chocolate dessert

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Last-minute holiday sweets: Easy desserts to pull together from stuff on hand

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Torta al Cioccolato — flourless chocolate cake — from ‘Via Carota’ cookbook comes together with butter, eggs and two bars of chocolate.

By Leslie Brenner

Got a couple of chocolate bars, four or five apples or a pack of sliced almonds? If so, with a couple pantry basics you can pull together a festive last-minute dessert that will dazzle and delight.

For those of us who resist planning ahead (it wasn’t our fault, right?!) I’ve pulled together a few of my favorite easy treats — including ways to adapt to what you have on hand.

A sumptuous torta al cioccolato

The magnificent flourless chocolate cake shown above, with its crackly crust and moist, rich center, can be yours if you’ve got half a dozen eggs, two 3.5-ounce chocolate bars, sugar, salt and cocoa powder or flour for dusting the pan.

Apple-Calvados (or -Brandy, -Rum, or -Whiskey) Cake

During apple season, I try to make sure I always have four or five apples on hand — first because I love eating them, but also in case I feel like baking up this easy beauty. Any kind of apples will do.

The cake evolved from a Dorie Greenspan recipe that called for rum. I love it with the French apple-brandy Calvados to double up on the apple flavor, but any kind of brandy (American apple-brandy, Spanish Brandy de Jerez, French Cognac or Armagnac, etc.), rum or even bourbon or other whiskey work, too. The types of flour you can use are flexible, as well.

Your Favorite Chocolate Mousse

Here’s a chocolate mousse you can make if you have two 3.5-ounce chocolate bars and four eggs. Flavor it however you like: with vanilla or almond extract, just about any kind of liqueur, or espresso. The garnish is a free-for-all, too.

Almond Tuiles

Got sliced almonds? Make these crisp and pretty almond tuiles — which are lovely on their own or serve with ice cream or cake.

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Luxuriously rich, easy-to-make, flourless Mexican-chocolate cake is blow-them-away fabulous

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It all started with a recipe in Michael Solomonov's Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking. The recipe, for a flourless chocolate cake – in which Solomonov and co-author Steven Cook use almond flour in place of wheat flour – is called "Chocolate-Almond Situation." I was drawn to the recipe because of its unusual name. Why "situation"?

Also, it looked so easy and good I couldn't resist. I melted chocolate, heated the oven, and went for it. 

Rich, luxurious and profoundly chocolatey, with a wonderfully moist, velvet-cream texture, the dessert was a big hit. And it was as easy to make as brownies. Another bonus: It's gluten-free. I posted a snap of it, with a description, on Instagram, tagged Solomonov and Zahav and added, "But still dying to know, Chef, why it's called a 'situation.'" 

"Gorgeous!" came the comment from Zahav. 

"Thank you!" I wrote. "Now why is it called a 'situation'?"

No answer. 

Meanwhile, I had an idea I couldn't get out of my head: Mexican chocolate. Wouldn't it be cool to make this cake using Mexican chocolate instead of regular dark chocolate? 

Last winter, my friend Michalene and I had enjoyed the most amazing Mexican hot chocolate at El Cardenal, a Mexico City restaurant known for its epic breakfasts. The drink, silky and incredibly rich, was prepared at the table by a waiter who used a molinillo, a traditional wooden chocolate whisk. I had to rush off early to catch my flight home, but Michalene surprised me by sending me a box of Doña Oliva chocolate tablets, which they use and sell at the restaurant. I was stunned to find that I could use a tablet to make a cup of chocolate almost as delicious as El Cardenal's; I've been rationing them ever since.

Since I'm always craving a cup, Mexican chocolate has been on my mind for months – especially since the start of winter. 

Could I maybe use the tablets to make a Mexican-Chocolate Situation? 

Nah...those tablets are too precious.

Meanwhile, I'd seen really cool-looking Taza organic Mexican-style stone-ground chocolate tablets at the supermarket. Maybe I could use those! But when I saw the price – they're $5 per 2.7-ounce tablet on the Taza website – I realized they'd be way too expensive, as we'd need four or five tablets for one cake.

Instead, I tried hunting down the Ibarra Mexican chocolate I grew up with. I didn't find it at my local supermarket, but found and purchased a box of Abuelita, another industrial brand.

What a disappointment: I brought it home and tasted it. It tasted nothing like chocolate. Just like sugar and chemicals. No way was this going into my cake (or yours). 

I was back to the drawing board.

Then, as she often does, Michalene came to the rescue. She suggested using the same high-quality 72% cacao chocolate I first used for the Situation and adding spices and other flavorings you'd find in Mexican chocolate. After all, I already had almonds in the almond flour. She suggested not just cinnamon and vanilla, which is what I'd naturally reach for, but also ancho chile powder and brandy. 

I made a couple other little tweaks to the recipe, for instance, changing the amount of chocolate to equal three 3.5 bars (10.5 ounces) rather than the 11 ounces the original called for. 

I whipped up the chocolate batter, added the ancho chile (just a touch), the cinnamon, the vanilla and brandy, mixed in the almond flour, spread it in a pan and baked.

Eureka! Same wonderful texture and richness, and now it had that dreamy Mexican chocolate flavor.

It was such a hit at dinner that one of my guests would not leave until I wrapped up two slices for him to take home.

You can bake it in a round pan and slice it into wedges, but be sure to make them small, as it is very, very rich. I'd say one 9-inch cake serves 10-12, rather than the 8 you'd expect. For an elegant dinner party, you might want to garnish it with a dollop of whipped cream, or whipped cream mixed with crème fraîche. You know what would be wonderful? Nata, the Mexican-style clotted cream El Cardenal serves at breakfast with the pan dulce known as a concha.

Or you can bake it in a square or pan and cut it into brownie-like bars. Dust them with powdered sugar or not, as you like. Honestly, they were so creamy, chocolatey and rich, they didn't need any adornment. 

Here's the recipe:

As for why it's called a "situation," well, that remains a mystery. Chef Solomonov, care to comment?