cherries | Bewitching Kitchen

Please, do not allow the vegan word to scare you away. This was one of the tastiest cakes I’ve ever made, and I simply cannot BELIEVE it is vegan. The recipe comes from Fran Costigan’s cookbook: Vegan Chocolate, Unapologetically Luscious and Decadent Dairy-free Chocolate Desserts. Ms. Costigan has decades of experience creating dairy-free cakes and concoctions that do not rely on margarine and tofu like most do. As she points out in the introduction of the book, you can always taste margarine in the icing, and tofu will never fail to make a cake heavy. This cake – included in her “Showstoppers” chapter – is a bit involved to make, but one of the things I love about her cookbook is that she lays out a timetable suggesting how you can break the process in stages in a smooth and efficient way. I made the cake, the vanilla custard cream, and the chocolate decorations two days before. Made the mousse, assembled the cake and covered with the glaze the day before showtime. Basically, the cake was ready and waiting in the fridge before we had to take it to a get-together with friends. All that was left to do was add the chocolate decorations. Piece of (vegan) cake!

CHERRY CHOCOLATE MIROIR CAKE
(from Fran Costigan’s Vegan Chocolate)

RECIPE OVERVIEW

1 recipe for Chocolate Torte to Live For (click here), baked in a 9-inch round pan and cooled
(can be made a couple of days in advance)

Other components

Soaked dry cherries

Vanilla Custard Cream: based on cashew cream and coconut milk, thickened with agar-agar

Magic Chocolate Mousse: water-ganache with a touch of olive oil, very interesting and quite tasty version

Mirror glaze: Cherry juice, coconut milk, cocoa, chocolate, agar-agar

Comments: Vegan baking is not simple. Fran’s book takes that challenge and turns it into art. I don’t think it is right to publish the full recipe for such a complex cake, when so much work and effort went into its design and optimization. But the cake component, which by the way, stands beautifully on its own, can be made according to the recipe she published in her website (click here). In that version, the cake is covered with a vegan ganache and ends up very elegant in its simplicity. It remains as one of her most popular cakes, and having made it, I can understand why.

For the decorations, I tempered chocolate and used some of it to pipe designs on acetate sheet. The remaining I spread over transfer sheets (I get mine usually at bakedeco.com) and before it was fully set I cut small triangles. Fran’s version in the cookbook used fresh cherries covered in tempered chocolate, but they are not in season at the present time, so I went with my Plan B.

Everything works perfectly well in this cake, I would not change a thing. The cake is intensely chocolate-y, the two mousse components soften the overall taste. I really like the texture of glazes made with agar-agar instead of gelatin, find it a lot easier to work with and more reproducible. Gelatin-based glazes tend to get a bit slimy, particularly if sitting at room temperature for a while.

To get Fran’s cookbook – a must-have if you are into baking adventures – follow this link to amazon.

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When your office is next door to that of one of the best (and most generous) gardeners in the state of Kansas, be ready to receive amazing gifts, such as two boxes of freshly picked blackberries! We consumed some in their natural state, and decided to make a nice, refreshing sorbet with the rest. We’ve actually made two batches of this sorbet in the past month. I am sharing the recipe for the second version, which I think turned out to be the best, with the small amount of cherries plus a little unusual ingredient. Although some inspiration was found in Lebovit’s The Perfect Scoop, Phil devised his own recipe. Since we fully share our assets, I feel entitled to call it “our own”. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

BLACKBERRY-CHERRY SORBET
(from the Bewitching Kitchen)

3 cups blackberries
1 cup pitted cherries
1 ripe banana
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
1 + 1/2 cup water

Add the blackberries, cherries, and banana to the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth, cleaning the sides of the bowl a couple of times. Add the lemon juice, the sugar, and the water, and process everything together until fully smooth.

Keep the base in the fridge overnight or for at least 4 hours to cool completely.

Place the mixture in your ice cream maker and churn it according to the instructions of the manufacturer.

Scoop into a freezer-safe container.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: The banana adds a nicer texture to the sorbet, which can be a bit grainy once it freezes, because there is no milk fat in it. You can barely taste it, though. Most recipes for blackberries or raspberries will instruct you to pass the pureed mixture through a sieve to get rid of the seeds. We decided to skip this step, and I’m glad to report that we did not mind the seeds at all. If you are looking for a real smooth texture, go ahead and sieve it away. If you don’t remove the seeds, the amount of sorbet made could be just a little big for your ice cream maker. If that’s the case, no need to worry, it’s the type of problem you should welcome with open arms (and a spoon). Save the excess, and follow these instructions: pour some of the sorbet base in a small bowl, add Greek yogurt and a handful of fresh blueberries on top. Enjoy late at night, early in the morning, or anytime you feel like it… it’s that good! 😉