The Best Chocolate Cake Recipe Ever

 Everyone needs that go to sessert recipe for te  holidays.It's usally cookies or pie however don;t discount a good cake one. Nothing says dream dessert than a chocolate cake, layered with a richy creamy frosting,Luckily there;s a recipe out there that fills the bill.

Master cake and pastry baker and regular contributor Claire Saffitz gave the recipe along with useful advice in yestrday's New York Times Food section,. Her cake is moist, dense and dark. Unlike other chocolate sctach cakes she uses cocoa powder instead of melting chocolate bits . Melted chocolate tends to dry out cake batter.Also bar cocolate or chocolate chips tends to add more sweetness (unless you're using baker's chocolate) She recommends Dutch process which means that the cocoa has been alkalized, neutralizing some of the chocolate's natural acidity.It also gives the cocoa a much more rounded  roasted flavor and a deeper, richer color. Also nix the butter. Add a neutral oil like avocado or vegetable. Oil is liquid at room temperature so an ol based cake has less of a tendency to dry out, Cakes do need a butter fat flavro but se uses creme fraiche or sour cream. This reacts with the baking powder, giving the texture or crumb s light bounciness,

Of course you can use chocolate bars, but in the frosting. This gives the icing a high gloss and shiny , finished look. ms Saffitz opts for a German buttercream which is whipping butter in a pastry cream base for a denser texture. The pudding base calls for cooking four large flour , sugar and milk on a stove top before adding a mix of chopped semisweet chocolate and cocoa powderTwo and aquarter cups of melted butter are added into the cooling mix, Use a mixer for this so you can get a smooth, spreadable glossy icing.Add two tablespoons of vanilla extract last, beat again and then spread on the cake.As for frosting, a good one cupof buttercream should work bwtween the layers. The to[p and sides should onyl have a very thin layer of the frosting on them. You could decorate with shaved chocolate if you want, Anything else would ruin this beautiful cake.

This chocolate cake is the perfect holiday dessert. Its a richer more legant spin on just your average cake. Try it for a show stopping end,

Happy Birthday Coleridge!

                                         HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE!

It's not a Devon cream tea with scones and jams and good English tea!

Yet this is how we celebrate birthdays nowadays across the sea!

It is good chocolate cake!

I did not bake!

But it's yummy and tasty, a real treat for you and me!

From Gourmet To Chef

Ruth Reichl went from the glamour of magazine editor to the coziness of home chef.It was a boon to her  as it led her to write  another cookbook My Kitchen Year:136 Recipes That Saved My Life..It is  chock full of delicious recipes and drool worthy pictures of her creations. As always , when one kitchen door closes another opens to a better one.

Kin Severson wrote about this in her article in yesterday's New York Time Food section.At one time Ms. Reichl was the ultimate foodie writer, being editor in chief of the famed Gourmet Magazine as well as  food editor of the LA Times . She also  was a restaurant critic at the New York Times too. Everything changed in 2008 when Gourmet closed its doors after sixty nine years in publication. To this day she still does not know why it shut down.Luckily she relied on her "hippie" ways , getting over the firing and going back to her true love cooking The writing wasn't pushed aside though and she kept an emotional cooking journal, a season by season account of her recovery from losing her job. She embraced Twitter , letting fans read her haiku like food posts (and also provided fodder for parody from those not familiar with her style). An editor gently pushed her into creating a full fledged cookbook It paid off.

The cookbook is deeply personal, appealing to many home chefs who love her recipes and identify with her. There are pictures of  Ms. Reich trudging through her snow filled yard to her backyard cabin where she writes along with tossing autumn leaves in the air, her two beautiful Russian Blue kitties ,Cielo and Zaza posing and her  cooking her recipes. The recipes are amazing There is a lush chocolate cake iced with rich cream cheese infused frosting . This would make a great holiday and a fantastic birthday cake. It has a 1 1/2 cups(!) of butter in it along with brown and white sugars. Home chefs will love making her  chicken diavolo , a spicy dish ripe with jalapeno and serrano peppers along with paprika and lemon.Another recipe is an Asian influenced eggplant salad that has a trio of interesting flavors such as fish sauce brown sugar and chile flakes. I can see this salad being served with the chicken . The book is filled with other great recipes that would be perfect to make as we ease into fall.

Cooking has always been a form of therapy and that was never more true than it was for Ruth Reichl.It inspired her and got her through a difficult transition period of going from star editor to home chef. It paid off in the form of a yummy cookbook, chock full of tasty recipes!