Food to mend a bruised heart: Part Two: Choco-fudge Cake with peanut butter icing

I can't eat chocolate when I'm truly and utterly upset. At my most heartbroken, the mere thought of anything that resembled chocolate or cocoa makes my stomach turn.

When Michael died it took more than a year before I could enjoy a little square of dark chocolate. When I started eating it again...in small, sporadic doses...I knew I was climbing out of my deepest trenches of grief.

With my more recent emotional bruising chocolate was again off the menu, substituted instead by fast food and poutine.

I suppose it makes sense. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine and anandamide--two whozzits that can mimic love's chemistry. Why would I want to go through the (e)motions of love when there was no one to love...or even be fond of.

After a couple of weeks it hit me like one of Lennox Lewis' right hooks: Chocolate cake NOW.

Well...I guess my bruising is fading.

Like many of us, I have dozens, if not hundreds of chocolate cake recipes, of varying pedigrees. This one is inextricably linked to Alton Brown's Chocolate Fudge cake is, quite honestly, the only one that will do to sweep away as much hurt as possible in bad times, and flood my being with happiness in better times.

The batter is quite thin--pancake batter thin--but don't let that worry you. If you decide to portion it out into cupcakes, the easiest way to fill the muffin bowls is by using a ladle. When baked, the crumb is tight, moist and midnight-like.

You can top it any way you choose. I topped one batch of cupcakes with vanilla icing and slathered peanut butter icing on another cake.

Really, I think peanut butter icing is the way to go.

I normally don't suggest particular brands in my recipes, but if you can get an organic product, that's the way to go. It's peanuttier and not nearly as sweet as the giant tubs adorned with characters and colours that appeal to six year olds.

Together, the cake and the icing is a salve for a bruised heart and is a sure sign that things are getting better.

Choco-fudge Cake
adapted from an Alton Brown recipe

Yield 1 9"x13" (20cm x 29cm) cake or 24 cupcakes

45g (9Tbsp) cocoa powder
315g (2.25c) ap flour
1dspn (2tsp) bicarbonate of soda
1tsp salt (only if using unsalted butter)
110g (0.5c) butter
45ml (3Tbsp) flavourless oil
385g (2.25c) brown sugar
1dspn (2tsp) vanilla
3 eggs

250ml (1c) buttermilk
250ml (1c) boiling water

Preheat oven to 180C/350F; line two 12-bowl muffin tin with papers or butter and sugar a rectangular cake tin.

Sift together cocoa, flour, bicarb and salt (if using).

Cream together the butter, oil and sugar. Mix in vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Mix in the buttermilk and sifted dry ingredients in the usual alternating fashion (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry). Mix in the boiling water.

Dose out into the papered bowls or pour into the prepared cake tin.

Bake for about 25-35 minutes (for cupcakes) 40-45 minutes (for the larger cake) or until an inserted skewer comes out mostly clean-ish. A bit of sticky crumb is fine.

Allow to cool completely before icing.

Peanut Butter Icing
Yield: 1.5-2c

110g (0.5c) butter, softened
250g (1c) peanut butter (not the kind with a load of sugar, preferably)
45ml (3Tbsp) milk or cream, (more or less, as required)
190g (1.5c) icing sugar, or to taste

Cream together butter and peanut butter until light. Beat in sugar about a quarter-cup at a time. Add enough milk or cream to achieve desired constistency. Beat for at least five minutes before using.


Related posts:
Food to mend a bruised heart part one: Poutine
Food to mend a bruised heart part three: Maple-glazed peppered bacon

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Elvis has left the building: Meet my nemesis

Meet my nemesis: Tamias minimus.

Yes. You read correctly. Nemesis.

Many of us have one. Heck. Some of us have more than one.

It could be the guy who always gets the last double chocolate doughnut with the sparkly sprinkles on the rack leaving you with the stale unglazed-because-they-forgot-to-ice-them generic-things-that-could-be-better-used-as-hemorrhoids-cushions doughnuts; the woman who, regardless of which store she's in, can always get an eager and helpful sales clerk, while you've an armload of items to try on and the clerk guarding the changerooms is too busy texting her friend to bother unlocking a door for you, or the gal who can always get the cutest pair of shoes in her size, at 60 per cent off regular price because her feet are just so dainty. (Umm...yeah--I'm the one who usually gets the last good doughnut, sales clerks (and waiters) fawn over me and umm...I have teeny feet).

I hear you cooing over the cute, fuzzy wittle woodland cweature above. "How could such an adorable little thing be a nemisis?" you ask.

Trust me. They're only cute and fuzzy when they're in a woodland setting. They are NOT cute and fuzzy when they're running through and hiding in your main floor. When they are running through and hiding in your main floor, they are what I call "vermin."

And while I've not had dealings with this particular chipmunk before, I've lived the main points of this tale before. We have a history.

I had a rotten morning, punctuated by miscommunications and my jumping to conclusions; by noon I was hoping for a do-over. Since I don't have a TARDIS, my next best option was to ponder my stupidity by planting some lovely violet and plum coloured icicle pansies and assess the bunny damage to my plants. The front doors were wide open, so I could traipse in and out as my little bewildered heart pleased.

That's when the little begger decided to stage a home invasion.

Sure...strike when I'm down. I expect that from my enemies.

Admittedly, I didn't notice anything was wrong at first. I cleaned up from playing in the mud continued my contemplative therapies, this time armed with bucket, broom and mild abrasives.

And that's when I saw him...standing all cock-of-the-walk-like on my credenza. Sure he could have been mistaken for a stuffed animal (my little stuffed Cthulhu does live in the dining room), but really given my B&E history with others of his ilk, I have no desire to keep reminders around.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

It scampered into hiding, behind the stack of cookery books I have yet to review.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

There's poo and pee all over the credenza. There's poo and pee all over a shelf I've set up for food photography. A teak shelf. A teak shelf that's now chipmunk pee stained.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

I clean it up and go into the kitchen. There's poo in several places...including the cat's water dish and my aprons' tails.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

Darn you, you little cute furry little woodland creature who's out of his element!

I summoned the cats.

The cats did not come.

I went to look for the cats.

Hagia was on in the TV temple, snoozing on the couch. She opened her big pumpkin eyes.

"Hagia. Time to earn your keep. Go stalk and eat the chipmunk."

She closed her big pumpkin eyes and went back to sleep.

Zeus was in the carton behind the fireplace, willing himself to be invisible...or so I think...I couldn't see him.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

After almost three hours, camped out in the dark, eyes trained on the open kitchen door, ironically quiet as a mouse (well, not so quiet--I was occasionally updating my Twitter feed about this), the chipmunk exited my condo.

Yes, after a few false starts, Elvis has left the building...

...but not before helping himself to the cats' food and water. The door was closed after him.

YAY

I went into the dining room to take a look at whatever damage the critter caused.

I might as well have not cleaned up the dining room after lunch. I'd heard little animals void their bowels while running, to make them lighter, ergo, faster. Apparently chipmunks are poo-propelled as its output rivalled that of a bull moose.

I even found poo in the bowls of my mini muffin tin.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

A few hours later, my fingers wrinkled from rinse water and the air pungent with bleach and other cleaners, and every surface Elvis obviously touched, ran over or simply looked at was scrubbed within an inch of their anthropomorphic lives, I was in need of a bit of sweet solace.

I've been preoccupied with chocolate chip cookies as of late. It's very much unlike me--to crave chocolate chip cookies, that is. Growing up, My Dear Little Cardamummy baked the occasional batch, but returning to a cookie-perfumed house was not the norm.

My little kitchen must have churned a score or two of chocolate-studded biscuits since the end of August. The main problem being I've misplaced the slip of paper that holds my favourite chocochip cookie recipe. I've tried several recipes and while I've not replicated the *one,* This version by Alton Brown is a step in the right direction.

Unlike most other cookie recipes where you start by creaming butter, sugar and eggs and then add the dry ingredients, this one is put together as you would muffins: sift the dry ingredients together, then mix the wet ingredients, tip the wet into dry, give it a stir and drop onto the prepared sheet.

The number of cookies you get are entirely dependent upon the generosity of your cookie spoon. I used my 1.5 tsp sized spoon and could get about five dozen cookies.

The result are lovely chewy-crisp flat cookies, perfect with a cup of coffee.

Even more perfect after yet another run in with your nemesis.

Chocolate Chip Cookie No. 10
from I'm Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown (opens into my Amazon.ca shop)

150g ap flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g sugar
145g brown sugar
225g salted butter, melted
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla
300g chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180C/375F; line baking sheets with parchment.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Mix wet ingredients together; Tip into dry and stir until combined. Fold chocolate chips into batter.

Drop by spoonful onto prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2.5 cm between each blob. Bake for 6-9 minutes or until golden brown.


cheers!
jasmine

Chipmunk photo credit: Douglas Haase, via Flickr.

I'm a quill for hire!