Chocolate cake.

I have certain pet peeves: people who look down their noses at ketchup on hot dogs, at parmesan cheese on seafood, beans in chili. I dislike eating contests, vegetarian-haters and meat that has lost its pulpy red vitality. Especially pork, you blubbering baby boomers! I dislike Anthony Bourdain, as well as people who dislike Anthony Bourdain. I have no time for whose city's pizza is the real pizza, whose state's barbecue is the real barbecue. I don't care who invented the cheese steak, the Tom Collins, the Cobb salad, the egg cream.

I hate authenticity.

I spent enough time--as well as unrepaid PHEA dough, reading and misunderstanding post-structuralist literary theory to know authenticity is at best a faith-based tradition. You say the Crimean War did happen, I say, well, maybe. You say I can't blindly improvise chocolate cake because of the unyielding chemistry of baking I say gimme an afternoon reading Amanda Hesser's fabulous Chocolate Dump-It Cake recipe and ogling Google'ed pictures of the very much married Amanda Hesser--throw in a few rye whiskeys and I will transgress yet another dipshit supposition.

Sort of.

I think my variations honor the original copy--adventurous though they are.

I followed her procedures with the following exceptions. I subbed out the unsweetened chocolate for a 58% bittersweet. Naturally I reduced the amount of sugar. It was questionable, I guess, but I did so by half. So I've found in any dessert, really, one can embellish after the fact with honey, confectioner's sugar or dulce de leche--by merely dousing it over top, but the core of the thing ought to remain chastly undersweetened. Pineapple upside-down cake is my blueprint for all things sweet. Consistent with that I upped the butter and salt by about a quarter.

As for the eggs I opted to separate them, adding three--not the two Ms. Hesser suggests, beaten yolks to the milk and vinegar mixture, while reserving the whites--again three, for a final folding in, whipped to semi-stiff peaks.

Because of the aerated character fostered by the beaten whites I divided my butter between two 9" pans, rather than one. She's gonna be a big girl. The baking time--at 375 deg., ran about five minutes past the advised half an hour, though realistically I attribute it to an idiosyncratic oven rather than the needs of my variation.

The cakes emerged and, upon cooling, I poked the tops full of holes with a kebab skewer, dampening them with amaretto, and I iced them.

The recipe outlined a sour cream mixture with chocolate chips. I went with what I had: sour cream, cream cheese, Nutella--nearly a jar of the stuff, and a little confectioner's sugar.



The iced double layer cake looked a little lopsided, but appealing nevertheless. I finished it with a few ounces of chocolate tablets, almonds and coffee beans finely ground in a spice mill. A patted puff of confectioner's sugar, a hiccup of rye in the air. Done.