Valentine's Day Strawberry Chocolate Truffle Cake!

I thought it was necessary to share with you this mouth-watering chocolate truffle cake recipe! I loved making it because it was so easy to make, amazingly moist and delicious, and just beautiful to look at!

Cake:I found this fail-proof recipe for a chocolate cake on the Add a Pinch blog, thanks for providing me with this great recipe! This difference between this recipe and others is that it uses 1 cup of boiling water, which combines with the baking soda to aerate the cake and make it SUPER moist!! 

Chocolate Ganache frosting and Truffles: Contrary to it's fancy-sounding name, chocolate Ganache is ridiculously easy to make! All you do is heat up heavy cream and mix chocolate chips into it. This mixture yields both the frosting as well as the truffles!

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CHOCOLATE CAKE
INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1½ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder (I just used coffee grounds)
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by spraying with baking spray or buttering and lightly flouring.
2. For the cake:
3. Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso powder to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Whisk through to combine or, using your paddle attachment, stir through flour mixture until combined well.
4. Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together on medium speed until well combined. Reduce speed and carefully add boiling water to the cake batter. Beat on high speed for about 1 minute to add air to the batter.
5. Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.

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Chocolate Ganache Recipe (from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 9 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup heavy cream
  

Method:

1. Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Stir in the rum if desired.
2. Allow the ganache to cool slightly before pouring over a cake. Start at the center of the cake and work outward. For a fluffy frosting or chocolate filling, allow it to cool until thick, then whip with a whisk until light and fluffy.
   

Frosting: Let ganache mixture cool a little bit (10 min) and then frost the cake with it, using a knife

Truffles: Cool ganache mixture in fridge (30 min, mixture should be cold but still pliable) and then take out small ball size pieces with a spoon. Shape into a ball shape with your fingers, then dust in cocoa powder, and you're done!!

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Putting together the Cake:

• After baking and cooling cake, make the ganache mixture, and allow to cool

• Slice strawberries for decorating the cake

• Spread 3/4 of ganache mixture as frosting over the cake, cool the rest of the ganache in the fridge, and use for the trufflesVoila! Enjoy! Great for birthdays, Valentine's Day, etc..!
  
• Boil 1 tblspn strawberry or other kind of jam with 1 tblspn water, and brush mixture onto strawberries for a pretty glaze

Momofuku Pork Buns

Pork bun made during my dim sum class :)

Just last week, I discovered the deliciousness of Momofuku Pork Buns when I taught a dimsum class at The Seasoned Farmhouse! (which is an awesome cooking school in Columbus, Ohio!)

A succulent piece of roasted, moist pork belly stuck between two layers of smooth, steamed bread, with pickled vegetables and a smear of hoisin sauce, so amazingly good.

If you're going to host a party or invite friends over anytime soon, or have a delicious dinner with you and a loved one, you can never go wrong with Momofuku pork belly buns!

I got the recipe from this delightful cook book by David Chang, chef and owner of Momofuku in New York. The book looks like this: 

And here are some pictures of more pork buns and other dim sum pieces from the class! Did you know "Dim Sum" means to "touch the heart"? How wonderful. 

Our final plate of delicious goods, accompanied by a chicken wor wonton soup! We made Momofuku pork buns, shumai, ha gao, and shumai. 

Steamed and ready to be filled buns, and ready to be steamed shumai dimsum

Students making 4 kinds of dimsum at The Seasoned Farmhouse

The best part about this recipe, is that though it takes a little bit of time (invite some friends over to help roll and fold the buns!), it is deceptively easy.

I'm posting the recipe below, but suffice it to say that the basic steps are:

1. Marinade with salt and sugar, and bake the pork belly. Let it chill in fridge and then cut into 2 inch long squares.
2. Mix together steamed bread ingredients, let rise for 30 minutes, then knead and roll out into 4 inch ovals, each on a piece of parchment paper so they don't stick to the steamer. Let those rise, then steam them for 6 minutes. 
3. Make a simple pickle mixture of thinly sliced cucumber and radish, mix with sugar and salt. Ready to eat in 10 minutes.
4. Smear the bun with store-bought hoisin sauce, brown the pieces of pork belly in a frying pan, add to the bun, and add pickled vegetables
5. Done! Enjoy :D 

*This dish is probably not the healthiest, but it is TOO GOOD to be missed!! Impress your friends and family with this delicious meal! 

*And please subscribe by typing your email into the space above this blog post, to receive more delicious recipes!!

Momofuku Pork Buns

Steamed Buns:

• 1 tblspn + 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 ½ cups water, at room temperature
• 4 ½ cups bread flour
• 6 tblspns sugar
• 3 tbspn nonfat dry milk powder
• 1 tbspn kosher salt
• Rounded ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup rendered pork fat or vegetable shortening at room temp, plus more for shaping the buns, as needed
• *sliced green onion for garnish

Pork Belly (makes enough for 12 pork buns):

• 3 lb slab skinless pork belly (first, remove the thin skin on top using a knife)
• ¼ cup kosher salt
• ¼ cup sugar

Cucumber and Radish Pickles 

(yields enough pickled vegetables for 1 recipe of pork buns)

• 1 English cucumber (or any kind)
• small bag of radishes
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• Method: Slice the cucumber and radishes thinly. Combine with salt and sugar, and let sit for 6 minutes. Ready to serve.  

Method for Steamed buns:

1. Combine yeast and water in the bowl of a stand-up mixer with a dough hook. Add the flour, sugar, milk powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and fat and mix on the lowest speed possible for 8 to 10 minutes
2. When dough gathers together into a ball on the hook, lightly oil a medium mixing bowl, put dough in it, and cover the bowl with a dry kitchen towel. Put it in a turned off oven with a pilot light, or some other warm place, and let dough rest until doubled in size, about 1 hour 15 minutes
3. Punch the dough down and put onto a clean work surface. Using a knife, divide dough in half, then divide each half into 5 equal pieces. Gently roll the pieces into logs, then cut each log into five pieces, making 50 pieces total. They should be about the size of a ping pong ball. Roll each piece into a ball, and cover all balls with a draping of plastic wrap. Allow to rest and rise for 30 minutes
4. Meanwhile, cut out fifty 4-inch squares of parchment paper. Coat a chopstick with whatever fat you're working with
5. Flatten one ball with the palm of hand, then use rolling pin to roll it out to a 4 inch long oval. Lay greased chopstick across the middle of the oval and fold the oval over onto itself to form a bun. Withdraw the chopstick, leaving the bun folded, and put the bun on a square of parchment paper. Stick it back under the plastic and form the rest of the buns. Let the buns rest for 30 to 45 mins, they will rise a little.
6. Set up a steamer on the stove. Working in batches so you don't crowd steamer, steam the buns on the parchment squares for 10 minutes. Remove parchment and serve with pork belly and condiments. (these can be frozen at this point and last for several months, if you do not want all of them right away. If so, reheat frozen buns in a stovetop steamer for 2 to 3 minutes, until puffy, soft, and warmed all the way through.

Method for pork belly:

• Nestle the belly into a roasting pan or other oven-safe vessel that holds it snuggly. Mix together salt and sugar, and rub all over the meat, discard any excess salt-and-sugar mixture. Cover the container with plastic wrap and put into the fridge for at least 6 hours, but no longer than 24.
• Heat oven to 450° F
• Discard any liquid that accumulated in the container. Put the belly in the oven, fat side up, and cook for one hour, basting it with the rendered fat at the halfway point, until it's an appetizing golden brown
• Turn oven down to 250° F and cook for another 1 hour 15 minutes, until the belly is tender. Remove the pan from the oven and transfer belly to a plate. Decant fat and meat juices from pan and reserve for other uses.
• When cool, wrap belly in plastic wrap or alum foil and put in fridge until thoroughly chilled.
• Cut the pork belly into ½ inch-thick slices that are about 2 inches long. Warm in a pan over medium high heat for a minute or two before serving. Serve with pork buns.

Put together Pork Bun: 

Put a piece of pork belly, pickled cucumber slice, sliced green onion and hoisin sauce in a freshly-steamed bun. Enjoy :)