Joan Smith brought Castle Ridge Olive Oil to our 1st Annual Carmel Valley Olive Growers Festival! She has graciously shared some recipes with us and let's start with the best meal of any day: dessert!
Chocolate Ganache Dessert with Nut Crust
Nut crust for chocolate ganache
pie (may be used with pumpkin, fruit, lemon curd, or any other filling.)
1/3
C cashews (preferably raw)
1/3
C almonds (“)
1
C almond flour (or cashew flour, hazelnut flour, or regular flour)
1/3
C rapadura (or any raw sugar or regular sugar)
1/3 C coconut oil
½ t Vanilla
1/4 t salt
Place nuts in food processor and
process to medium (consistency of coarse ground coffee)
Add rapadura and flour and
process to mix. Add about half of the
coconut oil and process. Continue to add
oil until the mixture holds together and you could pat it down in a spring-form
pan (pan that allows you to remove the rim from the base - it makes it easier
to serve). Add vanilla and salt, process
for last time. Place crust mixture in
spring form pan evenly covering the base and teasing it up the sizes of the
pan. (I use a sandwich bag with my hand
inside to pat it down - it works without being sticky and shapes the crust more
easily.)
Bake in oven at 350 degrees for
about 10 minutes - check - if starting to brown - remove from oven. It will smell very nutty and buttery - yum!
While the nut crust is baking, prepare your Chocolate Ganache
1 C heavy cream (You may add some culinary lavender or a balsamic or fruit vinegar reduction.* If you are adding liquid, just reduce the cream amount by 2T and add that amount of syrup. It is fabulous!)
9 oz of chopped dark chocolate (Trader Joe’s dark chocolate bar is the absolute best flavor and least expensive!)
Gently warm the cream in a pan
on the stove, just until bubbles start to appear around the edge. Don’t boil it. But - if you do - just skim off top and use
it anyway. Chocolate makes things very
forgiving!
Remove from stove and place
chocolate in pan. Let it sit for a
couple of minutes and then start whisking the mixture. It will blend very quickly and you will have
a satiny chocolate ganache!
Pour the ganache over the baked
crust. Let it sit on cool counter to
firm up. If you want to hurry things
along you may chill it. When you chill
chocolate it loses the satiny shine on the top - but still tastes great.
Note: This pie can be frozen for later
use so make two if you want or make ahead for an party! - Once it is frozen,
defrost about one or two hours before the party - drizzle some caramel lines on
top and grate some chocolate on top or grate some nuts and it will be
gorgeous!
This
whole process takes me about 30 minutes to complete. Easy dessert and quite elegant to
serve. Be certain to serve very small
portions. Drizzle with Castle Ridge
Olive oil, balsamic syrup, and sea salt.
*Balsamic Vinegar reduction: Place ½ C of balsamic vinegar in small sauce
pan on low burner. Heat until it
starts to boil off. When it is reduced
down about half, you will have the consistency you need. At that point watch it because it can burn
quite quickly.
