Martha Stewart has a serious love for desserts, and in this video, we’re highlighting her all-time favorite sweet treats! From perfectly baked cakes to silky smooth custards and classic cookies, these are the recipes she likes most.
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00:00The dark, rich flavors of a semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate, rum, and espresso
00:07mingle wonderfully in this moist, flourless chocolate cake.
00:11I like to call it the Roberta Heart.
00:13It's named for my old friend Roberta Kins,
00:16who once made 38 of these in one day for one of my catering jobs.
00:21After you see how easy it is to make, you'll understand how she could make so many.
00:26First thing to do is to melt the chocolate,
00:29and we use one and a half tablespoons of espresso powder in six tablespoons of hot water.
00:36Stir that well and add that to 21 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate,
00:44which had been broken up, and three ounces of unsweetened chocolate,
00:49just to add a little bit more depth of flavor.
00:52Put this over simmering water, so you've simulated a bain-marie,
00:56and stir it every so often until it melts smooth and glossy.
01:02Six tablespoons of dark rum added to your chocolate.
01:07Semi-sweet chocolate contains 60% chocolate liquor and 40% sugar,
01:12so let that sit there and melt just by itself.
01:16And now into nine large eggs, add three quarters of a cup of granulated sugar,
01:23and whisk all together.
01:28And then you're going to heat this also over simmering water until all the sugar is dissolved.
01:35You're going to beat it until it's light and frothy, so just put your bowl right over simmering water.
01:42So we have the eggs warming, we have our chocolates melting.
01:46Now this is heavy cream, one and a half cups with a tablespoon of sugar,
01:51and about a tablespoon of vanilla.
01:54This is whipped to a nice stiffness, and this is going to be folded into the whole thing
01:59before we bake the Roberta Heart.
02:03I think the sugar is completely dissolved, and now we can whip this on our stand mixer
02:09until it's light and frothy.
02:14This has to beat for approximately five minutes.
02:19So look what's happened to our eggs. It has tripled in volume.
02:25And I'm going to add chocolate.
02:30So this is like a cake when it's finally finished without any flour.
02:35This was one of our most popular and most asked-for desserts when I ran my catering business,
02:42which was called the Uncatered Affair, the idea being that a hostess never had to say
02:48who had done all the cooking.
02:50And now fold in your whipped cream.
02:54Okay, so I can now pour this into our prepared pan.
02:58This is a 10-by-2-inch heart, buttered and then lined with parchment paper,
03:03and then everything is buttered again.
03:05Make sure you've preheated your oven to 350 degrees.
03:10Now carefully place this in your roasting pan at least two inches deep.
03:16This is going to be a water bath.
03:18Put boiling water so it comes about an inch up the pan,
03:22and then pop it into the oven for approximately one hour
03:26until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
03:29When it comes out of the oven, let it cool in the water bath.
03:33When it is cool, refrigerate overnight.
03:36To release it from the pan, just put it back in a little bit of warm water
03:41and have your serving pedestal ready and some nicely whipped sweetened cream.
03:47If it's not releasing, you might loosen around the edges with a sharp knife, just the point,
03:53and then try again.
03:55Keeping your cool in the kitchen is extremely important.
04:00So now invert your platter over the heart.
04:05Ah! How beautiful.
04:09And now remove the parchment from around the perimeter of your heart.
04:15See how moist and chocolatey and gorgeous this is?
04:19Just brush away any crumbs.
04:23I'm going to pipe a beautiful ruffled edge all the way around with whipped cream,
04:28and then you can embellish your top and go in the opposite direction.
04:34So here you have a Roberta heart.
04:37So chocolatey, this will win the hearts of all your chocolate lovers.
04:41This is a very light and delicate confection.
04:44It's a cross between a donut and a cookie.
04:47Rosettes are called struvor in their native Sweden.
04:50When dusted with confectioner's sugar, these delicate lacy treats are the ideal valentine for your sweetheart.
04:56And they're made with something called a rosette iron.
05:00Let me show you how to make them.
05:03I will resist eating one right now.
05:07The batter's really easy.
05:09To one cup of milk, I'm going to add the seeds from one vanilla bean.
05:14Now you pull this apart, and all those thousands and thousands of seeds
05:21are right here along the surface exposed to view.
05:27That's vanilla bean seeds.
05:30Whisk this up a little bit.
05:33You want to break up those seeds.
05:36Now beat two egg yolks just lightly in another bowl.
05:44Add your milk and vanilla bean to one cup of flour.
05:48But before we do that, we want to add three tablespoons of granulated sugar to the flour.
05:52This is one and a half cups of flour.
05:55So we want three tablespoons of sugar.
05:58A half a teaspoon of salt.
06:03I'm using just kosher salt.
06:05And cardamom. You need a half a teaspoon of cardamom.
06:08And we learned from Beatrice Ojakangas, the wonderful, wonderful Scandinavian baker,
06:15that cardamom is widely used in Scandinavian desserts.
06:19I love the flavor of it.
06:21Now use your whisk to kind of sift your dry ingredients.
06:26This is a good way to really mix it without sifting.
06:31And add your milk and vanilla bean.
06:36You can see, look at all those seeds. They're just the greatest.
06:40Now make sure you scrape all of this into your batter.
06:45And you're going to add to the batter your two slightly beaten egg yolks.
06:52Now I have my rosette iron heating in canola oil, which is heated on the stove to 375 degrees.
07:00Now, very important step.
07:03Let this batter sit in the refrigerator covered for 30 minutes.
07:08Very important to rest the batter.
07:11We will use a batter that's already been sitting in the refrigerator.
07:17Now the iron is very hot.
07:20Just dry it off a little bit on a paper towel.
07:24Make sure the oil is maintained at a high heat.
07:28Now dip this carefully into your batter, only to the top edge.
07:35You don't want to go over the top of your iron.
07:39And put this all the way down.
07:41Submerge it down to the bottom and cook the rosette until it's lightly browned.
07:45This is going to take about a minute and a half.
07:48So if you really want to make a lot of these, it's a good idea to get more than one iron.
07:53And look, there is your beautiful rosette.
07:58Now just very carefully pull it off the iron.
08:03You have to be careful, and you have to do this quickly while it's still warm.
08:07A fork will help you extricate the iron.
08:10There it goes.
08:11And now just repeat the process.
08:15And if you don't drop a lot of batter into this beautiful oil, you can use the oil for quite a long time.
08:21You can buy a set of four irons in two shapes from our catalog, Martha by Mail, for $38.
08:27And best of all, the little rosette irons come with a foolproof recipe, this particular recipe.
08:34If your beautiful rosettes have blisters, the eggs are too frothy.
08:38To fix it, just stir the batter until the bubbles disappear.
08:41It has to be really thick, heavy-looking batter, even though it's light as a feather when it's cooked in the rosette.
08:50If they're not crisp, well, there's only one reason for that, and that's because they haven't been cooked enough.
08:56And if they're too brown, the oil is too hot.
08:59And now to embellish, a light sprinkling of confectioner's sugar.
09:06And do this on the open side.
09:10And then stack on a pretty plate or a pedestal.
09:14I love these pale pink pedestals for this.
09:18And you have a light and airy confection, a heart rosette.
09:25This makes about three dozen cookies of the week.
09:31Happy Valentine's Day.
09:34Have you ever made pot de creme?
09:36This is an old-fashioned French baked custard dessert that translates to pots of cream.
09:42And the term pots of cream also refers to small lidded pots that it's traditionally served in.
09:49Now, these are chocolate pot de creme, and I have six ounces of semi-sweet chocolate on the board.
09:55And notice I'm using a serrated knife to cut the chocolate very easily into small pieces.
10:03Always use a serrated knife to do this.
10:06We have two and a half cups of heavy cream brought to a boil.
10:09Add to that some espresso powder, two teaspoons.
10:14Now, espresso powder is not ground up coffee beans.
10:19Espresso powder is espresso coffee dehydrated into crystals and very, very finely ground.
10:26So when reconstituted in a liquid, it gives that really strong, delicious espresso flavoring.
10:32And one teaspoon of vanilla extract.
10:38And right into the cream, add your six ounces of semi-sweet chocolate.
10:43Use the best chocolate you can find.
10:47We generally use a French or Belgian chocolate.
10:51Just stir that up a little bit.
10:53Let it sit until the chocolate is completely softened.
10:57So now we'll get our eggs ready for the pot de creme.
11:00We need four large egg yolks.
11:03So have a little bowl to collect the whites.
11:08And the fresher the eggs, the better, of course.
11:13Beautiful, beautiful eggs.
11:22Stir the egg yolks, breaking them with a wire whisk.
11:29Add a fourth of a teaspoon of salt and four teaspoons of granulated sugar.
11:37You can use extra fine or regular granulated.
11:49Now, here is your chocolate.
11:55Whisk that up. It's completely melted.
11:59And now we have to temper the egg yolks with the cream.
12:03So pour a little bit of the hot chocolate into the egg yolks.
12:12Bringing the egg yolks up to temperature. You don't want to cook the egg yolks.
12:17So you see I'm adding the hot chocolatey cream slowly so that I do not cook those egg yolks.
12:24Just tempering them.
12:27And now the custard is ready to strain and put into the little pots, the little pot.
12:33So now just put this mixture right through a very fine sieve to get out any possible lumps.
12:48And this will make a gossamer pudding.
12:53And now we're using these very cute little ovenproof glass cups that I'm going to cook the pot de creme in.
13:00And I've put a terry towel in the bottom of this roasting pan just to keep the cups from shaking while they're in the oven.
13:09And I have some hot water boiling right here. That's going to make the bain-marie.
13:14Now pour your boiling water next to, around, and up the sides of the little cups.
13:22And now it's optional whether you want to cover your custards or not.
13:25I like to cover them just with a piece of parchment paper like this.
13:30Transfer this into a 325 degree preheated oven.
13:34It's going to take around 35 to 40 minutes, so set your timer.
13:40So once the puddings are out of the oven and nicely cooled, top them with a nice spiral of whipped cream like that.
13:50Make sure that you cool the puddings, the pot de creme, and refrigerate for a couple hours before serving.
13:58These are gorgeous, a delicious end to any meal.