Chocolate Makes a Comeback

Driving back from Maine on Sunday afternoon, we were discussing food options for the week to come. Or rather, I was discussing food options with the dashboard, and Mum was nodding, and occasionally saying things like "mmm" and "sounds good" which is really how most of these conversations go. Once in a while she will venture to contribute to the level of "omg." And once in a while, spurred on, no doubt, by her shall-we-say-less-than-cultured-palette-brain-synaptic-connection, she will say something like "I'm not sure how that would taste" to which I reply, maturely and reasonably, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT CARROT CAKE? or DON'T BE RIDICULOUS YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT I WILL MAKE IT AND YOU WILL EAT IT AND LOVE IT AND I WILL BE PROVEN RIGHT ONCE AGAIN.

Then this normally happens:

So at the same time as deciding what cheeses I would use for another round of Cauliflower Mac and Cheese (and whether I could sneak sauteed mushrooms in there because somebody doesn't think she likes mushrooms) and figuring out how many boxes of high fiber crackers I could reasonably buy without attracting the interest of store security, I was trying to come up with another baked good for my Lovely Librarians.

It's still August, Beetle, I thought to myself, take advantage of that before you go completely off the autumnal rails. You haven't made anything with chocolate in a while have you? No, Beetle, you haven't, I answered myself, the last chocolate thing you made was in MAY when you did those triple chocolate cookies for Mother's Day. The time has come, Beetle, for chocolate. 

Out loud, I said: "How about that Chocolate Orange Marmalade Cake I haven't made that in ages and it's easy and I can get everything at this store even though it's a semi-bobo Wild Oats Market on route 101 in New Hampshire cool that's it that's what I'm making and you're not a massive chocolate fan anyway so I'll send most of it to the library they'll like it awesome chocolate orange marmalade cake it is then."

And Mum went: "sounds good."

CHOCOLATE ORANGE MARMALADE CAKE

This is another standby of mine from Nigella Lawson, specifically from her How to Be a Domestic Goddess cookbook. Basic rule of thumb: when you want a dessert that tastes so good your eyes roll into the back of your head and you loose the power of speech, this is the cookbook you crack open. It is from this same hallowed tome that I get my favourite Brownie recipe, most recently used to wish Uncle Thor a Happy Birthday. It is, as I've said, crazy easy, crazy fast, crazy adaptable, and crazy good.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 1 1/3 cups fine-cut orange marmalade
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup cake flour

Melt the butter and chocolate in a large saucepan, stirring frequently until it's just gone. Off the heat, stir in the marmalade, sugar, and beaten eggs. A whisk works really well here, FYI. Add the flour in two half-cup segments, whisking well after each addition. Pour the batter into a springform pan and bake at 350 degrees about 50 minutes until a tester comes out clean and it's starting to pull away from the edges. 

Yep. That's all it is.

BEETLE NOTES

"Fine cut" marmalade is what is called for, here but I happen to think that little pieces of marmalade rind in the middle of a huge bite of bittersweet chocolate were the reason that taste buds were invented. Also the aforementioned semi-bobo market in rural NH doesn't have a, shall-we-say, Fortnum & Mason-level marmalade selection.



A note on pans: I got an awesome new springform last month after my last one died very dramatically in the middle of baking a gingerbread cake. It decided quite soon after I poured the batter in that it was no longer for this world and proceeded to hemorrhage batter all over the inside of my oven. It was a noble death. I gave it an expletive-laden eulogy as I scraped burnt gingerbread off the racks with a steak knife. My new one is navy blue and gorgeous so I use it whenever possible. However, if you don't have a springform here, no biggie, you can use a standard circular cake pan, a brownie pan, or whatever else you feel like. The thing to remember about baking cake is that it's cake. It's going to taste good no matter what the shape. 

Consider it done. 

And this one does taste good, dear reader. It's dense, rich, and deep dark good. My big thought as I made it was "why the hell don't I make this more often?" Well. I guess that can be rectified, hmm?






Nigella includes in her notes that any jam is applicable to this recipe. I have yet to try something other than marmalade, but that's just because I'm a sucker for the ol' choco-orange combination. However, I'm seriously considering raspberry or blackberry (cutting back the sugar a bit to offset the sweetness), and, wait for it, PRUNE PUREE.

I know I know. Take a moment. 

Now, NIGELLA HERSELF suggested this. I speak insanity, but it's insanity from a reliable source. I feel like choco-prune might actually be crazy good (if you can get over the fact that the minute you say the word "prune" you think of your grandfather.) According to her it's "dark, aromatic, and velvety." Imma do it, you guys. Imma do it. 

For the time being, though. Marmalade is going to have to, ahem, cut it. Ha! Hilarious Esoteric Marmalade Joke! Sometimes, you guys, I am SO FUNNY IT HURTS.  

And speaking of cutting, this does slice really well. 

QUICK CHANGE OF TOPIC

You know you are a Warrior Beetle when you spend the afternoon chasing the Bastard Cat Next Door yet again out of your yard, crawling into a blackberry hedge to find your own cat fearing her left for dead, only to discover that she's peaced out the other side and is calmly waiting for you in the driveway all "OH HAI WAT UZ UP 2?", and carrying boxes of how many books do I actually own from ballroom to playroom so they won't warp over the winter, and you can STILL make dinner that looks like this: 

That's right. 

8 cherry tomatoes, quartered. 1 cup black olives. Olive oil, salt, thyme. Broiler at 400 for 10 minutes. Goat cheese. Broiler for another 5. Dinner. 

Hear that? Know what that sound is? 

That's the sound of a Warrior Beetle roaring.

RAR.