Sin and Chocolate

Well, who’s been neglectful? I have. I’ve actually been meaning to post a ‘favorite things’ list for some time now, but that has to be put off for a little while longer. Because, my friends, I have sinned; in fact, I made a sin.

As a caveat, I’d like to point out that I don’t usually have very much truck with Valentine’s Day. It is just not a big deal, and it is horribly commercialized. And the idea of putting a price on love is a little shudder provoking. That being said, my roommate and I DID plan a special meal for out ladyfriends on Saturday night. (The GF and I also purchased presents for each other, but as neither has arrived in the mail yet, they have not been exchanged. Oh, for February presents).

As another caveat, I beg you to remember that I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. That’s what made this sin—I mean, cake—so remarkable.

My roommate and I planned a “dessert for dinner” shindig, complete with Asti to make us bubbly (a magnum of it!). She made cream stuffed strawberries—my goodness, I love sweet cream—and churros with cinnamon-scented chocolate dipping sauce. I made something I started calling a ‘truot’—a mix between a chocolate truffle and a tort with a chocolate cookie crumb crust. It comes from Molly Wizenberg’s Orangette recipe collection; she is, hands down, my favorite food writer, so I get a lot of recipes from her (and I can’t wait for her book to come out!).

I originally thought that the cake wouldn’t even work—I don’t bake, I had never used a spring form pan before, I actually hate baking, and I couldn’t find bittersweet baking chocolate at Trader Joe’s. With a little help from my GF and the good folk at Scharffen Berger, I found a conversion that magically turned my unsweetened baking chocolate into bittersweet goodness.

Why was this cake a sin? Because it had almost 2 sticks of butter in it and you could tell. It was creamy, smooth, satiny. Maybe silky. Deep chocolate with the right amount of sweetness. It was the richest thing I’ve eaten in months. It was inhumanly delicious. It was like I baked Gluttony, Pride, Lust, and Sloth into a cake. We wanted to eat it all. I lusted after it when I woke up the next morning; it was delicious cold. The sugar high’s exit induced quite a slothful afternoon. But most of all, I was proud—I baked a cake.

There may be pictures available. I'll post them if that is true.