Chocolate the lifeblood running through new cookbook
If there actually was a Chocoholics Anonymous, its members would definitely have to avoid Kate Shaffer’s new book, “Desserted: Recipes and Tales from an Island Chocolatier.” It’s 176 pages of recipes and stories about chocolate — and life on a small Maine island. It’s deep, dark, delicious, occasionally salty stuff.
Shaffer and her husband Steve have owned and operated Black Dinah Chocolatiers on Isle au Haut, off Mt. Desert Island, since 2007, creating exquisite truffles and other chocolate treats from the finest ingredients. The pair operate a seasonal cafe on the island, and have a busy year-round business selling their handmade candies in 13 stores statewide and by mail order.
“I work hard to be very efficient for the chocolates and for the cafe. It has to be very standardized,” said Shaffer, who last month was named to Dessert Professional magazine’s annual list of Top Ten Chocolatiers for North America. “But when I’m playing around in the kitchen, for friends or for Steve, I’m definitely going to experiment and do everything by hand and enjoy the process. That’s where a lot of this book came from.”
Shaffer, 39, is a California native, and that’s where she met her future husband, while working in kitchens up and down the West Coast. The pace of life, the people and affordability of Maine appealed to the young couple, and in 2002 they moved east, with Kate Shaffer taking a job at the now defunct Keeper’s House Inn on Isle au Haut. When the inn closed, she decided to focus on her French-style truffles — which were a huge hit at the inn — and after some further training, she debuted Black Dinah Chocolatiers in the summer of 2007.
“Desserted,” published by Down East Books, has been in the works for a few years, ever since editor Kathleen Fleury approached Shaffer about writing an all-chocolate cookbook. Shaffer, who studied English literature in college, is no stranger to writing — but organizing her many recipes for both sweet and savory dishes took some time.
“I have all these recipes written down on little slips of paper, and everything I make for the cafe and the confections are made on a very large scale,” said Shaffer. “So it was a matter of scaling them down for the home cook and making them accessible. And it was so much fun.”
While there are a number of recipes for the truffles Shaffer is most well-known for, there also are recipes for cakes, cookies, breakfast dishes and entrees, from Chocolate Gingerbread Pancakes to White Chocolate Lavender Pound Cake. One of them, her Roast Chicken with Mole Poblano, took her an entire afternoon to prepare. She’s aware that time like that is a true luxury, so when Fleury asked her to scale it back a bit for the cookbook, she experimented until she came up with a simpler recipe.
“The version of that recipe that appeared on my blog a few years ago was almost five pages long,” said Shaffer, with a laugh. “It was way too complicated. So I sat down with it and worked through it, and the way it turned out I think is totally delicious and unique. I love mole. I could drink it.
“Our business has doubled or tripled every year since we started, and right now, I’m of an ‘If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’ mindset. But we just built a new commercial facility this summer, so now that that’s squared away I can focus on the creative process,” said Shaffer. “I can start dreaming up some new collections and new truffles. I think you’ll see new chocolates in the coming year.”
“Desserted: Recipes and Tales From an Island Chocolatier” is available from Down East Books; it retails for $29.95. Kate Shaffer will give three book signings in the next week, including 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at Maine Maven in Orono, 4-5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at BookStacks in Bucksport and 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, at The Cave in Brooklin. For information, visit downeastbooks.com.
Black Dinah Chocolate Tiramisu
Serves 8-10
For the soaking syrup:
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup dark rum
For the cake:
? cup flour (sift before measuring)
? cup Dutch-process cocoa (sift before measuring)
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
8 large eggs
1? cups granulated sugar
For the frosting:
16 ounces mascarpone cheese
2 cups heavy cream
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder
To make the syrup, combine ½ cup of water and the sugar in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat and cook until all the sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat. Allow the syrup to cool completely, and then add the rum and stir. Store the syrup in a glass jar or plastic squeeze bottle in the refrigerator.
To make the cake, grease by hand, or spray with vegetable oil, two 9-by-3-inch round cake pans. Line the cake pans with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour and cocoa together. Re-sift three more times and set aside. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, until it starts to bubble and a layer of foam forms on the surface. Scrape off the foam with a wide spoon and discard. Pour the melted butter into a medium-size bowl, being careful not to take the cloudy, white milk solids that remain at the bottom of the saucepan. Stir the vanilla into the clarified butter.
Meanwhile, have a pot of simmering water ready. Break the eggs into the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk in the sugar and place the bowl over the simmering water. While stirring gently, heat the mixture until it is a little warmer than room temperature. Remove from heat and immediately begin to beat at high speed with the whisk attachment for 8-10 minutes. The mixture is ready when it falls in ribbons that hold their shape slightly when the whisk is lifted from the bowl. Place the bowl that contains the clarified butter over the simmering pot of water and leave it for a minute or two while you complete the next step.
Remove the mixing bowl from its stand and sift the flour mixture onto the surface of the egg mixture in three additions, folding with a large rubber spatula between additions. Remove the bowl of butter from the simmering pot, and pour roughly 2 cups of the batter into the butter. With a smaller spatula, fold the butter and batter together and then return this mixture to the larger bowl of batter. Fold together.
Empty the batter into the cake pans, smoothing the top with an offset spatula. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the cake has completely come away from the sides of the pans.
Cool completely before removing the cake from the pans. To make the frosting, beat the cheese, cream, sugar, vanilla, and espresso powder in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment until the cream is smooth and spreadable. Try not to overbeat, as the mixture tends to get grainy and will eventually separate.
To assemble the cake, cut each layer in half so that you end up with four circular layers. Place one layer on your cake plate and douse with the rum syrup (a plastic squeeze bottle works great for this). Allow the cake to soak up the syrup. Slather on a ½-inch layer of frosting, and top with the next layer. Douse this top layer with rum syrup and then frost. Repeat this process for each layer. You will probably not use all the syrup. It will keep in the refrigerator until your next project.
Cover the entire cake with frosting (if necessary, smooth out the sides of the cake by trimming with a long bread knife before frosting). Reserve a little frosting for eight “turbans” on top of the cake. Pipe these on with a pastry bag and a large star tip.
Toss a couple whole coffee beans onto the tip of each turban, and then, using a fine sieve, dust the entire cake lightly with cocoa powder. Refrigerate and serve the cake well-chilled, accompanied by something bubbly to drink.
Wild Raspberry Truffles
Makes 64 truffles
2¾ pounds bittersweet chocolate
2 ounces invert sugar or mild honey
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons Raspberry Puree
5 tablespoons very soft unsalted butter
Chop 12 ounces of the chocolate and place it in a food processor. Pour the invert sugar or honey on top of the chocolate. Combine the cream and raspberry puree in a small saucepan and bring to full boil over medium heat.
Once the cream boils, pour it immediately over the chopped chocolate. Allow the cream to sit for a minute or two, then process the mixture for about 30 seconds. Add the butter in small spoonfuls, then whir until the mixture is completely smooth and falls in thick blobs; it should be the consistency of pudding. Do not over-process or your ganache will separate.
Scrape the emulsified ganache into a plastic-wrap-lined 8-by-8-inch brownie pan. Level the ganache carefully with an offset icing spatula, spreading it all the way to the sides and completely into the corners. Allow the ganache to set at a cool room temperature (or in the refrigerator if your house is very warm) overnight.
Chop, then melt and temper the remaining 2 pounds of bittersweet chocolate. Remove the ganache from the pan by lifting it out by the plastic wrap. “Bottom” your ganache by spreading a very thin layer of tempered chocolate on the entire top surface of the ganache. When the chocolate has set, turn the slab over and cut it into 1-inch squares.
Dip the squares, chocolate side down, into the tempered chocolate using a dipping fork. Alternatively, skip the “bottoming” step and roll the ganache, instead, into walnut-size balls and dip or decorate as desired.
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