The Chocolate Cheesecake recipe came from Nigella Lawson's site. If you aren't familiar with Nigella Lawson do yourself a favor and borrow one of her baking books from the library. Much to my family's chagrin, we did not get to taste this cheesecake, but I was told it was sublime. I have since promised to make another for my family to enjoy in the next couple of weeks.
My experiment came from a blog entry at Tartlette. It was for a Raspberry and Vanilla Bean Dobos Torte complete with pulled sugar ribbon decorations. This project was far more time consuming than I expected, and to be honest turned out to taste only so-so. The flavor of the mousse interior was overwhelmed with the honey used to sweeten it, and as my brave taster family commented, it seemed more suited to Rosh Hashanah than Shavuos. They did get back to me a few days later to tell me the flavor had mellowed over time, making the tortes far more delicious than immediately after assembly. For myself, it isn't worth the work to repeat it!
The best part of the experiment was learning to make pulled sugar ribbons, which I used to decorate the tortes. Since I had extra sugar, I also molded the Ten Commandments on the chocolate cheesecake above.
Well, that's it for now! I hope to start posting more often. I do have two fun cakes planned for June, and I hope to start posting more of my older work, as well. Have a great week all!
