Omi's Mocha Torte

Just before Christmas my mom and I came across my grandmother's cookbook and started poking through it and... lo and behold, we found my Omi's famous Mocha Torte recipe! Because we were having a traditional Golston family dinner with goose, rotkraut (red cabbage with wine, sugar, vinegar and cloves), chestnuts, goose gravy and kartoffelklose (potato dumplings), I thought, why not bring back the Mocha Torte?

Usually Omi's cake was a 9" round, but we don't have those pans at our place in NY so I used a sheet pan and made a rectangular box-shape. 

In a break from my usual hardcore from-scratch approach, the Mocha Torte was made with Betty Crocker yellow box cake. I have tried in the past to scratchify my Omi's Mocha Torte, but each time it has missed the mark. With box cake, that stuff tastes like childhood! Some things, you just don't mess with.

But the key is the super fluffy delicious frosting! You start by whipping heavy cream, and then you fold it into a melted chocolate-coffee-marshmallow goo for a light mocha cream... Sooo good.

Here are some pics of my process, with a recipe to follow:

Scraps!!

Omi's Mocha Torte

1 package yellow cake mix
1 cup chocolate chips
3 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoon instant coffee powder
1 1/2 cups whipping cream, chilled

Prepare the cake mix, bake and cool. Split into as many layers as you like (my Omi suggests 4).

Combine the chocolate, marshmallow, milk and coffee in a bowl and set over a pot of simmering water. Heat until the marshmallow melts completely, and then cover the mixture and chill.

When the mixture is cold, whip the cream and fold it in.

Frost the cake and keep it in the fridge until it's time to eat!

We were so full after Christmas dinner, but everybody made more room for Mocha Torte =D

Merry Christmas!
Azara

So I Made This Weird Thing

... Yeaaaaah...





My favorite comments so far: "It looks like it just landed," and "It looks like it should be orbiting something."

The slats are made of lollipop syrup spooned into irregular "petals," and the sugar balls were rolled from the syrup when it reached that perfect state between burning-hot liquid and cool, brittle solid. I want to play with sugar at that stage more, but it's so difficult to keep it right there!

Lucky 13 layers! Chocolate cake with super dark chocolate ganache and a coffee soak, with red currant preserve. The outside is vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. Mmmmm =)

In order to eat the cake, it needed to be plucked first! A sorry sight...

Dark Chocolate Ganache

2 cups heavy cream
22-24 oz chopped semi- or bittersweet chocolate

Heat the cream just until it boils (be careful to keep it from boiling over!) and add the chocolate. Stir until completely smooth and allow to cool until thick enough to fill the cake layers.

Easy!


Bake Hard,
Azara