I am baking a chocolate cake using a French recipe that a friend was sent by the people who owned a cottage in which he holidayed recently. The first part of the method involved melting dark chocolate and butter. None of this milk chocolate or margarine lark, I'll have you know. The aroma of the butter softening and the bitter-ish chocolate turning to liquid was incredible.
I added the other ingredients and watched as the rich, possibly quite unhealthy blend glistened as I moved it around the bowl. The texture and colour was fabulous – it put me in mind of the character in Chocolat, which was a better book than it was a film. The sensuousness of the scenes and smells that I imagined in Chocolat was present in my kitchen. It still is.
The buzzer on the oven just went but the cake is not yet done. I will give it another five or ten minutes, to ensure it is solid enough to cut. If it isn't, it won't be a disaster. I licked the slim, sharp knife I poked into the hot cake and it is definitely not cooked. I know it was silly to lick the knife but if you'd have seen what was on that knife, you'd have run your tongue carefully along the blade, too.
A picture of said cake will follow once it is done. I'm just going to sit awhile, in the warmth, inhaling. Mmm.
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