Chocolate and raspberry Torte

It has been one of those weeks! Work has taken it’s toll and today I’m just feeling shattered. Standing all week in work and running around like a headless chicken is not really my idea of a nice and relaxed me. I’ve come home every day tired and stressed and dying for a gin and tonic. Today I finally bought the tonic and now, the slightly more relaxed me is feeling a little more in the mood to blog.

I made a cake (more of a torte) on Wednesday. It was very nice but it wasn’t perfect. So with it still sitting in my fridge, yesterday I finished work late in the evening and came home and made the torte again. Much improved and now just waiting for people to eat the rest of it. Growing up as a child, I remember people used to call over randomly to our house and we would if passing call into theirs. I can’t remember if we had things like cake or nibbles to offer people in our house (there was always good coffee though) but I used to love going to others as there was always something nice on offer and growing up, I always wanted a home that people would want to call by and just say hello and share some coffee and cake. People just don’t do this anymore. So now I have two versions of a dessert sitting in my fridge and no one to eat it. Yes I could happily eat them both by myself but would have to run for several hours (every day for the rest of the week) to make this pleasure not a guilty feeling.

This torte is rather rich and creamy and probably your daily worth of calories but it contains fruit so I have deluded myself into thinking it’s healthy. My advice, make this for a dinner party. It’s an impressive cake and needs lots of people to share it.

CHOCOLATE AND RASPBERRY TORTE

For my first version of this, I made a pastry and lined tart tins. I scattered berries on the base and then added the chocolate.

For my second version (much preferred and better for a party) I made a biscuit base and mixed the berries with the chocolate and ended up with a more dessert like cake. I like to mix the raspberries with the chocolate, this gives the mixture a slightly more even distribution of berries and a creamier texture, but if you prefer you can lay the berries out on the base and them pour the chocolate mixture on top, giving you a more separated berry v’s chocolate fudge appearance and texture.

300 g double chocolate digestive biscuits (normal chocolate will do too)
100 g butter, melted
2 tsp brown sugar

350 g fresh raspberries (frozen are good too, just defrost first)
500 ml double cream
20 g caster sugar
400 g dark chocolate ( I used a mix of 45% and 75%), grated
1 tbsp rum
1 tbsp strong espresso

THE HOW

Preheat your oven to 160 °c (fan oven). Line a deep 23 cm loose bottomed tin (both sides and bottom) with baking paper.

For the base, crush your biscuits either in a food bag with a rolling pin or in a food blender until quite fine. Add your brown sugar and melted butter and pulse for a few seconds until mixed. Tip into your tin and press gently down and ensure that it is evenly distributed. Pop into the oven for 15 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool completely before the next step.

For the chocolaty raspberry torte part, heat the cream and caster sugar in a pan until just reaching boiling point. Take off the heat and whisk in the grated chocolate.

Add your rum and espresso. Mix in your berries (or lay them on the biscuit base). Pour the chocolate mix into the tin. My mix, filled right to the top and being careful when moving it, I didn’t spill any. But depending on how deep your tin is or if you used small tins, then obviously judge it that it doesn’t overfill.