Chocolate Terrine

In preparation for celebrating New Year's Eve, I made a chocolate and vanilla terrine. A terrine is so called after the earthenware dish is it cooked/made in, and is not a specific type of dish. I've never made a terrine before, although I have made a layered chocolate mousse, and would be quite interested to make a meaty one that needs to be cooked.

The technique for the terrine was fairly straightforward, and was nothing I hadn't done before. As I had a lot going on, it was a bit chaotic in the kitchen, so I messed up some stuff that I really shouldn't have.

The tin wasn't lined too well, so the outside of the terrine had lots of wrinkles and cracks in it. Luckily once it was sliced these didn't show up too much. The second accident was while making the white chocolate mousse, I accidentally let the pan boil dry under the melting chocolate, which melted the side of my mixing bowl! Luckily I caught it before the plastic got through to the chocolate, so the damage to the bowl is only cosmetic. I had to reheat half the dark chocolate mix to top off the terrine, and I did it in the microwave as the mixing bowl was in use elsewhere. I think I must have overheated it a bit, as when I ate a slice this evening it was grainy. It wasn't too bad, but when you compared it to the other dark chocolate layer it had a noticeably different texture, despite being from the same original bowl of chocolate. Lastly, I forgot to bring a whisk with me, and T's kitchen is (in my opinion) not the best equipped! I think if I'd been able to whip the cream rather than just pouring it in straight from the carton it would have been a more stable product.

Despite these setbacks, the final dish was quite tasty and I've eaten a couple of slices already!