I love Mr. Sweet Potato. He is especially dirt cheap at the moment, which enables me to pretend that I am living a budget lifestyle despite all the butter and chocolate that I buy.

This dessert, sanctioned by Mr. Sweet Potato, started out as a budget piece of sweet potato cake. It got me thinking about sweet potato pie, which alas, I have never made or tasted. However I feel I know this particular pie’s purpose or meaning, without having tasted it. Sweet potato is comfort food. As kids, we snacked on steamed slices of sweet potato and tapioca dipped in granulated sugar.

These days, some people happily pay a lot of money in restaurants to eat luxury examples of such comfort food. At best, it is playful and you smile when you feel that thrill of recognising something from your past. At it’s most successful, it should also be so delicious that it is capable of standing as a dish on it’s own right. I hope to achieve something close to that calibre one day, but in the meantime, I taste, smile and remember.

There are flavours of maple, cinnamon, caramel, vanilla, walnut and black sesame in this dessert, along with textures of rich custard, crunchy tuile, buttery crumble, moist cake and silky ice-cream. Black sesame isn’t exactly traditional in this pie, but I thought it would go well with the sweet potato. A recipe listing each individual component would be too lengthy, so I’m only including the star component that instigated the entire dish. It is certainly worth the money in your pocket to bake and partake in :

Sweet Potato Cake :
(from Dessert by David Everitt-Matthias)

for the syrup :
110ml water
75g caster sugar
juice of 1/4 lemon

for the sweet potato cake :
50g unsalted butter
2 eggs
200g soft brown sugar
100ml sunflower oil
200g self-raising flour
5g baking powder
300g sweet potatoes, peeled and grated
1/2 banana, mashed
grated zest of 1/2 orange
75g walnuts, chopped
75g green raisins

To make the syrup, put the water, sugar and lemon juice into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Simmer for a few minutes then remove from the heat and leave to cool.

For the cake, heat the butter in a small frying pan until it starts to turn brown and smells nutty. Leave to cool. Place the eggs in a mixing bowl with the sugar and whisk until pale and thick. Slowly drizzle in the oil and then the butter as if making mayonnaise, whisking all the time. Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold them into the egg mixture. Add all the remaining ingredients except the icing sugar and mix lightly. Transfer the mixture to a greased, lined 30 x 20 x 3cm baking tray and place in an oven preheated to 180’C. Bake for 40 minutes – 1 hour, until a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool a little, then remove it from the tin, lightly prick it all over and douse with syrup. Leave to cool completely.

She breezed through my front door. I have good news! She said. And bad news.

The good news was that she had finally gotten her dream job. In spite of the bad news hovering like an elephant in the room, it was the good news that we wanted to celebrate and discuss. Afterall, how many people can really say they are working in their dream job?

I look around the carriage of my train some mornings and wonder why people look so sad or hurt and angry. It is as though someone has shouted in their ear and dragged them out of bed, scrubbed their face with soap, handed them a briefcase and pushed them out the door. I know I have days when I dread getting out of bed because the whole cycle begins, the moment your feet touch the floor. But it’s all we can do sometimes to try to stay afloat in a world drifting faster than we can manage. Stuffed into heavy suits and shiny shoes, we breathe in with forgotten lungs and tread water.

Because she and I were celebrating on one of those days when none of the above exists, I had to make a cake. Even though I don’t often bake with white chocolate, I know she loves it, and after making this, I could not stop myself from eating the trimmings. Leonor calls it a blondie, but I actually think it’s more of a cross between a cake and a blondie. It is light, but impossibly moist and truly celebrates the flavour of white chocolate like no other cake I’ve tasted.

Despite this, it looks deceptively like a functional cake, which the world is already filled to the rafters with. Functional cakes are the lubricant for social discourse between the hours of 10 and 11am or 3 and 4pm.

This is not a functional cake. It doesn’t facilitate discussion. It is a cake baked with words, and I hope she can hear it when she eats it. It says, I value your friendship. I’m sorry you’re having relationship issues at a time in your life when you are feeling ready to settle down and have children. I admire you. I am proud of your achievements. I hope to always be there for you.

Despite all signs to the contrary, I’d like to think I eat in a fairly balanced manner. Cake days get offset by salad days. Always featured at the dinner table are a good dose of vegetables, to counteract my sixth essential food group : ice-cream. However, I was left wondering today if there was anything that could possibly balance bacon in a brownie.

That’s when I decided that there are some things in life you just have to accept as being essential experiences. In other words, give in to the fun. I’m speaking of fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, eaten on the beach. Blowing bubbles into a chocolate milkshake, even though your mom has told you to stop playing with your food for-the-tenth-time. Eating a butter-fried croque madame without cutlery. Putting your ear to a bowl of rice bubbles containing freshly poured milk.

To that list, I’m adding bacon brownies. Eat bacon brownies in the comfort of your own home. With your feet tucked under a blanket. Eat it and marvel at how well the combination works. Savour the rich, moist, dark chocolate and the crispy, salty bacon. Forget those words that fill the mind with doubt and catch in the throat like a solitary dry rice cake. Words like chol-es-ter-ol, and once-on-your-lips-forever-on-your-hips.

Think instead : At least my feet won’t look fat in this. My handbag is still going to fit. Now I can finally get the most value out of my gym membership. Here’s something I won’t feel guilty about not sharing with my vegetarian friends.

If you’re not a fan of bacon, you should still make this anyway, sans bacon. It is a superlative brownie, and according to the authors of Baked, this brownie has not only been featured in O magazine, but has also been awarded “best brownie” by America’s Test Kitchen and the Today show.

The Baked Brownie :
(yields 24 brownies; recipe from Baked by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito)

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
311g dark chocolate (60 – 72% cacao), coarsely chopped [I used Lindt 70%]
226g unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
5 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 176’C. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9-by-13-inch glass or light-colored metal baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder together.

Put the chocolate, butter, and instant espresso powder in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, then remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature.

Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (not a whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 mnutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve.

Tightly covered with plastic wrap, the brownies keep at room temperature for up to 3 days.

To baconise the Baked Brownie :
Bake 75g thinly sliced proscuitto or bacon in the oven until crispy. Crumble the bacon slices over the top of the brownie batter (or fold it through the mix) before baking. The bacon brownie is best eaten on the day it’s made, if you like your bacon crispy. Otherwise, the bacon will soften a little over the next couple of days, but still be perfectly tasty.

(Of course, the less decadent option would be to bake cookies instead, but honestly, I think the brownies are definitely the way to go.)