I’ve got a secret weapon up my sleeve for Valentine’s Day, and yes, it’s chocolate… If you’re looking for a dessert to serve for a special dinner, and you want it to be deliciously different, look no further than these decadent and delicious Boca Negra Chocolate Chipotle Cakes.
I was looking for something fun to serve as the finale for a special Mexican dinner with my best girlfriends, and ran across this recipe from one of my favorite restaurants, Rosa Mexicano.
Regrettably, I don’t have a picture {other than in my mind} of my guests’ faces when they took their first bite, but as a cook, it was one of those moments where you feel pure joy at having tickled someone’s tastebuds.
Tomatillos are kind of funny looking, but they’re deliciously sweet – and a great base for this sauce, or a Mexican salsa verde.
My dear friend Elaine brought this Tahitian vanilla back from a trip to the South Pacific. WOW. What a difference it makes!
Husband arrived home as our evening was winding down and was very disappointed that there wasn’t an extra cake for him. I plan to remedy this on Valentine’s Day – and this time, there’ll be extras.
You can make the sauce and the custard a few days ahead of time, and the cakes earlier in the day. The “cakes” are more of a dense pudding, texture-wise, so take care when un-molding them onto plates.
- 1½ sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus additional for greasing ramekins
- 1 cup sugar plus additional for dusting
- 5 chipotle chiles in adobo {such as Embasa}
- 6 tablespoons fresh orange juice
- 10 ounces Valrhona semisweet chocolate (56%) or fine-quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 4 large eggs
- 4 teaspoons flour
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- cinnamon for garnish
- Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 325ºF.
- Butter 8 small {4 oz} ramekins and dust with sugar, knocking out excess.
- Scrape excess adobo off chiles, and slice thin. Place chiles in a fine mesh strainer and press firmly against the mesh, scraping the contents into a small bowl, until you get about 3 Tbs of chile "paste."
- Bring juice and 1 cup sugar to a boil in a 1- to 1½-quart saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Pour hot syrup over chocolate in a large bowl, stirring until chocolate is melted. Add butter and stir until melted. Add eggs 1 at a time, whisking after each addition, then stir in chile paste, flour, and salt.
- Divide among ramekins and bake in hot water bath , uncovered, until just firm and top is starting to crust, 50 to 60 minutes. Transfer ramekins with tongs to a work surface and let stand 2 minutes.
- Un-mold warm cakes directly onto dessert plates (they will be difficult to move once they adhere).
- Spoon Tomatillo Sauce around cake and top with a dollop of custard. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired.
- ½ vanilla been halved lengthwise
- ½ pound small fresh tomatillos, husked, rinsed and chopped
- ¾ cup of light brown sugar
- ¼ cup of water
- 1 inch piece of cinnamon stick
- Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into a 1½ quart heavy saucepan, add pod and remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered over moderate heat until tomatillos are very tender, about 15 minutes.
- Discard cinnamon stick and pod then puree in a blender until smooth.
- Cool completely.
- ½ vanilla bean halved lengthwise
- 2 cups half and half
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup sugar
- Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into a 2- to 3-quart heavy saucepan with tip of a paring knife, then add pod and half-and-half and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat.
- Whisk together eggs and sugar in a bowl until well combined, then add hot half-and-half mixture in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Transfer custard to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until thickened and custard registers 175º on thermometer, 5 to 10 minutes (do not let boil).
- Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a metal bowl, discarding solids. Set bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and stir custard until cool. Chill in refrigerator, covered, until cold, at least 1 hour.
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