Prompt and Circumstance

Disaster

'Melt' (April 22nd, 2016)

No question about mouth-watering taste, nor enjoyment and the 'just-have-to-come-back-for-seconds' type response. The huge sighs and satisfied grins, along with much tummy patting clearly answered that one. Equally, there was no question that this had NOT been the intention in my well-planned 'notes to self' about its creation. The largest question looming was what exactly to call this amazing result of my flight of fancy.

All had started innocently enough – as most great moments in history do - simply to make a spiffy cake to serve with coffee after the main meal, as a dessert. Chocolate cake was in the forefront of my mind. I had some strawberries, and I remembered a super-looking photo in a fancy magazine of a slice of chocolate cake, with a small tower of piped cream and a couple of strawberries alongside. A casual swirl of berry jus on the pristine white plate – and the effect was simply superb. I could do that.

Who can't make a great choccy cake? I asked myself. And myself said, ha! – pushover! That's one of my favourite recipes.

I had the cream and some frozen strawberries... And that bottle of strawberry-flavoured icecream topping would be a great substitute for the fancy jus I had no hope of duplicating. (When the farm is far from the madding crowd, compromise is the ultimate name of the game.)

And while I'm at it, why not double the ingredients so I make an extra cake? Couple of morning teas all sewn up at the same time. Hmm... good thinking, cookie.

Industriously I went to work, creaming butter and sugar and cocoa (even adding a handful of chocolate melts to the mix to make it extra luscious), whipping our precious farm eggs, and alternately (and most carefully) folding in the flour to ensure an airy-fairy consistency. While my masterpiece cooked in my trusty old wood-burning stove, I whipped and piped cream and chose the biggest, most perfect-looking strawberries to clean and set aside.

By the time the men came in for dinner, fabulous aromas of the meal wafted through the farm- house, with the tempting perfume of cooling chocolate cake competing for attention. The main meal proved another culinary success, and finally the moment came to cut and assemble this wondrous dessert.

Except... when I doubled the ingredients, I hadn't doubled the flour. Oh no! What I cut into, with a most eager audience, was my claim to fame - the first Chocolate Mud Cake (or Lava Cake, whatever your preference) in history. All soft and gooey as the melted middle oozed out, it was declared a chocolate pudding... NOT a cake at all. No sophisticated presentation was possible. The carefully prepared cream towers melted all over the servings and the only choice was to sit the lonely-looking strawberries on top and watch them slither down like a kid on a slippery slide.

My only consolation from this disaster was the immense pleasure the fellows (and me) found in the flavour (and unbelievable moistness) in this amazing creation, prompting many requests, for a long time to come to 'make that chocolate cake again, Chris'. Somehow, this never happened... you may have guessed it wasn't only the chocolate cake that experienced a 'melt-down'.