same dish the same way twice. Even if the basic components were expected (turkey for Thanksgiving, etc.), what we did to them wasn’t. Once we’d landed on an idea or international cuisine that would create the flavor of the main course, we brainstormed like mad scientists on how that profile could be applied and complemented by each of the other dishes. The whole meal was collaborative and challenging and mutually inspiring and an extremely fun shared experience.
Every since those days, I have been striving to create moments and traditions that carve out space where I feel that same sense of belonging and family (in whatever form that takes), a place that honors and celebrates who I am, all I bring to that collective group of people, and chases after a shared vision of what we are capable of creating together. I will not pretend that melding (especially at this phase of life) is an easy undertaking, but I will insist that [just perhaps] all of the striving and effort and bumps and hurts along the way may be par for the course for everything it means to be a family. And just maybe the best we can hope for is that the love that ties us all together also smooths out the rough patches, that it motivates all of us to work together to create a shared future that is inclusive and open and curious and embracing of each individual, regardless of blood heritage, and that this whole mad adventure results in a shared future that is profoundly more beautiful and expansive than what we had ever previously imagined.
Maybe I’m just a dreamer. Time will tell.
In any case, this torte — richly bittersweet and dense, topped with sweet white chocolate ganache, the buttery bite of pistachios, and startlingly tart candy-like cranberries — feels like exactly the right complex and complicated, unexpected, beautiful, delicious, and somehow incredibly balanced dessert for celebrating the holidays in the way I understand…and wholeheartedly revere.
Enjoy — and the absolute happiest of holidays to you and all those you love!
These are some of the items I find especially helpful for this bake. (These are affiliate links.)
King Arthur Double Dark Cocoa
King Arthur Espresso Powder
Neilsen-Massey Pure Vanilla Extract
Fat Daddio Deep Cake Pan
Christmastime Chocolate Torte
makes one 9-inch cake
INGREDIENTS
1 pound bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon dark cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder, optional (but YUM!)
3/4 cup butter, cut into cubes, room temperature
1/2 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoon good-quality vanilla
3 tablespoons crème de cacao
8 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped pistachios
1/4 cup dried cranberries, chopped
INSTRUCTIONS
Set the rack to center and preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9-inch cake pan, line the bottom and sides with parchment, and lightly grease or spray the paper. Boil a kettle of water for the water bath.
Place the chocolate, espresso powder, cocoa and butter in a heatproof bowl. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, bring the water, sugar and salt to a low boil. Stir until the sugar is fully melted, then pour the mixture over the chocolate and let it sit for 5 minutes. Gently whisk until the mixture is completely smooth. Set aside to cool for at least 10 minutes.
In a medium bowl, lightly whisk the eggs to break them up, but don’t whip. Stir in the vanilla and liqueur. Add the eggs to the cooled chocolate mixture and stir with a spatula until fully incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.
Set a roasting pan or deep baking ban on the oven rack, place the cake pan in the center, and slowly pour boiling water into the roasting pan, filling halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Carefully slide the rack into place.
Bake for 50-55 minutes. The top should feel set if you tap the center gently.
Carefully lift the cake pan from the water bath, and place on a rack to cool for 1 hour or until the pan feels only slightly warm to the touch. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to remove the cake from the pan, set the pan into 1 inch of very warm water for a minute. Dry the pan, run a knife around the edge of the pan outside the parchment, hold a cutting board firmly onto the cake pan and carefully flip them over. Tap firmly on the sides of the pan until you hear the cake release. Remove the pan and parchment, flip onto a serving plate, and return the cake to the refrigerator and chill thoroughly.
GANACHE. Place chopped white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Set aside.
In a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, heat the cream until bubbles just begin to appear around the edges.
Pour over the chocolate and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
Sit gently, beginning in the center and working your way outward, until the mixture is completely smooth.
Pour carefully into the center of the cooled cake. Tilt and swivel the cake or use an offset spatula to coax the ganache almost to the edges of the cake. Sprinkle the pistachios and cranberries evenly over the surface. Allow the ganache to set slightly before moving the cake to the refrigerator to cool and set fully.
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