Do you ever have days where you feel like doing something crazy? I mean, not something really crazy, just something out of the ordinary? On days like that I may rearrange the living room or take on a new project. Mike never knows what may have happened while he was away.
Today happen to be a really odd day. Two years ago when I graduated college and decided that I wanted to try baking, I bought my very first true baking instruction book- one that taught you how to do sugar crafts and make enough cakes to feed 100 people. I would flip through the pages in awe and wonderment wishing I could create the beautiful baked goods in the photos.
Do you want to know what happened?
After a while I closed the book, shoved it on a shelf, and left it to collect 
dust. Until my crazy day. I pulled the book out determined to make something I had never made before. I wanted the end result to be something beautiful looking and thus I picked the Coffee Chantilly Torte comprised of a cookie crust, layer of ganache chocolate, Kahlua-flavored simple syrup. espresso Chantilly cream, and a vanilla chiffon cake.
Cookie, chocolate, cake, coffee, and whipped cream? Yes please!
This torte was……simply amazing.
I recommend “Baking and Pastry” from the Culinary Institute of America. I know there are many other books like this one, but I really enjoy this book (as much as you can enjoy textbooks!) If anything the book has so many great tips and base recipes. Plus, if you choose to make a recipe, you learn new things.
What I learned:
1. Chantilly cream is a fancy name for whipped topping
2. You can flavor Chantilly cream
3. You can also flavor simple syrup.
I kind of like when my crazy days end in cake!
Because of copyright laws the best I could do with a recipe for the cake is here (bake in two 8″ pans) and the Chantilly Cream here. Just add a little dissolved espresso powder to part of the Chantilly cream and have that be your middle layer. As for the rest, I used a simple shortbread recipe as the base (like this one), spread ganache on top of that. From there it went cake, espresso chantilly, cake, and then covered the cake in plain chantilly cream. The recipe also calls for kahluha simple syrup which is 1 part water, 1 part sugar and 1/4 part kahluha. Bring water and sugar to a boil, remove from heat and cool. Once cool, add liquor. I finished the cake with crushed almonds at the base and cocoa powder sprinkled on top (but that is really up to you!)
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