The first night Di was here, I received an e-mail from K, sending a recipe for a unique chocolate cake, "just in case you and Di are in the mood" for something chocolatey.  Well, K, let me say this,  no matter what you've heard to the contrary, real women are ALWAYS in the mood--for something chocolatey.

The recipe for Chocolate Eclipse cake came from Mollie Katzen's Web site and defies all the normal cake baking conventions. No eggs, just a wee bit of butter, and a magical process where the cake creates its own fudge sauce during the baking process. It has unsweetened chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and cocoa in it. Don't drool on your keyboard.

There was a line in the recipe that I loved: "Pour on the boiling water. It will look terrible, and you will not believe you are actually doing this, but try to persevere."

Those words said so much to me on so many levels. I couldn't get them out of my head. I saw making this cake as a challenge AND a life lesson. But yes, Mollie Katzen wasn't exagerrating--it looks like a disaster!

My daughter took one look at this and said, "That's not Eclipse Cake, it's Swamp Cake!"

Yes, it is Swamp Cake. Look at the eerie mist lingering above the pan.

Hmmm, after it's baked, it looks like cracked earth.

Cut the cake and flip the slices over to see the "sauce."  My son said the spongy, fudgy texture was mud-like. So it's official, K. From now on, we're calling it Swamp Cake at Chez V.

November 16, 2007