Way Better than an Oreo

My inspiration for this desert was imagining; What if the Oreo had, like a rich uncle? I tasted the individual parts of this as it went together but I let my wife, a dancer, and her dancer friend demolish this after a performance. Upon tasting the rubble that was left behind, I wish I had put myself on the demolition crew.


First, I made a very stiff chocolate ganache. I took a Swedish, dark chocolate candy bar and melted it in a pan on very low heat. I mixed in a little bit of heavy cream, about a 4:1 ratio, chocolate:cream. This rendered me a chocolate dough. I rolled and pressed it between wax paper, cut with a forming ring and threw it in the freezer to cool.

The filling is 12 oz of heavy cream, 2 oz of orange juice and 2 cups of confectioner's sugar. I was a pastry chef for a while. I have a tip that I would have killed for when I started: Before making your own whipped cream, fill the mixing bowl with ice water first, get it good and cold, dump out the ice water and dry the bowl quickly. Now, pour in your cream, turn the whisk on high until you have bubbles and some stiffness starting. Now incorporate your sugar 1/2 cup at a time, whisking in on medium. Since orange juice is high in acid and cream is high in fat, incorporate your juice after you have a good stiff filling. What you should have now is a very light, semi-sweet, barely-orange whipped cream.

What I didn't realize until after the girls tore down the walls and hauled most of the rubble away, was that the ultra dark chocolate and the ultra light cream were amazing opposites. Like an Oreo, but way better, the wafer was almost pure cocoa. When you get a good dark chocolate, it is like a fine wine. There is a complexity that is present. The range of flavors in this was amazing. The acid in the orange brought out the berry flavors in the cocoa bean. The milk fat in the cream hydrated the chocolate and opened up its own oils and the sugar supported the bitter flavors from the roasting process.

$1.80 per serving. Cheap even for Tinpot's standards. I am sure the chocolate has something good in it, like ummm, antioxidants? The cream... The cream has calcium. Highly-satisfying. Semi-sweet.