Fathers & Chocolate

Grainews

November 2020. My family recently marked the first anniversary of my Dad’s death. I miss him. He and Mom lived fairly close by, and Dave and I visited them weekly for movie night with our dog Jake, sometimes with dessert in hand. Like a good chocolate, Dad had a soft heart within a crusty exterior. Chocolate was one of his favourite foods: his standing request for dessert whenever I consulted him was “Anything as long as it’s chocolate.” By which he meant dark chocolate, of course.

When we were kids, my home-cooking hero mother had a limited repertoire of desserts, but many were made with dark chocolate to suit Dad’s chocoholic tastes. His favourite was chocolate cake in a square pan; after supper Mom cut it into nine, three by three, enough for the seven of us plus seconds for Dad, and in his lunch the next day.

The chocoholic gene caught up with me as an adult. I love a tart lemon dessert, but chocolate rules, so I eat good dark chocolate every day – bolstered by my dentist’s advice decades ago, that chocolate really was the best choice if I was going to eat sweets. (It doesn’t get stuck in my teeth like toffee does.) Plus I’ve read that dark chocolate (containing a minimum of 70% cacao) contains flavanols, which are potent antioxidants. A 2018 test at Linda Loma University in California involved subjects eating dark chocolate before and after a brain scan. In the post-chocolate scans, researchers observed increased activity in functions like T-cell activation, cellular immune response and in genes involved in neural signaling, which translates to positive effects on mood, memory, stress levels and inflammation. As well, it reduces blood pressure and cholesterol. Medical and dental endorsement – double yay! Wowee, Dad was smart.

Desserts I’d make for my Dad if he were still walking the planet include a very adult flourless dark chocolate pudding/cake, salted caramel chocolate tart, and chocolate angel food cake topped with dark chocolate cream. And this intensely flavoured sourdough chocolate cake, which utilizes the discard from making bread. Dad would have loved this cake. So first we eat, then we discuss the many merits of quotidian chocolate as a lifestyle.  I’ll get you those other chocolate recipes another day, I promise.

Sourdough Chocolate Cake

When I couldn’t visit friends willing to adopt my sourdough starter extras and couldn’t stand the idea of tossing out the discard when I made bread, I went hunting for ways to use up my excess starter. This is adapted from a recipe I found on the King Arthur Flour website. Yes, it has two toppings. Make both. Makes one very rich 9”x13” cake

Cake:

1 cup sourdough starter (or discard)

1 cup milk

2 cups all purpose flour

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

¾ cup cocoa

2 tsp. instant or espresso coffee powder

2 large eggs

Glaze:

3 cups icing sugar, sifted

½ cup butter

¼ cup plain yoghurt or buttermilk

2 tsp. instant or espresso coffee powder

1 Tbsp. hot water

Icing:

1 cup finely chopped dark chocolate (or chips)

½ cup whipping cream, more as needed

Combine the starter, milk and flour. Mix well, then cover and leave out on the counter for 3-4 hours. (If you leave it overnight, you may need to feed it a spoonful of flour next morning if it looks depleted.)

Set the oven at 350 F. Butter and flour a 9”x13” cake pan. Mix together the sugar, oil or melted butter, vanilla, baking soda, coca and coffee powder. Add the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the activated starter, mixing well. Turn into the pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.

To make the glaze, put the icing sugar in a medium bowl. Combine the butter, and yoghurt or buttermilk in a pot over medium heat. Dissolve the coffee powder in the hot water and add to the butter mix. Heat to just shy of a boil and add to the icing sugar. Mix well to knock out any lumps. Immediately pour evenly on the cake in the pan. It will set as it cools.

To make the icing, combine the chocolate and cream in a glass bowl. Heat on medium power in the microwave for 2 minutes. Stir gently to combine; heat for another 30-40 seconds if necessary to melt the chocolate. Slowly stir in extra cream to thin to spreading consistency if necessary. Spread evenly on the glazed cake-top.

Embellishing the Everyday

Grainews

June 2020. Mom doesn’t like to cook. I hardly blame her – she’s 84, after all, and spent decades feeding five kids and my dad. When Mom had double knee replacement surgery seven years ago, Dad stepped into the kitchen. Mom was relieved, and after her knees healed, she didn’t return to cooking, but ate whatever Dad made.

Now a widow, Mom cooks again, albeit reluctantly and sparely. I do her shopping, and I deliver a variety of homemade dishes – soup, pasta sauce, muffins, crisps –when we visit for weekly movie night, and I make lunch (with leftovers) in her kitchen when we return from our farmers’ market forays.

Mom and I are working our way through the backlog of ingredients Dad accumulated before he died. He was a keen shopper, loved a bargain, and thought if some was good, more must be better. When Mom found several packets of round steak in the freezer, she turned the meat over to me, saying she’d never cook it. So I made a big potful of beef and wild mushroom stew for her. But even a carefully made stew constructed with good stock and wild mushrooms and red wine appreciates a little up-sell. So I made puff pastry, and filled six two-portion ramekins with stew, then covered each ramekin with pastry, slashed and glazed with egg wash, unbaked and ready for the freezer. I told Mom to roast some vegetables and a spud whenever she thawed and baked one of the ramekins. The pastry and roasted vegetables transformed that simple dish into a multi-textured meal.

The same pastry upgrade can be accorded to vegetable stew, chicken stew, lamb tagine – any would benefit from a little lily-gilding. It needn’t be scratch-made puff pastry, although it’s the most dramatic. Back in the day in my little Calgary restaurant, I routinely made chicken pot pies to order, topping a bowlful of chicken stew with stacks of buttered filo pastry, subjecting the whole thing to enough time in the oven to transform the pastry to a golden cap. Or, in the southern style, a few biscuits served as topping transformers. Even an upper-crust layer of thinly sliced and buttered potatoes can reinvent a day-to-day stew.

The process of adding a crust to a humble stew is like making cobbler or crisp instead of eating a bowlful of plain berries: it adds texture and a layer of complexity without increasing the degree of difficulty. Despite its rep, puff pastry really isn’t difficult. Sure, it has an aura of glamour, but like most pastry, puff pastry just requires a rolling pin, a bit of time and practice. Quietly serve the results without labeling them as “puff” until your hands are attuned.

So here’s a quick puff pastry to embellish your next humble stew or fruit cobbler. It is so much better than most commercial versions, and making it is quicker than waiting for that frozen brick of commercial puff to thaw.  Try it. First we eat the results, then we can discuss other ways to embellish the everyday.

dee’s Quick Puff Pastry

When I make pastry to top savoury dishes like stew, I sometimes use equal parts of butter and good lard. For sweet dishes like fruit, I use all butter all the time. Makes enough for 6 small ramekins or 3 9” pies.

pastry:

3 cups all purpose flour

a pinch of salt

1 cup cold butter, cut in cubes (or half butter/half lard)

1 cup cold water (more as needed)

egg wash:

1 whole egg

4 Tbsp. cream

Combine the flour and salt. Use a pastry cutter or 2 knives to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the fat is the size of big peas. Add the water (more as needed depending on the climate and humidity). Mix to just hold together.

Turn out the pastry onto a floured counter. Use your hands to form the pastry into a thick rectangle. Keep the edges as tidy as you can. Fold one-third of the pastry over top, then fold the far side over top so you have a fat rectangle. Turn the dough 90 degrees. Roll out the dough into a fat but tidy rectangle, then fold in thirds again. Turn and repeat 4 times. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Remove from the fridge 30 minutes before you plan to roll out for use. Cut dough into 4 pieces and roll on floured counter to preferred thickness. Use a sharp knife to cut to required size and shape. Cut several slashes in the centre of the pastry as steam vents. Transfer pastry to top of stew or fruit filling.  Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Make the egg wash by whisking the egg and cream until well blended. Brush onto the pastry. Bake for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 F. Bake for another 20 minutes or until golden.