Chocolate Ganache Cake

By Nilson

Ingredients

• CRUST:
• 2 1/2 cups pecans (toasted and sClightly cooled)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons salted butter, melted and cooled (plus extra if necessary)
• CHOCOLATE GANACHE FILLING:
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 16 ounces premium bittersweet chocolate (or about 2 1/3 cups of chocolate chips)
• OPTIONAL TOPPING:
• Fresh whipped cream, berries

Preparation

Step 1

CRUST: Preheat oven to 350°. Add pecans and sugar to food processor and mix until coarse like sand. Add melted butter through feed tube in a slow stream with the processor running, until all ingredients are moistened. Add additional tablespoon of butter if ingredients fail to stick together when pressed into pan. (You must check out what happened when I made this crust for the first time. The world’s most Horrible pecan’t crust.)
Press mixture firmly and evenly into the bottom and up the sides of a deep dish 9-inch tart pan or pie plate. Chill in freezer for 15 minutes. Bake for 12 -15 minutes or until crust is lightly toasted. Allow crust to cool while you make the ganache.
GANACHE: Place chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until it just begins to boil; remove from heat immediately and pour over chocolate. Wait 5 minutes then whisk/stir ganache into a smooth mixture.
Pour ganache into cooled crust. Refrigerate at least 2 hours to set. Remove from fridge and carefully remove tart from pan, placing on a serving plate. Allow ganache to soften slightly (15 to 20 minutes) before serving.

Chocolate notes… please try to use a premium brand of your choice, since chocolate is the star of the show. (Ghiradelli is sold in most stores, and you can always order Callebaut or Guittard online… or Valrhona. Wow… Valrhona.) This recipe makes a lot of ganache, which WILL firm up as it chills after you pour it into the crust. You can pour less into the tart if you want a less rich dessert (really?) and freeze the remainder of the ganache in a ziploc bag.
Pecans, huh? Yes, there is an extra layer of flavor intensity that goes along with the nut in the crust. Like I mentioned earlier, you can absolutely swap graham cracker crumbs instead (but use only a few tablespoons of sugar and up the graham cracker amount proportionately, since the cookies are already pretty sweet- and pre-bake for only 8 – 10 minutes). If you have a penchant for walnuts or any other nut, go to town and switch out the pecan. Chocolate is friendly with all nuts. It’s very agreeable that way.
Toasting the nuts is just an extra step that kicks a recipe up a notch. I toast them in the preheating oven so I don’t waste any time… just put them on a baking sheet or in a pan and let them toast for 8 minutes or so if the oven is already hot, or up to 15 if it’s still preheating. You want a lightly toasted nut that JUST starts to smell toasty… not charred and past the point of no return.
If caramel calls to you at night then you might want to pour some in the base of the cooled crust before you add the ganache. Now that I have put this thought in your head, you just might be compelled to do this- I understand. (Melt 25 – 30 squares of the little Kraft candy caramels with 2 tablespoons of water or milk in a small saucepan [or the microwave for 1 minute then in 30 second increments, stirring inbetween until melted]). Heavenly.
Garnish ideas: serve with fresh whipped cream, fresh berries, a few toasted pecans… whatever tickles your fancy (sorry- I hate that expression).
Store in the fridge and then enjoy by serving slightly closer to room temperature. Yes, this freezes well… which is great since you’ll want to steal a piece on a Monday night before bed when the Impossibly Healthy Banana Bread with Dark Chocolate Chunks you baked just won’t hit that sweet spot. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the healthy banana bread- it just doesn’t compare to chocolate and cream and pecans and sugar and butter, melded into one tart of glory.)