Make well

Moist Chocolate Cake

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup cocoa
Mix altogether in large bowl. Make a well in the center

This is, hands down, the best part of the experience. Even better than licking the bowl when the frosting is gone. I don't know why I was so entranced by this, and I don't know if you really need to do it this way or not but I'm hardly going to try just throwing everything in.

Not just because I think the "well" is the best part, though it is. I don't know why or how it held such a fascination for me as a child, why I remembered this cake as "the one where you got to smooth the dry ingredients to the side of the bowl and pour the liquid ones in to make a lake," but that's what it was. Mom used to call it German chocolate cake; the version of the recipe on the e-mail, as you can see, calls it Moist Chocolate Cake (which surely means that's what's actually on the recipe card); now I call it "my mom's chocolate cake", but when I was little I thought of it as that one, with the vinegar lake. Not even in so many words; there are no words at all. When I finally looked at the recipe myself, years later, I was curious to check how it instructed you to make this holy crater. It just says "Make a well in the center."

When I scribbled the recipe down from my computer screen this morning (I haven't had a printer to call my own since 2003), I omitted the first sentence and the articles in the second, so it just said "Make well in center." I didn't notice at the time but smiled when I read it in the kitchen. I certainly hoped I was making it well.

No, this is the best part because the well is the magic. Because you do that to make it work. "That's just the way it's done" can be one of the best incantations.

1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tblsp. vinegar
3/4 cup wessen oil or whatever oil you have
2 cups water

Pour all into well and mix.

This cake, Mom says, is good for church and such as it doesn't have eggs. "And your older people can't always eat eggs, you know." As with so many sentences, especially from her, that end thusly I actually didn't know — the only old people I knew were my grandparents, and I'd seen them eat eggs — and now can only guess that it's something to do with cholesterol.

By the time I was in college I had a different perspective. At home for some break or other and helping mom with the cake, I mused, "I could make this for Allison's birthday" (which I remember as coming up soon though I can't imagine what I'd been doing at home in Feburary). "She's a vegan," I explained. It was a new thing to me then; it'd be years before I met more vegans.

"A what?" Mom said.

"A vegan. They don't eat anything that comes from animals. Not just meat but, you know, butter or eggs or anything."

I think my mom thought this was some kind of mental disability.

The vinegar always baffled me. First of all, it wasn't kept in the cupboards with the other, y'know, food. You had to reach behind a bunch of things under the sink to get to it, things like dishwashing detergent. Secondly, vinegar reeks. It smells more like a cleaning product than something you put in chocolate cake, I thought. Also, for reasons long gone to the mists of time, my mom once had some reason to pour vinegar all over my back when I was taking a bath. It didn't feel very nice on whatever was wrong with my skin, of course, but mostly the stink made me want to puke, which surely didn't help much either. I swear the mental trauma has lasted to this day; I'm still wary of vinegar.

I could not find "plain" vinegar to save my soul; I was lucky to find anything that was not malt vinegar — a condiment to which I am violently opposed as it also smells vile and makes chips soggy — and faced with red wine, white wine, and apple cider (or "cyder"), I chose the cider as I'm sure I've seen that kind in my mom's house.

Once I got it home I opened it warily and took a sniff. My nose wrinkled up and I thought Yep, that's a good sign: just like I'm used to! It's worked fine, though either I'm wrong about that being a kind that's been used in this cake, the kind I'm buying is stronger (which seems likely; it's quite a fancy bottle), or now that my cake-baking life for the first time overlaps with my cider-drinking life I notice it more.

When I was little I tried licking cake batter off my fingers and was disappointed at the strange tanginess, so unlike the deep satisfaction of cookie dough. But now of course I realize that's the vinegar, you idiot, and lick away happily, free of worries about salmonella that were Mom's stated reason for keeping fingers out of the cookie dough (though really I think it was just one of those things that she didn't like herself and thus couldn't see the appeal for anyone else either).

Bake 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes

I use practically the same setting for the oven all the time, as most of the things I put in it advise on the package about 200 C and a bit less, about 180, if you have a fan-assisted oven. Which I do. So I decided I would just start cooking everything at something between the notches that say 150 and 200 on the oven. (Andrew always cooks his food at the same temperature too: the highest possible notch, as any fule kno this will make it cook faster.) And that's what I did now.

And it turns out that 350 F is 176.666667 C. Right on.

The best part is, despite the bowl not being quite big enough and me not knowing what icing sugar was and the confusion of the different kinds of vinegar and worrying about the frosting, when one of the cupcakes crumbled in my fingers as I was frosting it and I decided to put it out of its misery by finishing it off in a few big bites ... it tasted like all of my birthday cakes — all the books and sailboats and Mickey Mouses with intricate decorations — and all of the just-because cakes of my whole life. This is why I waited to make the cake until after I'd had a chance to talk to Mom; I didn't want just any cake, a random cake, even if a delicious cake. You'll never convince me this isn't the best chocolate cake in the world because when I took a bite of that cupcake all the previous cakes that tasted just like it exploded in my memory into a kaleidoscope of empty calories and childhood (and teenagerhood and early adulthood) joy.

Just another petite madeleine. And I'm not at all surprised that the actual madeleine is a little cake.

I hope this all works out. It has made me hungry for chocolate cake but Dad and I are trying not to have all that stuff. We have already had chocolate ckae twice this last weekend. What can I say we a[re] weak when it comes to chocolate. Take care and have a good week. Mom

If you are weak when it comes to chocolate too, do come over and try one. You'll be doing me a favor; Andrew's not really allowed them on his diet and I will never eat three dozen. That's why I made cupcakes, so I can hide them in the freezer and free us from the temptation to eat ourselves silly. I'm happy to share.

I love any excuse to break out the measuring spoons.