Perfect Chocolate Rasberry Tort

I’ve admitted that I’m not a baker, but every dog has its day. This recipe was the very first I’d ever entered in a dessert category of a large barbeque contest. Lightning definately struck because out of 78 teams, my creation was one of two ‘perfect’ scores that day. Since my score from the tie breaker judge was also perfect, my ‘tort’ won first place. It was a huge surprise, and serving cold glasses of milk with this rich, chocolate cake was a good move.

It all starts with two 99 cent boxes of cheap, supermarket brownie mix. Just get the store brand and don’t try to go gourmet on here. This will be a double layer cake, so make each box seperately in a spring form pan. The only adjustment to the recipe on the box is to replace the oil with applesauce. Plain applesauce is fine, but you could substitute with rasberry flavored applesauce if you wanted.

This cake can sit on a plate on its own, but my 1st place cake had pecans and dark chocolate chunks for a “crust” on the bottom. To put the cake on the nuts and chips while still warm will slightly melt the bottom layer to the crust.

Between the layers, add rasberry preserves… not jelly or jam. Again the supermarket brand will do fine. Straining the seeds is an optional step, but I hate crunching into rasberry seeds, so I remove them from the preserves. Strawberry preserves would also work well. Cherry will add a Black Forest feel to this cake. Add the second cake layer onto the preserves.

The ‘frosting’ is a rich layer of dark chocolate. In a double boiler, melt a package of Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Chips with a stick of sweet cream butter. Pour the melted dark chocolate over the cake. It will seek its own level and spill over the cake. Don’t try too hard to frost this cake with a knife. Just let it find its own way.

Its fairly simple and very, very rich. A small piece goes a long way and will be begging for a glass of milk.