{"id":159,"date":"2011-08-28T23:48:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T23:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/?p=159"},"modified":"2011-08-28T23:48:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T23:48:47","slug":"celebrating-a-birthday%e2%80%a6and-a-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating a birthday\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and a blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to try, go all the way.\/otherwise, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even start.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The words \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from Charles Bukowski\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thrilling poem, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Roll the Dice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — cut sharp and deep and they loom, and if you have things you want to do, keep the words in mind to set a fire lapping at your heels. Go all the way if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to try, Bukowski said. I believe it. But I also believe this, too: at the very least, try. Try something, try anything. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let the nagging something you want to do rest idly and safely in your daydreams. Take action. To me, failure is not about trying and falling short. Failure is not trying at all. There was time I wasted in being too fearful to try. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get that time back, but I can try to make up for it by trying as hard as I can now.<\/p>\n

One year ago, I began this blog, something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d long wanted to try. Looking back over the year of blog entries I am both proud at all the work done (and flour put to use) and assessing all that was not done, but certainly intended. It is a little like looking back over one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone so fast, been so busy, so much to do and so much yet to do. The blog is but a sliver of the pie. Still, I have tried, and I cannot tell you what joy that alone has made for what was truly a good year. <\/p>\n

Now, as the blog turns one year old (how cute!), and AWS turns, well, she treads forward another year deeper into the timeline, I ponder what is ahead. When I turned 30 and felt the bewilderment of the dawn of a new decade, I spoke to my grandmother on the phone about it. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 30 now, Grandma, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m supposed to do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t miss a beat. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she answered in her musical drawl, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153go on and turn 31, I guess.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So I find myself not only anticipatory and excited about what lies ahead, but also accepting of inevitabilities. Time will move ahead whether we accompany it hand in hand or sit fearful of it in the dark. I want myself to go on and turn whatever years I am to turn as long as deemed possible. I want the blog to go on, turn two, three, enter preschool and eventually go to blog college. I want the blog adventures in my kitchen to expand from sweet to savory, from the oven to the stovetop to hell, why not, the open flame (hopefully not by accident). I want my blog adventures to extend beyond my kitchen to the kitchens of others, to the pages of cookbooks and food memoirs, to the tables of roadside diners, the shelves carrying culinary curiosities\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6to fields and farms and woods. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nBut now is the time for cake to celebrate. I could not come to a birthday of a blog and not have cake in the picture, could I? This cake caught my eye months ago in the pages of Bon Appetit magazine. It was dark and drop-dead gorgeous and immediately said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy birthday\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to me, with three layers of decadence sandwiched and topped with a frosting that looked more like pudding. I was intrigued by the use of brown sugar in both the cake and the frosting. I knew this would make the cake rich in flavor, but was dubious about the texture. Still, I made my plans to give this one a go. Cocoa powder, rather than baking chocolate bars or chips, was used in both the cake and the frosting. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to try, go all the way\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I ordered some high-quality Italian cocoa (Pernigotti) from Amazon<\/a>, and it came encased in two plain plastic bags, so that it resembled a brick of dirt-brown cocaine. It all seemed illicit and well, adult.<\/p>\n

Here is what I noticed while baking the cake that has nothing to do with the recipe, but everything to do with why I have a blog about baking. Measuring the flour, the soil-dark, rich cocoa, listening to the clank of the beating paddle of my industrial-strength Kitchen Aid mixer as it fused butter and brown sugar to some new form in a time-honored kitchen alchemy, I was as entranced as if surrounded by an orchestra. Any thoughts or worries I may have had melted from me. To paraphrase from the film \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Little Big Man,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d my heart soared like a hawk. I was in the act of creation, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean to sound high-falutin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, but it is the very same act that moves the painter to the canvas and the potter to the wheel. I made the cake and danced a little while I did it. <\/p>\n

As for the recipe, the mahogany cake layers baked up light as air, tender and lovely. I think the buttermilk was key. The frosting, prepared at the stove, boiled up a rich pudding-like sauce, so that you could imagine it dressing an ice cream sundae. Heavy cream gave it some body. And it had coffee as a kicker (yee-haw)! I assembled the cake and waited one day to taste it, ogling it as it sat beckoning me from under the glass cake done. Here is what made it truly great, I shared it with someone who also has an August birthday, someone whose spirit I deeply admire, a woman who believes in her wishes and dreams and counts possibility on the list of inevitabilities to which we all are granted.<\/p>\n

Eating the cake with my friends, I realized that even though it was no less celebratory, it was the opposite of my cake of last year (see my very first blog entry). That cake was demure, pale and ladylike, full of raspberries and roses, perhaps a bit tentative and reserved. This cocoa cake was beyond bold, as intense a chocolate cake as I have ever eaten. Is it symbolic for the year ahead? It was not necessarily intended to be, but sometimes, oddly enough, what was meant to be catches us by surprise, an intention we did not know we had, coming from somewhere deep. <\/p>\n

If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to try, go all the way. <\/p>\n

Or, at the very least \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as in my case \u00e2\u20ac\u201c try harder.<\/p>\n

Cocoa Layer Cake
\nFrom Bon Appetit magazine
\nMakes 10 servings
\nPREP TIME: 1 hour
\nTOTAL TIME: 3 hours (includes chilling time) <\/p>\n

Cake;
\n1\/2 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder (spooned into cup to measure, then leveled)
\n1 cup lukewarm water, divided
\n1\/2 cup buttermilk
\n1 1\/2 cups cake flour (spooned into cups to measure, then leveled)
\n3\/4 teaspoon baking soda
\n1 cup sugar
\n1\/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
\n1\/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
\n2 large eggs, room temperature, beaten to blend <\/p>\n

Frosting:
\n10 tablespoons (1 1\/4 sticks) unsalted butter
\n1 1\/3 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
\n1 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder
\n2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
\n1 cup heavy whipping cream
\n2 teaspoons vanilla extract <\/p>\n

Special equipment:
\n3 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 11\/2-inch-high sides <\/p>\n

Preparation for cake:<\/p>\n

Position 1 rack in top third and 1 rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 350\u00c2\u00b0F. Butter three 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 1\/2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper rounds; butter parchment. Whisk cocoa and 1\/2 cup warm water in small bowl. Whisk buttermilk and 1\/2 cup water in another small bowl. Sift flour, baking soda, and 1\/4 teaspoon salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat both sugars and butter in large bowl until pale yellow and fluffy (mixture will appear granular), about 5 minutes. With mixer running, gradually add beaten eggs, then beat until smooth and fluffy, about 15 seconds. Add cocoa mixture; beat to blend. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk mixture in 2 additions, beating to blend after each addition. Divide batter among pans (about 1 3\/4 cups each).<\/p>\n

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, reversing pans halfway through baking, about 18 minutes. Cool completely in pans on racks.<\/p>\n

For frosting:<\/p>\n

Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, and 1\/2 teaspoon (scant) salt. Gradually stir in cream. Stir until mixture is very hot and just begins to simmer at edges. Reduce heat to low; stir 1 minute to let flavors blend. Transfer to medium bowl; stir in vanilla (frosting will resemble chocolate sauce). Chill until just thickened, stirring occasionally, about 1 1\/2 hours. Let stand at room temperature.<\/p>\n

Run knife around cake sides. Carefully invert 1 cake onto plate (cake is very tender); peel off parchment. Spread with 1\/2 cup frosting. Invert second cake onto palm of hand. Position cake 2 inches above frosted cake layer. Carefully slide cake onto first cake layer. Peel off parchment. Spread cake with 1\/2 cup frosting. Repeat with third cake layer. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake. Do AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover with cake dome; let stand at room temperature.<\/p>\n

Cut into wedges and serve.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Blogger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s note: Rather than baking and rotating cake layers on different oven racks during one cooking time, I baked two layers for 18 minutes, then one layer for 18 minutes on the middle rack of the oven.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to try, go all the way.\/otherwise, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even start.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The words \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from Charles Bukowski\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thrilling poem, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Roll the Dice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — cut sharp and deep and they loom, and if you have things you want to do, keep the words in mind to set a fire lapping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12,1],"tags":[36,37,38],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oantry","category-recipe-box","category-uncategorized","tag-cake","tag-chocolate","tag-cocoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.womansconed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}