Well Fed Network

Posted by Chris Arpante on Sugar Savvy

Many of us know that eating chocolate with 70% chocolate solids does the body good, helping the body fight against heart disease and high blood pressure. The particular chocolates I have been using the most lately, unsweetened chocolate and bittersweet chocolate, have led to desserts that have been popular choices by my chocolate eating friends. In fact, I rarely use semi-sweet anymore, unless making cookies. What’s the difference?

Unsweetened Chocolate: Used mainly in cooking and baking, unsweetened chocolate is plain and has no sugar added, making it bitter to the taste.

Bittersweet Chocolate: a dark chocolate, unlike unsweetened, bittersweet has sugar, cocoa butter, lecithin, and vanilla. It typically contains a high percentage of cocoa solids.

This Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte is from the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Morrow Cookbooks, September, 1988). The book itself is the bomb, but this torte? The best way I can describe eating a slice is that it’s like a chocolate truffle (hence the name), but on a grand scale. It’s as though someone took a plate of truffles, mushed them together to form a slice of cake. Yum! And the difference is the bittersweet chocolate. Because it doesn’t have sugar added, you don’t get that sugar high in the bridge of your nose. You know the feeling I am talking about?

Now, I must admit, I always get nervous with how soft the cooked torte is coming out of the oven. I know it’s supposed to be that way, but … I always end up cooking it a lttle longer.

As far as the recipe? Heidi posted about the torte a couple of years ago, reprinted the recipe with permission. So go check it out and try it! It’s guaranteed to earn brownie points with anyone. Let me know if you try it! I would be interested in what you think.