White Chocolate Raspberry Torte

Well, here is the final dessert in my Valentine's Day Dessert series.  This one was maybe my favorite of the three.  I have mentioned before that I ADORE white chocolate.  So obviously I was sold on this dessert before I even made it.  I had planned on making this for my upcoming birthday dessert (yes, I make my own birthday dessert...not because my husband wouldn't do it for because he totally would, but because I really love doing it!), but then we were invited to a couple's game night last weekend and were instructed to bring a Valentine treat.  This just screamed Valentine's Day to me, so it was bumped on the to-be-made schedule.  Now one thing I must mention about this little dessert.  The cake is good.  The melted white chocolate and buttermilk make it a very dense and heavy cake, which is delicious, but as a stand alone, I wouldn't be jumping up and down about it.  The real show stopper here is the frosting!  Oh my goodness!  I could (and did) just eat it by the spoonful!!  It is what makes this cake what it is...insanely delicious!  Think cream cheese, whipped cream and more white chocolate!!  Oh it is heaven!  The whole thing comes together much easier than it looks and would be the perfect follow up to your Valentine's Day meal (or any meal for that matter!)!

White Chocolate Raspberry Torte 

*When you make up the frosting, it is going to seem like there is a ton of it!  I thought that and so I did not use all of the frosting.  Big mistake!!  Because of how dense and heavy the cake is, it can handle (and quite frankly needs) the extra frosting.  I promise it will not be too much...so use it up!  Like I said, it is the best part and you will be so glad you have it on there!  Also, I do not ever have cake flour on hand.  Instead I filled a measuring cup with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and the rest with flour.  I did this 3 times and then sifted the flour onto parchment paper.  Then I measure the 3 cups of flour that I needed flour from that mixture...it worked perfectly!

Cake:

3/4 cup butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup white baking chips, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups cake flour (Or mixture of all purpose flour & cornstarch...see above note)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup buttermilk

Filling:

2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries (I used frozen and it worked wonderfully)

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

3 Tablespoons cornstarch

Frosting:

1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat with fantastic results)

1 cup vanilla or white chocolate chips, melted and cooled

12 ounces frozen whipped topping, thawed

Fresh Raspberries for garnishing, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour 2 9-inch round baking pans and set aside.  Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in melted chips and vanilla.  Combine flour, baking powder and soda and add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.

Pour the batter evenly into prepared baking pans.  Bake for 28-32 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

In a small saucepan, bring raspberries and water to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Strain raspberry mixture into a bowl and discard the seeds.  Cool.  In the same pan, combine sugar and cornstarch.  Stir in raspberry puree until smooth.  Bring to a boil.  Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.  Cool. Spread between cake layers.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy.  Beat in melted chips and fold in whipped topping.  Spread over the top and sides of cake.  Reserve some frosting to pipe over the top edge of cake with a pastry bag (obviously that is optional, you can just spread all of the frosting over the cake top and sides if desired).  Garnish with berries if desired.  Store in refrigerator, but I definitely recommend allowing it to warm up a bit before serving.

Recipe Source:  Taste of Home

I am linking up at these fantastic blogs!

Strawberry Creme Pudding Cookies

As mentioned in my last post for the Strawberry Cream Pie, I am sharing 2 more amazing and perfect for Valentine's Day desserts this week.  Before I get started on the recipe for these sweet little cookies, I must first publicly acknowledge the atrocity of these pictures.  I was off my game that day...big time.  I tried about a million different set-ups (poses doesn't seem like the right word when you are talking about cookies), but I just couldn't get the lighting (or anything) right with these!  It was putting my frustration level at an incredible high.  Now, I understand there is a an easy fix to that...make the cookies again and start over with the photo shoot.  Here's the deal...I can't make these again...because I don't think my hips and thighs can take another inhalation of a second batch.  That is right...I ate almost the whole entire batch of these cookies!  They were so amazingly delicious that I could not stop eating them!  I had made 2 small bags to give to some friends, but only one made it out the door that first day.  The second bag sat on my counter for another day and since my stash was gone and I was still feeling the intense need to eat these, I opened that up and ate those too!  Seriously.  I have problems.  So you see, I cannot make these again, because I will eat them...all of them.  Pudding cookies are my new favorite thing.  I had never used a box of pudding in cookies before, but after trying some several weeks ago, I have been thinking of lots of new combinations, and when I saw Strawberry Creme pudding at the grocery store, I knew I wanted to create a cookie utilizing it.  My most favorite type of chocolate is white, so it was a no brainer that I would throw some of that in there.  I thought these were just delightful!  I think you should make these, and I believe that  if you do make them, you just might excuse me for my sub-par pictures.

Strawberry Creme Pudding Cookies

*I added a few drops of red food coloring to my cookie dough.  I was hoping that the pudding itself would give the cookies an intense pink color...it didn't.  The food coloring didn't give it that either, but it did help them to be a little more on the pink side...still not what I was going for, but the taste was, so I figured that was okay.  So play with the color as much or as little as you would like.

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 sugar

2 eggs

3.4 ounce package instant Strawberry Creme pudding

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 cups white chocolate chips

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a baking sheet by lining with parchment paper, baking mat or by spraying it with cooking spray.  In a medium size bowl, or in the bowl of a stand-mixer, combine butter and sugars.  Mix until creamy.  Add in the eggs, vanilla and pudding and mix until well combined.  If you want to add food coloring, add it at this point and mix.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Whisk together and then add it to the pudding mixture.  Mix until the ingredients are combined.  Fold in the white chocolate chips.  Drop the dough by rounded tablespoon onto the prepared pan.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until set.  Let cookies cool on the pan for several minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe Source:  Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod 

Strawberry Cream Pie

Valentines Day is next week.  Did you know that?  I'm sure you did;  I'm sure everyone does.  I should have known that, but somehow it escaped my attention.  I don't know how that is possible, since everywhere I look its red velvet this, and heart shaped that (which I love!).  Not to mention, the fact that I do look at a calendar almost daily.  But somehow I just did not recognize that the big day of love is just over a week away.  Not that it matters much to me or my hubby.  Our first Valentine's Day as a married couple was an all out splurge.  We rented a hotel room (literally across the street from our tiny apartment), bought each other pricey and elaborate gifts, and splurged on a 3-course meal at the nicest restaurant in our hometown.  It took only one holiday like this to recognize that we were now sharing our money, and didn't quite have the cash in our meager student budget to do such crazy things.  After that, I can only remember bits and pieces of Valentine Day celebrations...like burgers from Burger King after a crazy day at work, or falling asleep on the couch while watching episodes of Seinfeld...you know, really romantic things like that.  So I'm not too concerned with the fact that Valentine's Day is creeping up on me, except for the fact that I have 3 lovely desserts that would be absolutely perfect for this cute little holiday that I need to share with you before then!  So I had better get to it!  And I will start with this wonderfully sweet concoction.  My husband put this in the top 3 desserts that I have ever made!  That is big.  It was so good and creamy and perfect in fact, that I actually made it twice in the same week!  We all loved it and I think it would be the perfect ending to any Valentine's Day dinner!  

Strawberry Cream Pie

1 cup (6 ounce) semisweet chocolate chips, divided

3 teaspoon shortening, divided

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 fat cream cheese both times)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 carton (8 ounce) frozen whipped topping, thawed

2 cups fresh strawberries, halved

1/2 cup seedless strawberry jam

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Spray a 9 or 10 inch Springform pan with cooking spray.  Combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a medium bowl and press into the springform pan.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.  I put mine in the freezer for about 5 minutes.  In a microwave, melt 3/4 cup chocolate chips and 2 teaspoons of shortening.  Stir until smooth.  Brush or spread over prepared crust.  Refrigerate until firm.

In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar, sour cream and vanilla until smooth.  Fold in the whipped topping.  Spoon into crust.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.  

Arrange strawberries over pie.  In a microwave, heat jam until melted.  Brush over the top of the strawberries and pie.  Melt remaining chocolate chips and shortening.  Stir until smooth.  Drizzle over pie (I melted mine in a plastic bag and then cut the corner off to make drizzling a cinch).  Refrigerate until chilled.  

Recipe Source:  Adapted from Taste of Home and Our Best Bites

I'm linking up at these great parties!

This recipe was featured!