Last week, I was in Italy and I bough a lot of chocolate from Torino after they told me that the city is famous for its chocolate and grissini. So to finish all the chocolates (about 400 grams (14 oz.)), I decided to use them for my mother’s birthday cake. However, some of these chocolates had red pepper in it, so I made a spicy cake.The chocolate cake recipe was taken from a pastry chef, so I cannot give it, but it is very similar to a sponge cake. Anyway, you can use any chocolate cake recipe you want. After layering the cake, I poured some milk on the layers to make them moist, and spread some “crème patisserie”.

For “crème patisserie”, I used this recipe, and I added 1 cup of crushed and spiced almonds. To make them, I simply mixed the almonds with red hot pepper, salt, cumin and black pepper.

Finally I decorated the cake with chocolate ganache I made from the Torino chocolates. I heated 200 gr (7 oz.) heavy cream, and mixed it with 400 gr (14 oz.) dark chocolate, and some of them had red pepper. To make the ganache lighter, I mixed it with some whipped cream, and decorated the cake with whipped cream also.

There are some white and dark chocolates waiting to be used in the kitchen for about a month. Actually, it’s a miracle that these chocolates can survive in the kitchen for a long time. In short, it was the time to use them. So, what I did was quite impromptu, I brushed my chocolate molds with white chocolate, and filled with some nice dark chocolate with almonds. But it was too “plain”. So what should I do to make these boring chocolates extraordinary? I simply added some red hot pepper on tops, and make these chocolates reaally hot!! Enjoy!

Spicy Chocolates

makes 12 chocolates

Ingredients:

• 100 g (3.5 oz.) white chocolate
• 100 g (3.5 oz.) 70% dark chocolate (preferably Mexican)
• 100 g  (3.5 oz.) heavy cream
• powdered red hot pepper
• chopped almonds (optional)

Directions:

In a pan, bring heavy cream to boil, and remove it from heat. Add the dark chocolate and stir until it is completely melted.

Let the ganache cool in the refrigerator. Add almonds to the ganache if you want.

Brush the chocolate molds with white chocolate, and let it chill in the freezer for 3 minutes. Continue this process a couple of times. By the way, make sure that all sides of the mold are covered with chocolate.

Fill in the molds with the dark chocolate ganache using a piping bag, while leaving some space at the top. Let the molds cool in the freezer for 15 minutes.

To the top of the molds, pour white chocolate to complete the white chocolate shell. Flatten the molds with a palette knife. Let them cool for another 10 minutes in the freezer.

Finally, sprinkle the tops with powdered red hot pepper. Keep the chocolates in the refrigerator.