Project Chocolate Cake - Final Reflections (PM)

Whoa! Mate, I think you may be onto something.

First, some final reflections on Nigella's cake:
-Like K and the D.Leb cake, after eating a few more slices of Nigella's cake my affection for it grew.
-Every time I got a bit of icing on my finger and then licked it off I was blown away by it's deliciousness. Try that icing you guys! But on a different cake.
-My mum told me the cake was delicious. "Don't you think the icing made it too sweet?" I asked her, but she just looked dubious and as if she just thought it was a really good cake. But I think she really likes chocolate cake a lot.

But I've been thinking things too, and I think that K is right. Think about any chocolate cake you have eaten in the last 15 years. Think about the ones about which you have declared, "Far out, this is delicious." What were those cakes like? Super chocolatey, probably rich, probably fudgy. Not at all like the straight up cake of childhood, which is kind of what I was hoping I would be able to make and would be delicious. Sure, that may be possible if you are living in a fool's paradise. But I'm living in a gangsta's paradise. Or something.

Project Chocolate Cake - the matrix

So you guys, we made a chocolate cake matrix. You can check it out for reals here! Basically we broke down seven recipes we were interested in as previously reported.

The recipe were:
Dan Lepard's sour cream chocolate cake
David Lebovitz's devil's food cake
Felicity Cloake's perfect chocolate cake
Nigella's old fashioned chocolate cake
Smitten Kitchen's everyday chocolate cake
Add A Pinch's best chocolate cake ever
Skye Gyngell's chocolate cake

J:  Ok, so looking at the matrix what are your initial thoughts?

K:  Ok, the first thing that comes to my mind is...I don't think I'm pro-oil in a chocolate cake. That's seriously the first thing that comes to mind for me. What's your oil position?

J:  Interesting. I don't mind that so much. I mean, sure, butter is great, but I quite like the texture that oil gives cake. I guess my first thought is that lots of fat really makes cake moist and delicious, and I guess I have been trying to figure out what the most important factor is for me. Though I guess there is no single factor

K: Fat has got to be up there. It's got to be way up there. And personally I think some actual chocolate is important. But the fact that only three of seven recipes has real chocolate makes me think that it's not essential for chocolate flavour. I think one of us should make a recipe with chocolate and one without...

J:  You know I was thinking about this recently. As in every day this week. I don't think chocolate is necessary at all. For a brownie that requires fudgeyness, YES! But for cake, no. I make this self-saucing chocolate pudding from Te Cooks Companion sometimes with just cocoa and it is so chocolatey and delicious! I make chocolate ice-cream with just cocoa. I think that chocolate in a cake of the everyday variety I am after is not necessary and I am more than happy to make one.

K: Ok excellent. Let's put this shit to the test.  I agree with you about the chocolateyness of self-saucing pudding, and that has no chocolate anywhere near it. That makes me think that maybe chocolate cake doesn't need it, and it's just my perception that it does. And obviously when the doors of perception are cleansed we can see things as they really are. Or whatever.

Let's talk sugar. Are you a caster, white or brown girl?

J:  Well, I like the depth of flavour of brown sugar, obvs, but to be honest when it comes to baking I just use whatever I am told to or whatever I have on hand, I tend to feel that when you bake the subtletly of sugar flavour is lost so it doesn't matter. But maybe I am wrong. Shit, am I wrong? On the sugar vibe though I have to say that my main concern when I look at the matrix is the fucking quantity! 400grams! 320 grams! These people are kidding me.

K:  I agree. There are some real sugar fiends out there. They need to lay of the gear.

J:  Yeah, I confess that when following American recipes I usually use about 75% of their recommended dosage.

K:  Smart.

What are your thoughts about additions like coffee and vanilla? I suspect these are the sorts of flavours that aren't meant to be noticed, but to make the chocolate aspect taste more chocolatey.

J:  Yes I agree and I am all for it!

K:  Ok great. Should we try one recipe with and one without?

J:  Almost all the recipes have at least one of them. Let's not limit ourselves on this factor. Is there a recipe you are most drawn to? And if yes, is it based on the matrix do you think, or your first contact with it?

K:  The Felicity Cloake one was my initial favourite, but that's largely a first contact interest. I still like what it's got to offer. Chocolate. Butter. Muscovado sugar. Milk. I like the way it's described as light enough for tea but rich enough for dessert. But when you look at it alongside the others, it does seem like it would be awfully rich. What do you think?

J:  Yeah, it would probably be delicious, but also very rich, definitely. I was quite attracted to the Nigella one at first, the simplicity, plus my love of her chocolate molten babycakes. But when I look at that in the matrix and see how little cocoa it has compared to the others it looks awfully unchocolatey.

K:  It sure does. You know, we don't have to be slaves to these recipes. I mean, we've already learnt some things from the matrix. You could double the cocoa in the Nigella cake and see what happens. Or, what about the David Lebovitz cake? I think that one's got a lot of potential.

J:  Definitely. First, I totally trust that guy! Second, I like how it has all the necessary components in respectable quantities (compared to the others). Plenty of cocoa, enough fat, not stupid amounts of sugar. DL knows whats what, yo!

K:  For real. And speaking of not stupid amounts of sugar, Dan Lepard has a very reasonable amount in his cake. But a fair whack of honey. And very little cocoa. But a little chocolate. I wonder what it would be like...

J:  Yeah, it's true, it has some interesting things going on, but I have to say the picture doesn't crab me like some of the others do. Ok, are we going to base our baking on the matrix only? Should we, for science?

 

K:  Haha. Crab  you.

J:  Grab me! I wish I'd intentionally said crab me!

K:  Oh well. What are you thinking of basing the baking on, outside the matrix?

J:  Oh, I just mean, can pictures come into it?

K:  Oh, sure. Sure they can! We're here for a good time, not a long time Mate. We would be fools to ignore an important source of evidence like pictures.

J:  Ok, still I don't know. I think one of us should definitely try David Lebovitz's cake.

K:  Agreed. Should we dismiss Smitten Kitchen and Skye Gyngell due to too much sugar?

J:  Yes, I think so. Also the Add a Pinch one. Too much sugar. I don't even know that website. I just know I liked the look of that cake.

The cake from 'Add a Pinch'. Looks good, right?

K:  Shit. That looks hot. I'm hoping that David Leb's looks like that inside. Though these photos are just a big tease. Cakes, like people, need to be judged by what's on the inside, am I right?

J:  So right! I was pretty disappointed by DL's lack of photographic evidence. Lucky I have evidence that he knows how to cook.

K:  He really, really does.

J:  But where does that leave us? I guess with Nigella and Dan. I guess Dan's has more of a point of difference to DL's but Nigella...I find her hard to dismiss.

K:  The woman's got game. It can't be ignored. What about Nigella with extra cocoa?

J:  Ok, let's do that. Do you want to do David and I will do Nigells. But I am not going to up the chocolate too much, because I am curious about whether she could be right about it. Maybe I'll go up to 65g.

Or 80g.

K:  Ha.

Next week: The cake!

Project Chocolate Cake - the beginning.

This week, K and I are gonna get experimental on yo' asses. K's gonna start explaining.
 
K: The other day, I was looking for a chocolate brownie recipe. Now I like my brownie to be fudgey, not cakey. But if there is a slight hint of cakey - only very slight - well that's OK by me. However, while I know this is how I like my brownie to taste, I can't look at a recipe and figure out whether that's going to deliver me the right kind of brownie for me. The way people talk about their brownies helps. Some would come right out and say "this is a very fudgey brownie". And then I could look at the ingredients and figure out why. But you know how it is...there are so many goddamn recipes out there and you start to get mixed up and really hungry and sooner or later you just make a call. Anyway, the other day I wrote down a matrix with all the key brownie ingredients on one side, and all the different brownie recipes I liked the look of up to the top. Then I filled in all the details and it was a goddamned revelation. Soon, it became quite clear that there was no effing way I was going to pursue the recipe with HALF the chocolate of most of them, or the one with TWICE the sugar of most of them. It was very, very educational. I could easily see which recipe had the most butter/chocolate/eggs etc., which, when considered alongside the recipes' descriptions of how fudgey or cakey or whatever the brownie is, I could start to figure out why.


Of course I could only pick one, but there were some others that I really wanted to try too. That's when I thought that maybe we could use this system to find perfect recipes for other things. We could nominate some recipes we like the look of, then draw up a matrix...

J: Well, a while ago I was interested in finding a great, go-to chocolate cake recipe and I am still very much am interested in that…

K: I'm glad you're open to comparative baking experiments. And like you, I would love a basic go-to chocolate cake so it makes sense that we try that.


J: You know I have this problem generally that although I know everyone has different feelings and opinions to me, my first reaction is to interpret everything through my own beliefs. Like if I read a recipe for "best brownies" I assume they will be fudgey and crackly on top and delicious but of course the author may have totally different feelings about brownies. Of course if there is more information I can interpret that but without it I just assume the world would do and want as I do.

I'm definitely into using chocolate cake to experiment with. It's hard though, you know, like Deb has this light, airy, cake which is delicious, but is that what I want as my number 1 cake recipe? I think I want a denser one. All good chocolate cake is delicious in its own way, but I guess I need to figure out what I am really looking for.
 
K: That's right! I think we all read what we want to read in to recipes. And without proper baking knowledge, it's hard to read a recipe and see how it is going to make a brownie fudgey in the middle and crackly on top. So we rely on words like 'best' and get excited, sometimes for no reason at all. Obviously baking more is a way around this. But I want to bake more + understand more and do so in a systematic way. Rely less on the words and more on an ability to read a list of ingredients and a method and be able to think well, I can imagine how those babies will turn out and I'm interested. 
And as for chocolate cake, I think the things you raise are absolutely important for finding the right recipe. What we are looking for in a go-to chocolate cake? Because if we don't know what we are looking for, then how will we know when we get there? Huh?

And of course, we don't need to be looking for the same thing necessarily. Though I think in this case we will be.

Ok, my situation, for me: I don't want a chocolate cake that is too light and airy, and nor do I want a chocolate cake that is too heavy and dense. I want something that is in between. This is not something that is easy to come across. So often, chocolate cakes swing towards the super duper decadent. That ain’t right for me. Because it basically means that it is only OK to have it as dessert. And if I want a chocolate dessert, there are so many places I can go. Chocolate tart, chocolate mousse, chocolate gelati, chocolate self-saucing pudding. But cake, man. Cake is for the afternoon. Not exclusively, obviously. But it needs to be something that will be right at home in the afternoon. That is cake's time to shine, in my opinion.  I guess that's why they so often swing in the other direction, to light and airy town, where I assume cocoa is what gives it the chocolate flavour. But that's not right for me either.  If chocolate is involved, then I want it to get out front and centre.

But, and here's the tricky thing, I still want it to be cake. Not chocolate mousse, or tart or what have you. I want it to be cake.

This picture from the internet looks like a good solid chocolate cake

J:  I totally agree about the cake. That airy cake of Deb's is from a Swiss roll or cream layer cake recipe. And it is great like that, and i think would be great on its own, but on its own I'd probably have to eat half of it to get my chocolate fill. I think we are really after the same thing here. Something quite chocolatey, not a fudge packer, but with a hint of fudgeyness. But really, just a good chocolatey cake. With a nice crumb (whatever that means), moist, great with tea in the afternoon, enough to satisfy a chocolate craving and cake craving. Chocolate cake!

I am really looking forward to this experiment!

K: I think we are totally looking for the same thing, which is going to make it a particularly useful experiment. I'm really excited too. I'm going to start looking up recipes and start a matrix! 

Woot!

Yum things! (AM)

You know, K and I love to cook. To try new things, make classics - we love it all. And we are pretty good at it. Why shouldn't you guys benefit from that? But it has been really hot lately. And I was on holidays. I have made about three real dinners in the last 2 weeks.

Dinners I have eaten in the last week include:

Pizza
A salad sandwich
Indian takeaway
The tiniest amount of left over Indian takeaway to which I added a boiled egg



It's getting pretty desperate. But the lunches are worse. Some days I just eat a carrot. But yesterday I did something special. Really special. The hippy version of peanut butter and Nutella, nut spread and coconut chocolate butter. But far from being some pale imitation, the spread equivalent of carob to chocolate, this was the richest, creamiest deliciousest way to spread things on a bread.

Now I keep thinking about other things I could spread this combo on. Pancakes! Banana bread! Probably putting both these things on anything but the plainest old bread is unneccesary, but I like to think of the possibilities. Probably making salted caramel brownies is unnessary too but check out these bad boys. I can not wait to make the hell out of them. Gonna eat 'em too!

One track mind (AM)

There was a time in my life (a time when I worked a 40-hour week in a boring job) when I thought about little else than what I was going to have for dinner that night. By 11am I would have already decided on lunch and was contemplating, probably settling on dinner. I guess you could say that I still think about food a lot, and eat a lot, and cook a lot. But I guess things have changed.

You see readers, in our late-hiatus Miss Soft Crab meeting, a really productive meeting held over butter slathered roti and Asahi, K and I decided that we would dedicate a day to food every week here. We'd talk about stuff we'd cooked, stuff we'd eaten, stuff we'd thought about cooking or eating. You know food. But shit you guys, I've been busy. I know it was only two days ago that I told you all what a relaxing break I've had. But things have changed guys, I went back to work, then I had to plan a holiday that includes going to a wedding. These are difficult and time consuming things. And right now, right now while you are reading this, well I'm in Queensland. I'm on that holiday! And there is only one thing I can think about eating.

I had actually forgotten about this until LB mentioned it the other day, but in Queensland and northern NSW you can go to fruit farms or road stops and buy chocolate-covered frozen bananas. And since LB mentioned this I have thought of little else.

We only got here last night, and so I haven't eaten one yet, but as soon as we get in the car to head south I'm stopping at the first chocolate banana stand I see.

Maybe we'll hit Wet 'N' Wild first, or a beach, see some beautiful countryside. I don't know yet. But what I do know is that I better have a banana in my hand come the end of the day.

Are they even that good? I don't know. Maybe I just like them because they speak of the tropical north and early holidays LB and I took. I don't know, I don't care, I just want me a banana!

Haiku Thursday (PM)

Things aren't always as they seem 

I

Don't pretend to be

Something you are not, carob

You aren't chocolate

II

What are pieties?

Are they the gods of the pies?

I could worship them

Baking failures hurt so bad (PM)

Gosh, I’m sorry your cake was such a disaster! It had so much promise. Didn’t’ we all though, ay?

You know from that picture you really can’t tell that just a little earlier that cake had been a lumpy, sloppy, marscapone mess. It looks fine. Just a little nude. Not that the giant candle is doing it any favours. I’m sure that it's not just me that thinks that large, lone, out-of-context poles/pole-like things seem phallic in a way that in-context poles/pole-like things don’t.

Funnily enough the birthday cake I made for my mother’s birthday last month was also mildly disastrous.  I tried to make this chocolate roll cake. I don’t know if you can be bothered reading a whole other blog post when you’ve got my awesome post right here to read, so I’ll just tell you that basically what the writer, Deb, says is that she has found a great way to ensure that you can roll this cake without breakages. The truth was I didn’t fully trust her and would have made a layer cake if I had more than one round cake tin. But I had no choice. I had to roll.

So I rolled the fresh from the oven cake with cocoa in a tea towel and when I unravelled it cracks galore! But what could I do?! I had to re-roll it with the whipped cream and raspberry as per my original vision because otherwise I just would have a collection of broken bits of cake. Here is out it turned out:

Thanks for nothing, Deb! (Except for a delicious light beautiful chocolate cake recipe that I will totally make again in layers. And frankly I can't freaking wait!)

Forget you Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry

Mate! I am so happy you took the bullet for us all on this one.

I like a cherry ripe too and I have to confess when I saw this in the supermarket I was more than a little intrigued. Mainly because I didn't really read the wrapper and just saw 'dark' written on that dark wrapper. Of course this made me think of dark chocolate, my favorite kind of chocolate. But if I'd thought a little more I'd have realised this couldn't be right because Cherry Ripe already has dark chocolate! That's why I like it so much.

I guess Mr Cherry Ripe was just seeing that the other chocolate bars were evolving and wanted a piece of the action. I guess he thought adding nuts wasn't right and didn't know where else to go. I guess that's why he invented this 'dark cherry'. He should have thought about adding a different fruit! Orange! Or berries!

What a waste!

Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry: The Miss Soft Crab Review

I quite like a Cherry Ripe.

Not enough to go out and buy one, mind you, but if someone put one in my mouth, I would totally eat it. Now, the world has given us the Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry.

Do we need Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry? I wouldn't have thought so. Is there even any opportunity for innovation in the Cherry Ripe space? Again. I wouldn't have thought so, but I guess the folks at head office thought differently. But really, who am I to argue with what is undoubtedly the result of years and years of market research and laboratory testing? Mine is not to question why. The fact is, Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry does exist, and what's left for me is to discover whether it is worth a damn and communicate my views to the Miss Soft Crab community. Lets do that, shall we?

This is what Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry looks like. So far so BORING, right?

I bit in to it and immediately realised that I was totally right about it not needing to exist. But just to be sure, I took a few more bites until it looked like this:

Suspicions confirmed, people. It tastes even more fake than your typical Cherry Ripe. Instead of tasting like sugar, coconut and fake cherry flavour, the Cherry Ripe Dark Cherry tastes like sugar, coconut and the fake cherry flavour you get in some over-the-counter cough medicines. I know, because I ate the whole thing and I started to crave some flat lemonade to make the taste go away.

Now we all know. Don't bother, readers.

Haiku Thursday Pt 2

Thursday
Sometimes you, Thursday,
Mean Szechuan for lunch. These are
The best Thursdays. Yes.

Porridge
I love you always
With apple With cinnamon
Porridge I love you

Blow out
Just five minutes and
My hair looks so much better
Should blow dry always

Chocolate molten babycakes
Babycakes, you changed
everything. I can't stop
thinking about you

Of course there is nothing wrong with taking style cues from chocolate!

Hershey bars are really stylish, aren't they?

Handsome. No-nonsense. These are good things to be.

You know, I once saw a documentary about how the Hershey company were responsible for making all the chocolate bars for the American Army during WWII. They had scientists working around the clock to develop a formula that was inexpensive to manufacture but also heat resistant so the chocolate wouldn't melt in the pockets of the American GIs. They also had to wrap it in poisonous gas-proof wrapping. Anyway, the documentary was chocker-block (ha!) with images of handsome American GIs eating Hershey's chocolate. I didn't mind. Now, whenever I see the Hershey bar I picture WWII era American GIs. I don't mind.

But back to chocolate-as-style-inspiration. I say go for it. Make that Ritter Rum Raison happen all over your body!

I'm quite drawn to the style of Easter favourite, the Elegant Rabbit. I like how jaunty s/he is. I like how the Elegant Rabbit isn't elegant at all, and Elegant Rabbit doesn't care! Look at his/her face. Is that the face of a rabbit that gives a hoot what you think?


S/he is just doing whatever s/he wants and s/he is loving it.

I guess it's Elegant Rabbit's attitude I like, rather than style. But I associate the style with the attitude, so now I just like the whole package.

And I want to eat him/her.

Chocolate bar as style inspiration - Is it wrong?

So the other day I was at The Coffee Company buying some coffee. As I was standing at the counter I saw some Ritter Sports. They were in a red packet and I fell in love with that packet. I only really saw the top of it, I don't even know what flavour it was but the thing was that it didn't make me want to eat chocolate it made me want to dress in a way I can only describe as yacht owner chic. This is basically a more mature take on one of the preferred styles of my mid-twenties, nautical.

It's possible that it was marzipan Ritter Sport
But I prefer to think that it was rum and raisin because I just don't think that marzipan could conjure the sort of yearnings in me that this packaging did.


Yacht fashion is a more preppy, rich person's version of nautical and needn't always include strictly nautical themes. It's a little more subtle. It would have lots of blue and white of course, with highlights of red, but would be wider than that, incorporating other colours, mainly pastel and would basically mean I would dress as if I summered on the Mediterranean. Perhaps this is just about wanting to be rich and summering on the Mediterranean?

I mean, for God's sakes. It is the middle of winter. If anything I should be dressing like a Snickers or Mars Bar wrapper. But look at that Mars font. That could never inspire any kind of fashion related feelings in me.

For a minute I thought the colours of Crunchie may be appropriate for winter fashions. But look what these wrappers look like:

DISGUSTING! No wonder I don't buy chocolate bars.

I guess it is hardly surprising that it took a European chocolate to make me think about style. Thank you Germans! Though if I am honest, while Australian chocolate packaging blows and most American chocolate bars are similarly unattractive, the Hershey's chocolate bar has a classic look that could work this winter. Brown knits with white or cream highlights. That could definitely work.

The wonders of the world

I feel like this weekend was so rich. The world was opening up like a beautiful flower with so many things we could discuss on Miss Soft Crab.

There was a 60 Minutes interview with Miranda Kerr where she proved just as annoying as I thought she would. When I read in a magazine after she had her baby how she tweeted that it was soooo amaaaaazing that she was nourishing him with only her breast milllkkk I thought she sounded super annoying, and the interview I saw last night really proved that theory right.

There was The Graham Norton Show with Ewan McGreggor and Chris O'Dowd as guests.

HUNKS PLUS HILARITY! Is there anything finer?! (Rhetorical obviously because the answer is no and this is not up for discussion.)

And there was the Dalai Lama on Master Chef. WTF?!?! That guy is such a publicity slut. It was disgusting. (I really hope I don't go to Buddha hell for saying that.)


There was all that. And then there was Chutney Club. Mate, and world, what a shame for all you guys that you could not come to midwinter chutney club because ... yowser! There was some serious shit going down yesterday. And when I say shit, I mean delicious things and when I say down, I mean my throat!

I know we say this every time, but chutney club is just getting better and better.

Reader's, here is a run down on the chutneys exchanged yesterday:


Mandarin and chilli marmalade
Chilli and capsicum jam
Red onion shiraz jam
Kimchi
Lemon pickle
Meyer lemon marmalade

David made the kimchi and to serve it he barbecued prawns over some sort of smokey BBQ pot. That is a pot with something smoking in it. Delicious.

For Biggie Little's chilli jam he made a shooter's sandwich. This is a loaf of bread hollowed out and stuffed with steak. Then weighted down over night. As a vegetarian I did not get to eat this. And I confess I felt sad about it.


Biz made eggplant fritters. And as I said to him, I'll say to y'all, I love it when Biz makes fritters. I love it.

All this was good. Everything was good. Delicious. But all that just fell away when it was time for dessert.

I love that Biggie Little has joined chutney club because dude loves chilli. I love chilli! And dude has made some real special chilli condiments. But you know what else. He brings his lady along and girlfriend knows a sweet treat.



For Christmas chutney club we were treated to a beautiful cherry pie. Tastes so good make a grown man cry. For reals. But yesterday that cherry pie was pushed from my mind by these sweet little bitches.


Chocolate molten baby cakes. So chocolatey. So molten. So fucking good. The sort of rich chocolatey goodness that makes one (me) hysterical (it's actually not hard). They are a Nigella recipe. So do yourself a favour people and give these babies a go.

Sweet, sweet cake

I want to eat sweet treats a lot. And it is tearing me apart. Because they are bad. And I kind of eat them a lot.

I've always enjoyed a delicious sweet treat but it wasn't till I got knocked up that I started craving those bad boys like nobodies' business. And now even though I'm not knocked up anymore I still want to eat sweets all the time. I make biscuits. And sometimes when I am in the supermarket and realise I am starving I buy and eat a Chomp. (Chomps are delicious by the way, light from the wafer but chewy from the caramel. I kind of love them.)

So I keep thinking I need to cut out sweets pretty much altogether. Because I know from experience that this is the only way. The less you eat of a thing the less you crave it. But then there always seems to be a sweet treat in the house. Sometimes this is my fault. I did go through a phase of making desserts a lot.


And those biscuits.


But then other times people give me things. Like a recent haul of ice-cream related paraphanelia which would be disrespectful not to use. Or some banana and sticky date cake I was given and is sitting in the kitchen right now!

And then there are the recipes I see that pique my curiosity and I think, just this one last time. But then curiosity begets curiosity. Or something.

You see I read a recipe for chocolate cake in David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris and it only had 2 tablespoons of flour in it. Anyone would be curious about that, right?

Basically the recipe was 4 eggs, separated, 250gm bittersweet chocolate, 120gm butter and 1/3 cup of sugar. And the 2 tbls flour. You melt the chocolate and butter over water, mix in the flour, egg yolks and half the sugar then whip the whites with a pinch of salt and the rest of the sugar and fold that through the chocolate batter. Bake for 35 mins. So I was imagining something light and delicious and chocolatey and I just couldn't get it out of my head so I had to make it.

The batter was delicious. Just like a super chocolatey chocolate mousse, cause that's what it was basically. And the cake was nice too. But dense. Really dense. Though not heavy. It had a delicious dark chocolate flavour. So I am not complaining about that. I should say though that I actually doubled the recipe, and not all recipes double well, so perhaps that had an effect on the density.


But now, right when I am trying to not eat sugar, all I can think about is finding the perfect chocolate cake recipe. You see when I was figuring out how best to present this chocolate cake I came across another chocolate cake recipe with no flour, no meal. Nothing. Eggs, cocoa, a couple of other things. How can I not make this!? But where will it end? WHERE?