Piñata cake and aging

Next week I'm turning 27. It's a strange feeling. A feeling of comfort. The realization that I'm not anymore in my early 20s and I really like it. I am not the person I used to be a few years ago. And despite the common sayings, I think women do improve with age, just like men do.

I have recently read 'Winter Journal' from Paul Auster. I can't think of a better time to read such a wonderful autobiography, as now that I'm about to turn a year older. If you have never read any of his novels, I strongly recommend you do. Perhaps you won't like him, perhaps you will fall in love with his words, just like I did a few years ago.

I'm a picky reader, that's for sure. Growing up with two much older sisters, one of whom is a librarian, certainly shaped my taste for literature. But style aside, the wonderful thing about this book, it's the way in which it conveys the idea of aging as a learning process. In a way. I doubt Mr. Auster intended for it to be a lesson type book. But the comfort with which he embraces the winter of his life, is contagious.

I am nowhere near close to that winter. And yet I am glad to look back and see that I've slowly evolved into the human being I am today. I am glad to look into the future and know that constant evolution is normal, necessary and beneficial.

In a way, my palate has evolved quite a bit as well. When I made this cake (for the boy's labmate, who was about to return to Mexico), I realized how much my sweet palate has changed. This cake is quite simple. Plain white cake with a raspberry preserve filling. Topped with cream cheese frosting mixed with a good amount of food coloring. There's nothing wrong with that. And I will, not modestly, say it was delicious.

And yet it's not my type of thing. Granted, that's irrelevant, since the cake was for her and not for me. Not to say I didn't enjoy it. But I also realized that the sweet-toothed-little-girl who loved to eat cake at any occasion, is long gone. Me, I am more the type of more subtle sweetness. Muffins, biscotti, pies without tons of sugar and homemade ice cream are more my type of thing. I blame age. I blame my newly acquired taste for spicy food and the drive to make baked savory delights instead of sugary cakes.

However, the cake didn't make it to the end of our weekly joint group meeting with another lab. Some folks had seconds. Some had thirds. So by all means, do make it. With or without frosting. With or without coloring. If you can, use homemade preserves. If you like very sugary frostings, up the sugar and down the cream cheese.

By the way, in case you hadn't realized yet. This cake is an attempt to mimic a pinata donkey. We couldn't have a pinata party in our conference room, so we settled for the cake. I hope you enjoy it. Donkey or not.

Pinata cake or white cake with raspberry preserves and cream cheese frosting

White cake

from Leite's Culinaria

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for the pans

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pans

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk, or 1 cup whole milk mixed with 1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour your pans (either 2 9 inch round pans or a large 13x9). In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, using a hand or stand mixer, cream the butter and the sugar until fluffly and slightly pale. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until combined. Add half of the buttermilk or milk/lemon mixture to the cake and mix until combined. Mix in half of the sifted ingredients and then the rest of the buttermilk. Finally, add the rest of the dry mixture and mix until combined. Do not overmix or the cake will be dense. 

Pour the batter in the pans and bake for 20-30 min until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pan for about 10 min, then remove from the pan and cool in a wire rack for about 1 hr. 

Raspberry preserves

I prepared this the exact same way as the blackberry jam.

Cream cheese frosting

12 ounces cream cheese (for a sweeter frosting 8 ounces)

1 stick of butter

2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted (for a sweeter frosting, 3 cups)

Before combining the ingredients, make sure all of them are at room temperature. With a hand mixer, start by creaming the cheese and the butter together. Once the mixture is homogeneous start adding the confectioners sugar slowly and keep beating until the frosting is fluffy but has enough body to be piped. For coloring, divide the frosting in bowls and add food coloring as desired. Transfer to piping/ziploc bags and decorate as desired. 

Birthday cake and the 100th post

Wow. I made it to the 100th post. I must admit that the frequency of posting has been quite low lately, but grad school doesn't leave much time for more. I have indeed been baking quite a lot, there's just no time for pictures or posts, which, believe me, I'm really sorry about.

This delicious cake wasn't made to celebrate the 100th post or my own birthday, it was the celebration cake for my labmate and friend Chris. He made it clear, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. So that it is. A simple, moist and delicious cake, with just a few great ingredients and that you can make in no time.

The chocolate cake is from Hershey's and the frosting was a homemade concoction. You can bake it in layers, squared, round, whatever you like. I even considered putting some marshmallows on top and torching them. (Too bad I ran out of gas). I think you'll enjoy it. 

Chocolate cake

2 cups sugar
2 sticks of butter
3/4 cups cocoa powder
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup of freshly brewed hot coffee (the original recipe calls for a cup of boiling water).


Cream the butter and sugar and add the vanilla extract. Mix in the eggs and oil. In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Alternate the addition of dry ingredients and milk, beginning and ending by the dry. Bake for about 35 min at 350 F.

Chocolate frosting


1 stick of butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk

Cream the butter until very fluffy, add the vanilla, powdered sugar and cocoa powder, finally add the milk until the frosting is creamy, you might need less than 1/2 cup. Use the frosting the same day is made.

Peach and mango yogurt cake

Finally summer is here, and it's so hot and muggy I'm not sure I'm so happy about the season change. If there's something I love about summer is fresh produce. Cherries, peaches, watermelons, loquats, apricots... I can't get enough of them.

For my labmate's birthday I wanted to make a cake with seasonal fruit. I was thinking of something light and more coffee cakey than anything else, since we were gonna eat it during our weekly lab meeting. After searching the net looking for a yogurt-fruit cake, I found a couple recipes that sort of convinced me, but not really. So I put my brains at work and invented my own recipe.

Soy yogurt, check.  Mango, check. Peaches, check. All sweetened with some brown sugar and honey and topped with slivered almonds. Yum!

The recipe is crazy crazy easy and takes an hour baking included. Feel free to substitute the fruits or change the soy yogurt for regular one. You might need to add a tablespoon or two of flour because soy yogurt is more liquid than regular one.

Printable recipe

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup soy yogurt
2 eggs
3 tablespoons soy milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 stick unsalted butter
1 medium mango, cubed
2 medium peaches, cubed
1/2 cup slivered almonds

Preheat your oven to 350 F

Peel and cube the peaches and mango and set aside. In a bowl, cream the butter with the sugar and honey. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until combined. Mix in the soy yogurt and the milk (I added the milk after adding the flour because my batter seemed too dense, you can try not adding it if the batter seems runny). Coat the fruits with a tablespoon of flour, this prevents them from sinking in the batter. Add the rest of the flour to the batter and then mix in the fruit.

Pour the batter in a greased and floured 9-inch round pan and top with the almonds. Bake for 35 min or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Raspberry buttermilk cake

It is raspberry season. Only for that reason, you should make this cake. But I'm gonna give you two more. First, it's delicious. Second, you can put it together in the blink of an eye.

Last weekend it was my friend E's birthday. He lives outside of town and I actually hadn't planned on seeing him on the birthday day. But him and B convinced me (it didn't take much) Saturday evening, that I should swing by on Sunday. Obviously, I could not go to see him on his birthday without a cake. But last weekend was mad hot and in this weather, cake frosting is not an option.

The best solution is a one pan fruity cake, no layers, no frosting and no ganaches. Sounds like a boring cake right? I promise it's not. Get yourself some fresh raspberries and some buttermilk and whip it up. Halve the recipe and you'll get a great cake for that afternoon coffee. 

Adapted from Gourmet via Smitten Kitchen

Printable recipe

2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 stick of butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar*

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

6 oz (1 package) fresh raspberries

*I doubled Deb's recipe but I chose not to double the amount of sugar, it just seemed like too much to me.

Preheat oven to 400 F

Mix together flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside. In a bowl, cream together butter and sugar, add the vanilla extract and the eggs and mix until combined. At low speed, mix the dry mixture in 3 batches, alternating with the buttermilk. Pour batter in a 9 inch round cake pan. 

Scatter the raspberries. Now, the raspberries that had the round part showing up, sank inside the cake. The ones that were placed upside down, with the O part showing up, stayed at the same place and so did the ones that i placed sided (because they were a little smashed). Knowing this, feel free to spread them as you wish. 

Bake for aproximately 30 min or until a cake tester or skewer comes out clean. 

 

Yay! featured in foodgawker again! http://foodgawker.com/post/2010/06/07/63011/

The LOST finale cake, a.k.a flavors of the island (coconut and mango)

Ladies and gentleman, my LOST finale cake. Yes I did it. I'm nerdy and geeky. I couldn't resist doing something special for the finale of this show that's been keeping me breathless for days, weeks, months and years.

This cake though, is dedicated to my friend Dani. He's a big fan of  Lost, so much so that he's organized a big event in  his town in Spain, so that people can watch the show simultaneously with the west coast. In the craziness of organizing this, he asked me if I was gonna make a Lost cake. I said I wanted to make something but I wasn't sure what. He said 'well, think about the show and which flavors it makes you think about and make a cake with those flavors'. So I thought mangoes and coconut, and this cake was born.

The end result is a mango panna cotta, sandwiched between two layers of sponge cake. To make it even better, the sponge cake is soaked in coconut milk and topped with toasted coconut. And of course, I had to make something that reminded the famous Dharma Initiative logo. So I cut an eight sides poligon and left the center of the top empty.

Can you see the mango bits in the panna cotta? It's soft and creamy and you can taste that delicious mango. And the toasted coconut gives you a crunch while you're biting into that fluffly sponge cake. Are you drooling yet? Yes yes! I'm gonna give you the recipe.

Printable recipe

For the sponge cake:

6 eggs separated
150 g sugar
150 g flour

Preheat your oven to 350 F

Separate yolks and whites. Beat the yolks with the sugar until you get a creamy mixture that forms ribbons. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Incorporate the whites to the yolks very slowly trying not to deflate them. Fold from bottom to top with a spatula. Make sure your flour is sifted and incorporate it slowly folding until combined. Grease and flour two 8x8 inch pans and bake your sponge cake for about 20 min or until golden. Let the cakes cool.

For the panna cotta

1 medium mango, very ripe
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
2 envelopes of gelatin powder

In a food processor or blender, turn the mango into puree. Dissolve the gelatin in the recommended amount of water. Set aside. In a pot, heat the heavy cream with the sugar until 'cooked' but don't let it boil. When it's about to boil, take it out from the heat and mix it with the mango. Add the gelatin and mix well. Let it cool for a bit before assembling the cake.

To cut the cake in an eight sided polygon you'll need to freeze it. Otherwise, the panna cotta will collapse when you try to carve it. 

To assemble and cut the cake

Line an 8x8 inch pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Place one of the sponges at the bottom and pour the panna cotta on top of it. Put in the freezer for about 2 hr or until almost frozen. Cover the panna cotta with the other layer of sponge cake and let the whole cake sit overnight in the freezer. Remove the cake from the freezer and cut the three layers to whatever shape you'd like. Toast some coconut by placing it in a clean pan and heating it at high heat while moving it constantly. In the meantime the sponge will soften. Brush the top sponge with coconut milk. This will give it a nice look and make it sticky. Spread the coconut on top of the cake. If you want an empty space in the middle, just place a glass or mug on top of it.

Chill until it's time for you to devour. Hopefully this cake makes the end of Lost a little less bitter for you.

Nutella birthday cake and my 'to bake list'

Are you a nutella addict? do you have a nutella addict friend? if the answer to any of these questions is yes, please keep reading. If the answer is no, well, you wanna keep reading anyway, because nutella cake is not something you want to miss.

I've had two french roommates addicted to nutella. They would eat it every single day for breakfast. No matter if they woke up at 3 pm, completely hangover, or if there were pancakes or muffins in the kitchen. Breakfast was synonym of nutella.  Now I have my friend S, who doesn't eat it compulsively, but drools just by seeing the jars in the supermarket. So her birthday cake was easy to guess. Nutella cake with strawberries and cream.

I could've totally gone with just the nutella. But I've made this cake before and as good as it is, it's very dense. I thought some fresh strawberries and airy cream would make it a little lighter. Plus the cream serves as frosting for the cake. Per-fect.

Now, before we talk cake! I finally got around making my 'To bake list', which is 100 desserts/baked goods I wanted to make at some point. Some of them have been done recently but there's more than 90 to go. And... I have a proposal! what about you use the comments section and or my formspring (which is here in the main page) and tell me which ones you'd like me to bake first? I'm thinking about hosting a giveaway among those of you who respond. 

Ok. Cake time!!! The cake recipe comes from Nigella Lawson. And let me warn you know before you start screaming. It has lots of fat. She adds ganache as topping and hazelnuts in the batter, I omitted both and also used dark chocolate instead of semi-sweet. My adapted recipe is as follows:

Printable recipe

6 large eggs, separated

pinch salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 13-ounce container Nutella

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (60%) , melted and cooled

For garnish:

strawberries

2 cups whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 F

In a bowl, beat together the nutella, the butter and the egg yolks until well mixed. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites with the pinch of salt until stiff. To the nutella batter, add the melted chocolate and mix it in. Add a quarter of the egg whites to the batter and mix well. Then add the rest of the whites, slowly folding them in with a spatula. Try not to deflate them. Pour the batter in a cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes or until the cake separates from the sides of the pan. Let it cool completely.

Slice the cake in half and place the strawberries in the middle so you cover the surface. I used about half pint of strawberries. In a bowl, beat the cream until whipped and cover the strawberries with part of it. Then cover with the other half of the cake and frost the entire cake with the cream.

Refrigerate to cool the cream. Cut. Devour. Enjoy!

Black forest cake

First of all. My apologies for the pictures. It was pouring water out when I made this cake and light was not exactly what you'd call abundant.

Now let's talk cake.

Spaniard (that'd be me): Aaron I'm gonna let you choose which cake I'm making for your birthday
Aaron: Oh! Cherry chip cake is my favorite! or at least it was like... 10 years ago.
Spaniard: Ok, well, I'll make you cherry chip cake then!

I type cherry chip cake on google. First thing I see. A VERY pink cake. See Aaron might be weird, but he's not a pink kind of guy. Well, keep searching.  First recipe I read says 'perfect cake for a princess!'. OK. Aaron's definitely not a princess. He probably liked this cake when he was 6, but he was turning... well, 30+. I decided I was gonna find a cherry cake for a grown up.

So... what about a black forest cake? Chocolate (yum), cherries (meh) , whipped cream (yay), some liquor (extra yay)... That's what I'm talking about. The traditional cake is made with cherries that have been soaked in Kirsch, a cherry liqueur. I searched the entire city for cherries in Kirsch, or plain Kirsch. No luck. So I went with Marraschino cherries and some almond liqueur. 

I halved the recipe, mostly because it was just 3 of us eating a cake meant to serve 10 people.


For the cake

2 1/8 cups all purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons baking soda
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Make sure the mixture is uniform and you don't have cocoa powder lumps. 
In another bowl mix eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat until well blended. Add the dry ingredients slowly while mixing. Pour the batter into greased pans and bake for 35 min or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely and then slice in half. 

For the filling

2 cans marraschino cherries
2 pints cream for whipping
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup amaretto (almond) liqueur (or cherry if you find it)

To whip the cream, I'd recommend placing the bowl and wisk in the freezer for a while before starting. Then start whipping the cream, until soft peaks form. Add the sugar and the liqueur and keep beating until hard peaks form. Cut the cherries in half and mix them with about 3 cups of whipped cream. (Reserve the rest of the cream for frosting). Place the filling between layers. Once the layers are complete, frost the cake (as well as you can) with the remaining whipped cream. Decorate with chocolate shavings and cherries.

Chill for a couple hours before eating. I'm telling you, even if you're not a cherry fan, you're gonna lick your fingers with this!

International Tarting celebrates Easter

Many years ago I got to try my aunt's Easter cake. A typical sweet bread from the region she and my dad are from (Castellón) and very different from the kind of cake we make in the area I'm from (Barcelona). I will never forget that cake. Light, airy, slightly sweet, wonderful. On an attempt to recreate that memory, I asked my aunt for the recipe and made it myself. The result? Well, keep reading.

Now, have I told you I'm terrified of making bread? I am. Deeply. I always fear it won't rise properly and it'll end up as a dense tasteless bunch of cooked flour. And as you know, challenging recipes are what Maria and I do as part of 'International Tarting', so we both got our hands to work.

The recipe is actually quite simple and involves very few ingredients. The only concern I had was the type of yeast. My aunt uses fresh yeast, which I found myself unable to find in any store. Fresh  yeast can be substituted for active dry yeast, but the amount that needs to be used changes as well. 

According to the San Francisco Baking Institute, 'Active dry can be used at 50% of the weight of fresh yeast and instant dry can be used at 40% of the weight of fresh'.

The recipe then is as follows

500 g / 17.6 oz all purpose flour

125 g / 4.4 oz white sugar

100 mL / 3.3 liquid oz oil

25 g / 0.88 oz active dry yeast (or double the amount of fresh yeast)*

zest of 1 lemon

3 eggs

Optional:
1 egg to brush the cake
Sprinkles to decorate

*If using Fleischmann's brand, this is equivalent to 3 packages of active dry yeast.

Mix the yeast with half a cup of warm water and a teaspoon of sugar. Let it sit for 10 min and make sure it has at least doubled in volume (otherwise your yeast is not working properly). 

In a bowl combine flour and sugar. Add the oil and mix well. As much as I'm a fan of olive oil, I do not recommend it for this recipe since the taste of the oil would mask the rest of flavors. 

To the flour and oil, add the yeast and mix well. You can do it with a paddle attachment, a spoon, whatever you want. I like using my hands, I get dirty and have fun. Pretty much like being 3 years old and playing with mud.  Add the eggs. Now work hard to combine everything together. Note that we added water to the yeast, so you'll need some extra flour. I added an extra half-cup. 

Time to let the yeast do its work. My aunt lets it rise once, giving whatever shape she wants to the dough, from the beginning. I checked several recipes online that suggested letting it rise twice. So I let the dough rise for 2 hr in a place without air currents, not cold, not warm, covered with a kitchen towel. Then gave it the shape and let it rise for 3 more hours. 

Here I freaked out. My dough didn't look like it had risen that much (on the second rise) and I thought the cake was gonna be dense and tasteless. There was nothing I could do so I proceded as normal. Brushed the surface with beaten egg and threw some sprinkles on it. Baked the cake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes, until golden.

And magic happened! 

The cake came out delicious. Fluffy, airy and lightly sweet. Exactly like the one my aunt made for me. I couldn't be happier with the result. Which combined with sun and breeze and a warm cup of coffee, made for a perfect Easter Sunday breakfast.

Please guys, make this. Grab a cup of coffee, tea or don't grab anything. Just fill your mouth with it. Enjoy it. I certainly did.

Flying strawberry chocolate chip coffee cake

Last weekend I had the pleasure to visit my friends Amanda, Ben and Orion in Cape Cod. There's no visiting any friends with empty hands, so I brought chocolate muffins and this coffee cake.

Funny, or not so funny story... we left the house for a bit and Ben's sweet little dog, Lucy, ate two of the muffins. Don't ask me how, but she managed to take them out of the plastic wrap. As freaked out as we were, nothing super bad happened.

Well, now let me get you a bit jealous. As Amanda says, Ben is one of those people that comes with perks. His perk is he flies planes. As of now, little ones, but beware Boeing! here comes Ben...
So guess what, we got to fly over the cape and adore the beauty of the landscape...

The coffee cake was our after flight treat and it was not overly sweet, moist, tender and rich. Semi-melted chocolate chips and delicious baked strawberry... Yum!

To make it...

1/2 stick of butter
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 fat free yogurt (or half a cup of sour cream)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
3 ounces chocolate chips
1 cup of  fresh strawberries

Note! I baked a small coffee cake, the size of a squared 6 x 6 in pan. Feel free to double the recipe if you want to make a bigger or thicker cake.

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

In a bowl cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and mix well. Mix in the yogurt and the vanilla extract. Beat in the flour and baking powder just until incorporated.
Clean the strawberries and slice them (about 4 slices for each strawberry). Pour half of the coffee cake batter in your greased baking pan. Place the strawberry slices on top of the batter. Cover with the rest of the batter. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, pressing them down a little bit so they get well attached.

Bake for about 30 min or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool and cut into squares.

Chocolate cheesecake

Yesterday we celebrated my roomie's birthday with a nice dinner at home and I obviously offered to make a birthday cake...

I really wanted to try making a chocolate cheesecake and let me tell you it's easy and yummy! Only remember! you have to make it one day in advance so that it cools properly!

 

The recipe comes inspired from Emeril's New York Style Chocolate Cheesecake. I'm not sure if it's an adaptation because I changed a few things but the idea is there and my recipe is as follows.

For the crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
4 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder

To assemble the crust break the graham crackers into crumbs. I put them in a ziploc bag and crushed them using a rolling pin (mess free!). To the crumbs add the tablespoon of cocoa powder and mix well. In a bowl melt the butter and stir in the mix. Generously butter your springform pan and add the crumbs to the bottom. Press them down to form the crust (measuring cup works great for this). Set aside.

For the cheesecake:

2 1/2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 plain non-fat yogurt*
8 ounces melted bittersweet (you can use semisweet) chocolate
1 cup granulated sugar

*The recipe calls for sour cream but I didn´t have any and the yogurt substitution worked pretty well. 

Preheat oven to 350 F
In the microwave, or in a double boiler, melt the chocolate and set aside to cool.
In a bowl, mix together the cheese and sugar until creamy (be sure to have the cheese at room temperature before you start). Mix in the vanilla extract and the eggs one at a time. Add the melted chocolate and then the yogurt. (The recipe called for the flour first but I didn't read correctly and I added it at the end. It worked just fine). Stir in the flour and mix until combined.  Carefully pour the batter in the springform pan.
Bake for 1 hr until set. Let cool in the oven for about 1 hr. This is supposed to prevent cracking. Mine cracked anyway. Transfer to the fridge and cool overnight.

For the garnish

Prepare a ganache adding 1/2 cup of boiling heavy cream to 1 cup of chocolate (whatever kind rocks your socks) and mixing until the chocolate dissolves. Cool slightly and then pour on top of the cheesecake. Works wonderful to cover any cracks.  Cool in the fridge. If desired, decorate with fresh strawberries.

The myths of chocolate

Let's begin this post with a number. If you go to Pubmed (a very well known journal database for medical-related publications) and type in 'chocolate', the searcher gives back more than 3000 results. Interesting huh?

The debate about the effects of chocolate in the human body, including aphrodisiac properties, is a neverending story with all sorts of opinions.

'The Aztecs may have been the first on record to draw a link between the cocoa bean and sexual desire: the emperor Montezuma was said to consume the bean in copious amounts to fuel his romantic trysts.'  said the NY Times 

Now is it only myth or is there real chemistry behind this thoughts?
The fact: chocolate contains both tryptophan and phenylethylamine. Tryptophan is a building block (precursor) for serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter with a direct function in the control of moods and behaviors. Phenylethylamine, very similar to amphetamine, triggers the release of dopamine and norepinephrine which are also stimulants (the lack of them is cause of depression).

At this point I'm sure most of you are thinking that eating a chunk of chocolate is pretty much like overdosing in LSD. Far from real. Phenylethylamine is metabolized by enzymes fast enough so that the amount of that reaches the brain is ridiculously small, contributing no perceptible psychoactive effect. While tryptophan is still there, the amount contained in chocolate is so small that you would have to eat about 40 pounds of chocolate to notice any physical effects.

The truth is, chocolate's aphrodisiac properties have more of a psychological component than a chemical one... then why do we crave it?

'Theobromine – a weak stimulant found in chocolate – in concert with other chemicals such as caffeine, may be responsible for the characteristic ‘buzz’ experienced when eating chocolate. Scientists at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego suggest that chocolate contains pharmacologically active substances that produce a cannabis-like effect on the brain, such as anandamide: a cannabinoid neurotransmitter (...) elevated levels of the neurotransmitter can intensify the sensory properties of chocolate (texture and smell), thought to be essential in inducing cravings.' (source: science in school)

Facts or not, chemistry or psychology, I love, enjoy and crave dark chocolate... the occasional chocolate square is usually enough, but sometimes I'm in the mood for overdose... and believe me, this recipe does the trick...

Gooey, warm, soft, melted chocolate hidden in a delicate cake shell... could you ask for more? well, maybe sharing it ;)



Lava cakes (also known as coulant)

4.5 ounces bitterweet (or semi-sweet) chocolate cut into chunks
1 stick butter
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons of flour

Note: I just made two of them in two 7 ounce ramekins, feel free to double the recipe

Preheat oven to 400 F
Butter the ramekins to use (liberally). In the microwave (or in a double boiler) melt together the butter and the chocolate. To avoid burning it heat it in intervals of 30 sec, then stir well and heat for another 30 seconds until the mixture is smooth and shiny. Let it cool.

In a separate bowl beat together eggs and egg yolks until frothy. Add the sugar and keep beating. The volume should increase. (It's supposed to double but mine never did). To the egg mixture add the cooled chocolate and butter and carefully mix with a spatula. Add the flour and stir until just incorporated. Divide the batter among the ramekins and place those in a cookie sheet. Bake for 11 to 14 min depending on the size of the ramekin. Check at the 11 minute mark. The cakes are ready when the sides look baked (like in the picture) and the center gooey. (Sorry that I didn't get to take a picture of it right out of the oven but there was a thin crust where the hole is).

If you can, wait until they cool down a bit. If not, devour it right out of the oven!



Now a question... science or not, does chocolate put you in the mood?

Oh if I left you wanting more cocoa loaded desserts... chocolate cheesecake recipe coming soon!