Got a Hot Date Cake, or, Valentine's Chocolate Cake with Date Filling

Valentine’s Day is one of my favourite holidays (after, in order, Halloween and New Year’s Eve) because it involves one of my favourite foods (chocolate) and one of my favourite… shapes? (Hearts, duh!). Even during the (many) years of being single on Valentine’s Day, it always seemed like a good chance to eat some sweets, remind the people that I love how much I love them, and fill myself with fresh flowers.

Being married with an anniversary less than a month after Valentine’s Day means that it’s not quite as big of a deal as it used to be, but it’s still a fun holiday to celebrate and I couldn’t let it pass without making a chocolate date cake in honour of all the dates going on this weekend. (Get it!? Dates?!) Judson and I will be celebrating elsewhere, but we'll still be out on a date on Sunday night, and with any luck, we'll be enjoying a dessert as tasty as this one-- because, seriously, this cake is amazing.

I don't know why I doubted this dessert (yes I do: I love dates but I always doubt dates in dessert), because seriously: the last date dessert I made (as part of the infamous Holiday Almanac) was one of my favourite dishes of the month of December. But seriously, this chocolate cake is amazing. The layers are fairly slim, the buttercream frosting is super easy and unbelievably tasty, and the toasty pecans add just the right amount of crunch. But the dates. The dates are the star of this cake-- the filling isn't overly fruity, but the dates add so much moisture that the whole rest of the cake is just perfectly buttery, moist and chocolate-y without being overpoweringly sweet.

And now that I’ve finished making all of the cheesecakes in the box, I've moved on to chocolate cakes (of which I also have a ton) and even though this recipe kind of involves three mini-recipes (cake, filling, frosting), I regret nothing. It was delicious, far more reliable than the cheesecakes ever were, and my co-workers ate the entire thing in record time.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. Make this cake and your Valentine will be très impressed.

The recipe:

Chocolate Cake with Date Filling

the directions:
cake:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F, then line three round cake pans with parchment.
Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla.
Add eggs and beat well.
Blend in chocolate.
Sift together dry ingredients, then add to chocolate mixture alternately with water.
Beat until smooth.
Pour into prepared pans and cook 20-30 minutes until a pick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Allow to cool complete before filling and frosting.

filling:

Over very low heat, heat milk and dates until very warm.
In a separate bowl, mix sugar, flour, and salt, then add the beaten egg.
Remove milk mixture from heat, then stir sugar mixture into the milk mixture very slowly while whisking constantly so the eggs don't cook.
Return to very low heat, then cook until thickened, stirring constantly.
Once mixture has thickened, stir in nuts and vanilla.
Allow to cool completely before filling cake.

frosting:

Beat butter, salt, and 1 c powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
Blend in melted chocolate, then add remaining sugar, alternating with milk and vanilla.
Mix until smooth and creamy-- do not overmix.
If frosting is too thick, add more milk; if too thin, add more powdered sugar until spreading consistency is reached.

the ingredients:
the cake:

¾ c butter, softened
2 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
3 oz baking chocolate, melted and cooled
3 c cake flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 ½ c water

the filling:

1 c milk
¾ c dates, chopped
¼ c sugar
1 tbsp flour
¼ tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
½ c pecans, chopped
1 tsp vanilla

 

the frosting:

1/3 c butter
1/8 tsp salt
3 c powdered sugar, sifted
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
¼ c milk
1 ½ tsp vanilla

Blintzes

When we moved to Scotland, we quickly discovered that there are several sets of words that are all one-removed from US words: things like fries, which here are chips, and chips, which over here are crisps; or menswear, which is a veritable landmine of words that exist in both American and British English, but have different meanings in each: American suspenders are British braces, but British suspenders are an American garter belt; an American vest is a British gilet or sometimes a waistcoat if it’s fancy, but a British vest is a American tank top and a British tank top is an American sweater vest. American pants are British trousers and British pants are American underwear. It’s best just not to try to shop for menswear in the UK, and most definitely best not to ever discuss your legwear.

Relatedly (bear with me), tomorrow is Pancake Day here in the UK, which means it’s Fat Tuesday, Lent is about to start, and it’s time to use up all those pesky ‘luxuries’ in your pantry by… making a batch of pancakes? This is a tradition over here in Europe, and although I know it persists in some parts of the US, it definitely wasn’t a tradition I was aware of before moving to Scotland. Confusingly, though, the ‘pancakes’ served on Pancake Day over here are typically served with lemon and powdered sugar, and while they’re not usually as thin as a French crepe, they’re also definitely not as thick as American pancakes… which brings me to the confusing verbiage: in the US, we use the term ‘flapjack’ and ‘pancake’ interchangeably, but here in the UK, a flapjack is thick, soft, usually oat-based insanely sweet confection that I would most liken to a homemade granola bar. (Incidentally, I hate British flapjacks.) So the pancakes you eat for Pancake Day aren’t exactly crepes and they’re not exactly pancakes and they’re most definitely not flapjacks… so where does that leave us?

As discussed last year, my go-to Pancake Day will be, probably for the rest of time, my mom’s crepes, but in the interest of keeping things new and fresh around here, this year we went with blintzes instead, and apparently this is far more likely to be a historically accurate choice for someone like Eleanor, whose heritage was almost exclusively Eastern European. ‘What’s a blintz?’ you may be asking, if you are neither Jewish nor Eastern European, which, according to my research, are the two groups of people who most deserve credit for the wonder that is the blintz.* A blintz is a yeasted pancake (as opposed to a non-yeasted French crepe), thinner than a pancake but thicker than a crepe, and traditionally eaten this time of year to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of Lent.

Basically, it’s a double-whammy of awesome: you take a pancake, and instead of just topping it with things that are delicious, you also fill it with things that are delicious (sweetened cottage cheese with just enough lemon essence to brighten the whole thing up), and then you can even eat it for dinner if you want to. Traditionally, they’re fried after being filled with delicious cheese filling, but since this recipe came from an article about tailoring ‘blintzes to your diet,’ this version is slightly healthier as they’re baked instead of fried at the end. And they’re delicious. Even my sweet-phobic husband, who hates sweet breakfast foods, was wild about these.

*This recipe definitely takes the cake for the most offensive newspaper article so far found in the box: it starts out 'You don't have to be Jewish to love blitzes [sic]. But you'd better be skinny, because blitzes [sic] are plenty fattening, prepared according to the usual Jewish-mother tradition.' So... we'll just ignore that part and focus on the recipe at hand.

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. They’re the perfect balance of crisp and soft, warm and toasty without being overly heavy, and they’re delicious. We topped ours with apricot preserves, lemon curd, and cherries in kirsch syrup (just so we could test a variety of toppings, but you could equally use warmed honey, any kind of fruit pie filling, a dollop of yogurt, or warm applesauce. (My favourite, though, was apricot preserves). Make these and celebrate Pancake Day—even if you’re not celebrating Lent.

Pancake Day, Previously: Check out my favourite crepe recipe over here, perfect for celebrating Pancake Day British-style!

The recipe:

Blintzes

The directions:
Blintzes:

Combine flour and salt, then stir in milk, water, and eggs gradually.
Beat until smooth (a few very small lumps or air bubbles are okay).
Heat a nonstick skillet until warm, then drop in a tiny sliver of butter and let melt.
Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Use a small ladle or measuring cup to pour about 2 tablespoons of batter into the pan, swirling the pan as you pour to distribute the batter evenly. 
You should have JUST enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan and no 'extra' that would make the blintz too thick.
Cook about one minute, until top dries and bottom is lightly browned.
Without flipping over, turn blintz out onto a towel and set aside until you run out of batter.

Filling:

Blend all ingredients together and beat until of uniform consistency.
Put a spoonful (or 2, depending on the size of your blintzes) of filling into the centre of each blintz, and roll them 'envelope-style.' 
First, fold in sides slightly, then roll from top to bottom to make a secure pouch. 
Place filled blintzes seam-side down on a cookie sheet and heat until warmed through.
Serve with apricot preserves, lemon curd, or whatever you can think of!

The ingredients:
The blintzes:

3 c flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 c skim milk
1/2 c water
3 eggs + 1 egg white (yolk reserved for filling)
Butter for brushing the pan

The filling:

3 c cottage cheese
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Zest from one lemon
1 egg yolk (reserved from blintz recipe above)

the topping:

Apricot preserves (Blair's favourite)
Lemon Curd (Judson's favourite)
Cherries in Kirsch syrup (totally delicious!)
Warmed honey

"I Told You I'd Be Back Eventually" Cheesecake, or, Double-Chocolate Layer Cheesecake

Well, I’m back from my wee break. And though the break was awesome, I’m excited to be back and have so much to say!

Taking two weeks off after posting every day for a month was a much-needed break. Even though December’s Holiday Almanac posts were short, they were still time-consuming to do every single day and it was great to have some time off on hols in Austria and then here in Edinburgh, cooking all the things that I’ve been wanting to make that DON’T have a place in the box… things like Broccoli with Oyster Sauce, Smoky Bean and Kale Soup, Sriracha Mac and Cheese, Baked Coconut Milk Chicken and a Galette des Rois for Epiphany.

It’s been a lot of fun, but I’m excited to get back into the swing of things and I’ve been easing myself into it cooking a few recipes over the last week when the mood struck.

And to celebrate my return, what better way to start 2016 than with the FINAL Cheesecake recipe of The Recipe Box?

You may have noticed that (for the first time since starting this blog!) I skipped making a cheesecake in December because I figured baking a different thing each day was enough, but that still means I’ve made a total of eleven cheesecakes over the past year, and I’m proud to say I’ve learned a thing or two in the process.

• First of all: don’t discount an easy recipe! The easiest cheesecake I made over the past year was my favourite, and it didn’t even require a spring form pan!
• In the absence of graham crackers and zwieback, my preferred crust is rich tea biscuits—not digestives, which are too grainy and disruptive. But if you’re up for something a little more exciting, grinding up a heap of chocolate bourbon cream biscuits in the food processor and adding just a wee drizzle of melted butter makes for a decadent and delicious chocolate crust.
• I prefer cream cheese based cheesecakes, none of this ricotta and pot cheese and sour cream nonsense.
• The more eggs in a cheesecake, the more of a pain it’s going to be to make… and the more dishes it’s going to dirty when you try to.
• ‘Layered’ cheesecakes are so much harder than they look and I still haven’t made one that looks as pretty as the pictures always do.
• Last (and perhaps most importantly), no one in your taste-testing audience is going to care if your cheesecake has a crack in it, or if your layers are slightly less… layered than the photos of cheesecakes they’ve seen on menus and Pinterest. Making cheesecakes is a learned skill, and every recipe is different. They’re temperamental and prone to drastically different results from miniscule changes (were your eggs actually room temperature? Did you open the oven? Did your mixer get too full to really blend the milk all the way into the batter?), and they take more practice to get right than anything else I’ve ever baked. I’m still no expert, but the people who have tasted one (or more!) aren’t complaining about my lack of expertise. They’re just excited they got some cheesecake.

This is a bigger lesson I’ve been trying to remind myself of this year: Julia Child may have said it best when she said that cooks should never apologise for their food, and the same goes for their cheesecakes. Stand up and be proud of your cooking—and your baking—even if it ends up being a massive disaster. The worst that could happen is that you end up with an awesome story to tell.

This cheesecake, however, will not be one of those disasters. I saved it for last because, even though it just comes from a Philadelphia cream cheese ad, it involves some pretty exciting things: a crunchy chocolate crust made with chocolate sandwich cookies, a layer of plain cheesecake, a layer of deep dark bitter sweet chocolate cheesecake, marshmallow crème, and you don’t even have to bake it! (And did I mention that this recipe gives you an excuse to buy marshmallow crème?

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. DID I MENTION THE BOURBON CREAM CRUST AND THE MARSHMALLOW CREME STIRRED INTO THE BATTER?

the recipe:

Double-Chocolate Layer Cheesecake

the directions:
crust:

Mix together crumbs and melted butter until the mixture has a sandy texture.
Press mixture into the bottom of a springform pan, and press up the sides as much as possible.

filling:

Whip the cream until light and fluffy, then set aside. 
Wipe out your mixing bowl and continue.
Sprinkle gelatin over cold water and allow to soften while you beat together the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until very smooth.
Heat gelatin very slowly (in the microwave using 15 second bursts or over low heat on the stove) until gelatin has dissolved into the water.
Gradually add gelatin mixture to cream cheese mixture, beating well until blended.
Beat in marshmallow creme and make sure not to leave too many big marshmallow creme lumps.
Fold in whipped cream gently, just until blended.
Pour 2 cups of cream cheese mixture into a medium-sized mixing bowl and beat in melted chocolate quickly (the melted chocolate will seize as soon as it hits the cold cream cheese mixture, so try to work as fast as possible with a whisk to blend).
Pour the plain cream cheese mixture over the crust and carefully spoon over the chocolate mixture, noting that you won't be able to spread it so try to spoon it evenly.
Chill until firm (this took me overnight).

the ingredients:
the crust:

2 c chocolate wafer crumbs (I used bourbon creams, but if you're Stateside, you could use Oreos)
1/3 c butter, melted (if you're not using sandwich cookies, increase this to 1/2 c)

the filling:

1 c whipping cream, whipped
4 tsp gelatin, unflavoured
1/4 c cold water
16 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
7 oz marshmallow creme (for me, this was a regular-sized jar from the American grocery store in town)
1/2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips or baking chocolate, melted