Halloween Recipe: Chocolate and Espresso Terror-Misu

I love sugar.  Sugar makes me happy.  I also love death and destruction, so when I get an opportunity to combine those two loves into one wickedly amazing desert, I’m a happy demon.

While it’s still taboo for you mere mortals to use actual skulls to make your desserts, even I’ll admit I prefer using the chocolate version to the real thing.

Not only is this dessert relatively simple to make, it looks difficult enough and tastes delicious enough to warrant copious amounts of praise from anyone you deem worthy to share it with.  In fact, if you’re really looking for a dessert to take with you this holiday season, nothing says “Season’s Greetings” quite like Terror-misu, especially if you plop a festive red velvet Santa cap on top.  I’d even go so far as to say this desert is “heads” above the competition (ba-dum-tshhh!)

Bad jokes aside, this dessert is really, really good…and surprisingly not that hard to make.  So what are you waiting for?  Let’s get cooking!

CHOCOLATE SKULL:

• 6-10 oz White Chocolate or White Candy Melt
• ½ Teaspoon Espresso powder
• Large skull mold (while my mold is out of production now, there are lots of options available on Amazon.com including my favorite Nordic Ware skull pan which also makes amazing chocolate skulls.  Tutorial coming soon!)

Melt your white chocolate/candy melt by microwaving in short 20-30 second bursts in the microwave, stirring between each session.

Once melted, add in just a tiny shake of Espresso powder and mix to give the chocolate a light tan (bone) color and a little flavor.

Fill each half of your mold and tilt to coat.  Turn upside down over a piece of waxed paper and allow to drain and cool for at least 20 minutes.

Apply another coat of chocolate, again tilting to coat and turning upside down to drain.

Once your skull has fully cooled after the second coat, gently remove from your mold.

Set aside for now and let’s move onto the next steps.

THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS:

If you’d like to age your skull down and add some depth to it as well as a little more flavor, I like to paint mine using rum and cocoa powder as paint.   This step has the added bonus of giving you an excuse to drink the extra rum you end up with at the end of painting.  For this reason alone I suggest pouring yourself a fairly large glass.

COFFEE SIMPLE SYRUP

• 2 Tablespoons Espresso powder
• 1 Cup HOT water
• ¼ Cup Dark rum
• 2 Tablespoons sugar

In a small bowl combine your hot water and sugar and mix until all the sugar crystals are dissolved.  Add in your espresso powder and rum and mix to combine.  Set aside for now.

TERROR-MISU INNARDS (FILLING)

• 3 Egg yolks at room temperature
• ½ Cup Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons Dark Rum
• ¾ Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 Cup room temperature mascarpone cheese
• 15-20 Ladyfinger biscuits
• Coffee Simple Syrup

Place your egg yolks, sugar, and dark rum in a medium sized heat-proof bowl and set it over a saucepan of boiling hot water.

Make sure the bottom of your bowl is NOT touching the water.  Reduce your heat to medium/medium-low and begin whisking your mixture.  Whisk constantly until the mixture doubles in volume and fades from a dark golden color to a light almost white/yellow. It should be light and airy with a thick foamy texture.

Remove the mixture from heat and allow it to cool slightly (about 15 minutes).

While your egg yolk mixture is cooling, whip your heavy cream in a separate bowl until fully whipped and stiff peaks form.

Once your egg mixture has cooled for around 15 minutes, gently fold into your whipped cream in small batches and mix until smooth and fully incorporated.

To assemble your Terror-misu:

Using a piping bag, squeeze a thin layer of your filling cream into the bottom and sides of both halves of your chocolate skull.

Dip your ladyfingers into the coffee syrup one at a time very quickly (no more than a second or so as they will begin to dissolve if left in too long and you’ll be left with little more than a bowl of mushy goo) and press gently into the filling.  Feel free to break the cookies into smaller pieces to make fitting into the nooks and crannies of your chocolate skull possible.

Alternate your layers of cream and syrup soaked cookies until you’ve filled both halves of your skull with the mixture.

Once you get to the top edge of your skull halves, apply a final thin layer of cream to both halves of your skull.

Place the two halves (unassembled) onto a tray and pop into the fridge to cool and firm up for at least 30 minutes.

While your skull halves are chilling, melt about ½ an ounce of white chocolate.

After your skull halves have chilled for a half hour, remove from the fridge.

Working quickly, pipe a generous amount of white chocolate/candy melt around the edge of one of your skull halves.  Before it has a chance to cool, carefully line up your other skull half and press together tightly to create a seal.

Once the chocolate has cooled enough for you to be able to set it down without running the risk of it popping open, go over your seam again with even more white chocolate and press it flat using a knife or small spatula.  Allow to fully cool and harden.

If you find you have raised spots along your seam, gently flatten them using either a knife warmed over a candle or by gently scraping flat with the edge of a blade.

If you chose to embellish your skull using the cocoa and rum paint technique above, feel free to utilize it again at this point to help hide your seam.  Feel free to pour yourself more rum if you’ve already drunk your “paint water” from earlier.

Your Terror-Misu skull is now ready to serve!  Serve your skull cold.

I’ve found for dramatic effect as well as ease of slicing, a knife, heated over a blow torch or open flame not only looks bad ass, but slices through the chocolate of the skull with a satisfying hiss and relative ease.

https://videopress.com/embed/47qGYqFE?hd=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=0&loop=0

Before serving, dust each slice with additional cocoa powder and enjoy.

Your skull can be refrigerated for up to five days but I bet it doesn’t even last that long.  Yum…

Bone appetite!

 

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