A Chocolate Raspberry Torte + Made with Love
This year will be our first Thanksgiving in our new home. I am so excited to decorate our new mantel, find a pretty wreath for our new door, and draw up delicious menus for our visiting families. As with most holidays, the food we make will be a mix of old and new recipes. My Dad, on one hand, can’t live without his creamed onions. While I, on the other hand, am thinking about the newest, best chocolate dessert recipe to serve when we sit next to the fire. While this may be daunting to some, I love the idea of keeping some of the old traditions while folding in new ones each year.
This year I am thrilled to be working with Driscoll’s on their Made with Love campaign since all of the food I like to make is exactly that. For this project several bloggers and I are dreaming up new, delicious desserts that we can make with berries this holiday season. The criteria I have for our family dessert is that it be rich, dense, and luxurious tasting, and have a delicious burst of berry flavor. It must also be easy to make. My daughter loves to join me in the kitchen these days and I am not about to turn her away. The more she can help me with the stirring and measuring the better. So I keep it simple enough for her to manage without a problem.
In order to nail down exactly what we want to serve, my daughter and I have been experimenting with a lot of fun recipes. This one is based off of my favorite chocolate bundt cake from my friend Hilary. It meets all the needs listed above and everyone adores it.
To dress up this ordinary chocolate cake we topped it with a thin layer of chocolate frosting, a tower of ripe pink Driscoll’s raspberries, chopped white chocolate, and a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar. We loved how the fresh fruit was bursting with flavor and contrasted beautifully with the rich chocolate cake. These easy twists turned our ordinary looking chocolate cake into a berry-studded winter wonderland. It was a beautiful sight on our table.
The last step in confirming this is our holiday dessert of choice was, of course, eating it. I served up big slices for dessert after dinner and happily watched as the dining room became silent for about a minute. The slices were happily gobbled up, berries and all.
To help you get in the mood for holiday baking my friends atDriscoll’s are hosting a fantastic Made with Love sweepstakes for a KitchenAid mixer on their page. Be sure to enter to win!
(Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Driscoll’s as part of their Made with Love campaign. The recipes, opinions, and photographs are wholly my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that make The Naptime Chef possible.)
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 11/4 cup granulated sugar
- 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
- ¾ cup freshly brewed coffee
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ cup sour milk* (¼ cup milk + 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar)
- 2 tablespoons store-bought chocolate frosting
- 2 – 6 ounces packages (about 2 cups) fresh Driscoll’s raspberries
- 2 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped
- Confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch baking pan and set aside.
- 2. In a small bowl whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda, sugar, and salt. In a large bowl whisk the coffee, oil, vanilla, and sour milk. Stir until very, very smooth.
- 3. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir until smooth. Then, pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan and smooth the top with a spatula.
- 4. Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the top springs back when touched and a cake tester inserted comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Then invert it onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- 5. Once the cake is cool, spread the chocolate frosting on the top. Then, set the raspberries in the center in an even circle. Scatter the chopped chocolate on top. Then, dust the top with a little confectioners’ sugar. Serve.
11/4 cup granulated sugar- that is actually 1/4 cup, right? 🙂
HI!! No, it is actually 1 1/4 cup. Sorry , I’ll correct!