TWD: Chocolate Banded Torte

This week, Amy of Food, Family and Fun chose the Chocolate Banded Torte for our Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. All I can say, is that this recipe is exactly why I wanted to join TWD. First, it is something that I would never have tried on my own! It looks way too complicated for my newbie skills (or lack thereof!) Secondly, I am so glad I joined because this recipe rocks! I think it is one of the best things I have EVER made! It not only looks cool, but it tastes great too! It was fun also because you could totally change it up depending on what flavors ice cream you decide to use in the layers. I love that!

The original recipe calls for a ganache made from scratch. I was surprised at how easy it was to make. Melt some butter and chocolate (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips), whisk in some sugar, and add tons of eggs – DONE! Next the recipe called for adding some raspberry mixture into store-bought vanilla ice cream. Well now that I have my own ice cream maker, I scoff at store-bought ice cream. That’s right, SCOFF! (No offense to those that used store-bought ice cream! I just look for any excuse to use my new ice cream maker! J) So anyhow, I decided to make my own raspberry ice cream. Luckily, I found a pretty basic recipe in my new Williams-Sonoma Frozen Desserts book. (See below.) The recipe was supposed to yield 1 quart, but I was worried that wouldn’t be enough, so I decided to make another batch just in case. It was then that I decided to try a different flavor and use up some the fresh blueberries I picked just the week before. So, I made a batch of blueberry ice cream and put everything in the freezer.

Assembling the torte was actually pretty easy. It was very time consuming though because you had to pour a layer of ganache, then freeze for 30 minutes. Put in a layer of ice cream, freeze again for 15 minutes. Another layer or ganache, freeze for 30 minutes… and so on and so forth. I had a ton of other things to do that day though, so it really wasn’t a big deal. I assembled the whole thing in between loads of laundry, baking some cookies, and making dinner.

I was so nervous about how it would turn out seeing as how I have never attempted anything like this, but I am pretty pleased with it! Clearly, I need some help with my slicing technique, ha ha! Other than that though, it actually looks pretty neat and the taste… wowzers! That ganache is so rich and totally fab! And the berry ice cream? The raspberry was a little more tame than I would like, but the blueberry was awesome! I will definitely do this again but would love to try other ice cream flavors! I wonder what else I could do with blueberry? I would also like to try mint. Hey, I wonder how it would taste with a caramel type of ice cream. Ahh, so many options!

Berry Ice Cream
(Shortened version – original version from Williams-Sonoma Frozen Deserts)

Ingredients
2 cups chopped berries
½ cup plus 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1. Puree the berries. Put half of the chopped berries in a food processor along with 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Puree until smooth. Set aside.

2. Prepare the custard ingredients. Put the milk, ¾ cup of the cream, and the remaining ½ cup sugar in a medium saucepan. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and the remaining ¼ cup cream until they are blended and a pale buttery yellow, about 1 minute.

3. Temper the egg yolks. Place the saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring frequently ith a wooden spoon, until bubbles form around the edges and the sugar is dissolved, about 4-5 minutes. Do not allow the liquid to come to a boil. Remove from heat. Begin whisking the egg yolk mixture with one hand while slowly pouring one-fourth of the hot milk mixture into the yolks with the other. When one-fourth of the hot milk mixture has been blended into the yolks, start pouring the warmed yolk mixture back into the saucepan, whisking constantly until well blended.

4. Cook the custard. Place the saucepan with milk and yolk mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, 4-5 minutes or until it reaches a temperature of around 170 degrees F. Do not allow the custard to bubble or come to a boil.

5. Add the pureed fruit and strain the custard. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the pureed berries and vanilla extract. Set a fine-mesh sieve over a medium bowl. Pour the hot custard through the sieve, gently pressing the liquid through.

6. Cool the custard. Set the bowl inside another bowl filled with ice and cold water. Allow the custard to cool to room temperature, 30-45 minutes.

7. Chill the custard. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the custard. Cover the top of the bowl also with plastic wrap and refrigerate the custard until well chilled, 3-12 hours.

8. Churn the ice cream and add the fruit. Remove the plastic wrap from the custard and bowl. Pour the well-chilled custard into the mixing container of an ice cream maker and follow manufacture’s instructions. During the last few minutes of churning, add the reserved 1 cup chopped berries and churn just until incorporated.

9. Store the ice cream. Transfer ice cream to a plastic freezer container. Cover tightly and freeze until ice cream is firm, at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.

**My variation: To make the raspberry ice cream, I followed directions as stated. For the blueberry ice cream though, I didn’t want any skins in the final ice cream, so instead of pureeing 1 cup and tossing another cup at the end, I pureed and added both cups in step 5. I liked it much better and wish I had done that with the raspberry.