Some Chocolate Porn for Halloween Eve

Halloween may be one day away, but indulge your eyes with some chocolate porn from the Death by Chocolate Torte I recently made for the Significant Eater's birthday. One layer of dense chocolate cake, filled with buttercream frosting, and covered with a chocolate glaze equals pure decadence:

Chocolate Mousse

This chocolate mousse recipe, adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, is delectably rich. It's worth it to splurge on good chocolate to make this dish (Scharffen Berger is my go to brand). For presentation, spoon the mousse into homemade or store-bought pastry shells and top it with chocolate shavings. As an added treat, you can make a delicious semifreddo by simply freezing the mousse.

Chocolate Mousse
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. butter
• 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Using a double broiler set over gently simmering water, met the butter and chocolate together and mix well. Let cool.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the egg yolks. Once the chocolate has cooled enough to touch, add it to the eggs and mix well. Refrigerate until mixture is chilled.
3. In a small bowl, beat the egg whites with 1/8 cup sugar until they hold stiff peaks. Do not over mix.
4. In another small bowl, beat the cream with the remaining sugar and the vanilla until it holds soft peaks.
5. Add a few spoonfuls of the egg whites to the chilled chocolate mixture. Gently mix with a spoon, being careful to keep the egg whites light in texture. Gently, fold in the remaining egg whites. Finally, fold in the cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
6. Serve the mousse in bowls or pastry shells, topped with shaved chocolate and/or freshly whipped cream.

Chocolate and Bacon: At Least It Didn't Kill Me

In one of my weaker moments while wandering in through Essex Market in the Lower East Side, I stopped by Roni-Sue's Chocolates to purchase a bag of bacon buttercrunch. For those that haven't been keeping track of the bacon-obsessed New York food media, the bacon buttercrunch candy from Roni-Sue is toffee that has been mixed with pieces of fried bacon and covered with chocolate, pine nuts, and chile. At least too me, the candy sounded like a great idea at the time.

The candy, while not nearly deserving of the hype that some of the major food blogs have given it, was pretty good. The toffee was bursting with butter flavor. The bacon, thank goodness, was added with a light hand, and the chiles gave a nice bite. The pine nuts, while a good idea, could have been toasted more so that they were a bit crunchier. After finishing off the bag with my significant eater, I was glad I tried Roni-Sue's bacon buttercrunch, but doubted that I would try it again. This bacon and chocolate candy just didn't do it for me. Little did I know.

A day after eating the candy, I noticed that everything I ate tasted very bitter. Bitter oatmeal, bitter salad for lunch, and bitter chicken for dinner. I assumed my taste buds were just having a case of the Mondays. I mentioned this oddity to my significant eater who complained that everything tasted bitter to her as well. We had eaten three completely different meals during the day. That's so cute that we have the same afflictions at the same time, I thought.

Two days after eating the bacon buttercrunch, my significant eater and I continued to be afflicted by an awful bitter, metallic taste after every meal. Being the occasional hypochondriac that she occasionally is, my girlfriend decided to do some research to find out what could possibly have ruined both of our taste buds. After ruling out that both of us had come down with oral cancer at the exact same time, she came across this blurb from Wikipedia that mentions: The eating of pine nuts can cause serious taste disturbances, developing 1-3 days after consumption and lasting for days or weeks. A bitter, metallic taste is described. In general, a minority of pine nuts on the market present this problem. Though very unpleasant, there does not seem to be a real health concern." Damn you, bacon buttercrunch and its bad batch of pine nuts! Thankfully, the metallic taste was not a symptom of any grave danger we were in, but we have both now all but sworn off pine nuts (except in pesto, ahem). And we have definitely sworn off all combinations of bacon and chocolate for good. Taste buds and sanity back in tact, I can easily say that I will never again succumb to the gluttonous allure of bacon and chocolate again.

The Best Yellow Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Growing up, Duncan Hines' yellow cake was always my benchmark of cake success. Moist, full of flavor, and with a nice crumb, I had found no cake, homemade or out of a box, that could surpass Duncan's. Birthday after birthday, all that I requested was three layers of that perfect cake with chocolate frosting.

When my significant eater's birthday came around, I knew that it would be a great opportunity to attempt to beat Duncan at what he does best and bake the perfect homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Knowing that Duncan had years and years of experience on me, I painstakingly researched recipes to find recipes for both the best yellow cake and the best chocolate icing. I required a cake that would be just as moist Duncan's and was also just as full of flavor. The icing had to be fluffy and rich, but not to sweet. After nearly a week of sugar-obsessed research, I decided upon this recipe from Carol Walters. For the icing, I chose Ina Garten's buttercream frosting.

The two recipes made components that came together to make what I can easily say was the best yellow cake I have ever tasted. The cake was wonderfully moist, an area where I find many homemade cakes to be lacking, and its flavor was full of butter and vanilla. Scharffen Berger chocolate kicked up with a bit of espresso powder and lots of butter made for a sinfully rich frosting. While Duncan Hines was the cake champion of my household for many years, I think I have him beat now.

A Great Brownie Recipe

If you like your brownies super fudgey, definitely give this brownie recipe from Scharffen Berger a try. I don't have any pictures because my girlfriend and I absolutely demolished the batch before they had cooled enough to cut nice squares. It was absolutely worth it. Be sure to use high quality chocolate in this one; the Scharffen Berger we used gave the brownies the fruity flavors that Scharffen Berger has; it was like eating a bar of their semisweet chocolate, only better.