Margaret McLeod Leef 

This is not a story of a pretty cake.

 

A friend gave me the cookbook when my kids were tiny—six months and two years old. She left a lined piece of note paper in the first pages. Fresh basil, she wrote, was the 'clutch' ingredient in the margaritas on page 27. Other notes in the margins. Some pages earmarked.

 

I don't know if she ever tried the chocolate cake on page 134. There is no memo, no note or page turned down. Really, savory recipes were her specialty. But I went straight for the chocolate. Those recipe pages are stained with whipped egg yolks and sugar. Melted chocolate. They stick together in the middle. This is the archaeology of a well-loved recipe. Smudges and stuck pages tell you everything you need to know.

 

There is a marker drawing of fragile lines in orange and red and green. My two-year-old must have been by my side. I don't know if I offered the pages for him as a distraction or if he helped himself, but I can picture him standing on our kitchen chairs pulled up to the counter, cane rush seats, slatted backs. His pudgy toes on the seat.

 

I remember thinking that I would not forget anything. I knew I should probably write down details but then I would think, how could I ever forget this? How could I ever forget the way the light pools on the counter through our metal blinds in the morning? How can I forget that my son says "Omo the door!" to the refrigerator when he is hungry. Or "Boggie!" when he sees a bagel in a bakery window. "Tuck!" when we stop at a work site on the way to the park.

 

But I forgot. I forgot many of these things. I remember his overalls, lined with red fleece to keep him warm through Vermont winters. And his tiny cream turtleneck with evergreen trees. His little leather slippers that hugged his feet like a second skin. How they shush shush shushed on our linoleum and scuffed cherry wood floors.

 

My friend visited us there in that townhouse. Brought the cookbook. Showed me how to grill potatoes and toss them with fresh herbs and garlic and parmesan and olive oil. She never gave me a book or cookbook without a letter, without notes and earmarked pages.

This was before texting. When we talked on the phone. Wrote letters. And we wrote many letters. About our mundane lives. But also about our dreams. Our worries. About the books that changed our lives.

 

We were so young. In our twenties. How could we possibly think wow, this changed my life! But my friend would be gone by her early thirties.

 

                                                 ***

 

I don't know why—truly it was a fool's errand— but when my kids were tiny, I made beautiful cakes and extravagant meals. I kept a stack of cookbooks to read on my nightstand. I flipped through them in the evening or when I was nursing. When my eyelids grew heavy. I remember my sister-in-law stopping by and I was at the stovetop making a cherry sauce for venison with a baby at my breast.

 

"I would never make that on a Tuesday night," she said.

 

"Really?" I said. But I was thinking, Actually, I don't know why the hell I am doing this. At least it will probably taste like something.

 

In fact, I made the chocolate cake many times. It's a twice-baked chocolate cake—the original molten center, before ramekin mini-cakes became a thing. It is the kind of cake that makes people rub their bellies before they leave your house. Before they put on their coat to brace against the frigid cold.

"Everything was delicious," they will say, "but that cake. That cake was really good."

It was a messy affair to assemble. Technically not a difficult cake to make—it only has a few ingredients for goodness sakes. But there is a pan on the stovetop involved, and a large bowl, and midway through you have to wash a second mixing bowl and the beaters and use them again. And yet — I'd look longingly at the smeared pages.

 

The recipe lists quality dark chocolate bars. I'd eye the price in the grocery aisle and think about whether or not I should splurge. But I always knew I was going to buy it. That it was okay on occasion to spend twelve dollars on chocolate for a cake. Cakes aren't always cheap. Not cakes like this.

 

                                                   ***

 

I'd think about the cake for days. Make the grocery list, plan the day I'd make it, who I'd invite. I'd drag the kids to the grocery store. It was so damn cold outside in Vermont in the winter. The cold air hit my lungs, made the hairs in my nostrils stand on end. Water in my eyes suddenly stung.

 

My baby cried. It was getting close to nap time. He was hungry. But I'd keep pushing the cart. Talking to him absentmindedly, cooing from some distant part of me that I'd tap into without thinking. His wails grew louder. A few people in the supermarket stared. I'd debate abandoning the cart to go to the car to nurse him.

But I'd worked so hard to build the cart, ticking through the list. Dish soap. Goldfish crackers and Cheerios. Green beans. A whole chicken. Hot dogs. Apples and bananas. They'd probably leave the cart for awhile. Not notice. But how could I be sure? And honestly, I was almost finished. Just the chocolate bars and barbecue sauce and peanut butter left.

You can do this, I tell myself.

 

But sometimes I'd think, why am I doing this? There is chocolate everywhere—why is cocoa powder so delicate and hard to measure? It drifts onto the counter, coats the cabinet trim, darkens the faucet handle where I've touched it without thinking.

 

Sometimes my obsessions get in the way. I pine for the cake. For cassoulet with white beans and kielbasa. For poached pears in red wine with currants. For seared tuna with garlicky green beans and sticky rice. I make meticulous grocery lists. Notes by the stove. I count backward through time from when I want the meal served to when to start prepping it.

 

But my toddler wants to play trains and actually, I don't want to miss this chance—the afternoon sun is just right through the sliding glass doors, the baby is napping. This could be our quiet time together. But I have started the cake and now I must finish.

Reasonable people with babies buy ice cream for their dinner parties. They make brownies from a box mix. But some part of me craves this slog. Half my attention on the trains, half on calculating how to accommodate a smaller cake pan.

But I also think: this is play. One day I will stop playing and make something real. But it was all already real.

 

And I want something beautiful. I want to make something, really make it. And taste it. I lick the batter from the spatula. Share it with my son even though he should be napping. I add salt and vanilla even though the recipe doesn't call for it.

 

It isn't a pretty cake. It caves in the middle. That is just part of how it works. After the second bake, it barely cooks on top—just enough so that it is the consistency of custard with a sheet of skin. Warm chocolate on a cold night with cream I've slipped spiced rum into, because why not? Rum is always the answer.

 

                                                      ***

 

I lose the cookbook when I move from Vermont to West Virginia. For a long time it was on the shelf but it gets squeezed out by new cookbooks, new magazines. It goes to the attic. Or maybe the cabinet under the TV. I feel a little guilty because my friend's notes are inside.

 

And I miss her. Out of all the things in the world I crave, maybe mostly I crave one more day with her, walking on the Kanawha Boulevard, steam rising off the pavement and the river. On her deck with her grilled potatoes and salmon with dill.

I didn't know about most of these things until I met her. I will never make sense of her being gone. I know I haven't lost the cookbook, that I would never lose it. But it's tucked away somewhere deep inside the house.

 

And then one day, twenty years later, I've had it. The winter feels like those winters in Vermont. It is cold as hell outside and there is ice coating my dogwood and magnolia. And all I can think about is that cake.

 

The recipe is from a time before recipes could be pulled up instantly from an internet search. From my sofa, under a thick blanket, I scour the web anyway. No luck. With the millions of unimaginable and useless things on the web, somehow this dense gem of a cake is not online.

It is probably better that way. It makes it feel more like it was really mine. Like when instead of snapping a photo of the cake and sending it on my phone, I sat by the kitchen window and wrote a letter and let my son color the edges of the paper.

 

I look in the cabinet. On the bookshelves in the attic playroom. In a deep drawer with old cooking magazines. And then I walk by the den bookshelf. It is right there. Between The Silver Palate and Mountain Measures.

 

And to see those pages, with the orange and red and green marks. With the inserted notes from my friend.

 

When I slice it, the crust cracks like burnt sugar on top of crème brûlée—a satisfying little snap that releases the soft chocolate beneath the shards, warm and oozing. So dark it's almost bitter but still sweet. Cut with white whipped cream. Little billowing clouds that droop over the warm slice.

 

It is not pretty. But it is a really good cake.

Double Baked Chocolate Cake
This is not a cake for reasonable people who buy ice cream for dinner parties. A 9-inch springform pan works best, though a 10-inch will do. An 8-inch is too small—fill it only halfway and bake the extra batter in ramekins for a cook's treat.

-Adapted from Lettie Teague of Food and Wine from "The Best American Recipes — 2001-2002."

Ingredients

•     1/2 pound bittersweet chocolate from the baking aisle,           coarsely chopped

•     1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter

•     3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

•     1/2 tsp kosher salt

•     7 large eggs, separated

•     1 tsp vanilla

•     1 1/3 cup sugar, separate

Boozy Whipped Cream

• 1 cup cold whipping cream

• 2-3 TBL powdered sugar (to taste)

• 2 TBL your favorite liquor, Grand Marnier, Spiced Rum, Kahlua, etc.

• To make booze-free, skip the liquor and add 1 tsp vanilla

 

 

Directions:

 

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter the paper. Sprinkle flour inside the pan, shake out excess.

In a large saucepan over low heat, melt the chopped chocolate and the butter. Add the cocoa powder and salt and whisk until smooth. Allow to cool for about five minutes.

 

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a medium bowl using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks with 2/3 cup of the sugar until pale and light, about 3 minutes. Mix in vanilla. Set aside.

In another bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 2/3 cup of sugar and beat until the whites are firm and glossy.

Fold the chocolate into the egg yolk mixture until barely combined, starting with a ladleful at a time so that you don’t scald the eggs. Fold in the egg whites just until no white streaks remain.

Spoon 2 cups of the batter into a medium bowl and refrigerate—this will become the molten layer. Scrape the remaining batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the cake is puffed and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If using a 9-inch pan, check at 20 minutes.

Cool the cake completely on a wire rack. The sides will pull away and a crater will form in the center. After cool, remove springform cuff and spread the reserved cake batter over the top of the cake, trying not to deflate it too much. Leave a 1-inch border around the edge. Refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Bake the cake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until a thin crust forms on top and the batter is soft and creamy beneath the crust.

Let the cake cool for 10 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve warm. To store, cover the cooled cake in plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

*To make in advance, bake the cake, allow to cool and add extra batter. Cover and store in fridge for up to two days. Bake when ready to serve. You can also store the cake and batter separately and assemble before baking, just be sure to let batter sit on baked cake for an hour in refrigerator first.

Whipped cream:
Put all ingredients in a mixer and beat on high speed until soft peaks form. Use whisk attachment if you have one. Make a day in advance if you have time -- the sharpness of the alcohol mellows and the flavor intensifies. Keeps well for several days. Whisk with a fork to bring it back to life if it ‘weeps’.