If there’s one thing you can be certain of in life, is that the uncertain will always happen.

Shuna has written more eloquently about change before. I on the other hand, have at times attempted to fumble through some sort of explanation. An explanation about my long absence from blogging. About how a friend can possibly tell from my tweets alone, that I have been feeling sad and deflated. About why I’m leaving, despite writing to every possible friend and family member in my address book only a year ago, to tell them about the dream job I had just landed.

I considered fumbling, but finally decided not to. I had an epiphany not too long ago. Not quite the kind that involves dropping everything and moving to a far corner of the Earth to help save endangered wild life, but still something along similar lines of acquiring personal happiness and satisfaction.

When I look up past chapters of my working life, I know there will be many people to miss. Even the guy who delivers our bottled water, who is extremely friendly despite looking like he could tear your head off with one finger. Yep, I’ll miss him too.

So anyway. Can we talk cake?

Admittedly, when I first made this cake, I was a little sceptical, and therein lies the genius of this recipe. It is a ridiculously simple concept that is so clever at the same time, it makes you wish you’d thought of it first. Basically, it’s a thicker version of a chocolate chip cookie, underbaked so that it retains cake-y characteristics. It is incredibly delicious eaten at any time of the day and lasts forever, if there is such a thing as ‘forever’, when it comes to cake.

The cake comes with a ganache that you drizzle over the top, but I have omitted it because I like the cake just as it is. This recipe is in US cup measures. Buy the book if you’re keen to make more New Orleans-style sweets.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake :
(from Dam Good Sweet by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel)

1 stick (113g) butter
1 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (58%-62% cacao)
1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 175’C.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside. Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, cream the butter, light brown sugar, and vanilla and almond extracts on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute. Increase the mixer speed to high and beat for 15 seconds. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg. Blend on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add the dry ingredients and combine on low speed until just a few dry streaks remain. Add the chocolate chips and mix for a few seconds until combined.

Scrape the batter into a greased and lined 10-inch round cake tin. Press the batter into a smooth and even layer in the pan. Bake until lightly golden and puffy around the edges (the center should still feel quite soft), 18 – 22 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes and then run a paring knife around the edge of the pan to release the cake. Cool for at least 4 hours before turning the cake out of the pan and onto a large plate.

This week, I’m counting down a little nervously to the day I start whipping up a huge batch of these cupcakes for a friend’s wedding. I’ve baked in bulk before, but never at home with a pint sized mixer and a single oven. For weeks now, I’ve been worrying over the little things that could possibly go wrong, including the amount of time I will have to make these, as I’m trying to fit it in, inbetween work and other commitments. Mind you, I’m extremely excited about the task and can’t wait to get stuck into the cake-baking and buttercream-mixing. In the meantime, I have cartons and cartons of eggs on my kitchen counter, a dining table taken over by a mountain of packing boxes, a fridge full of butter blocks and containers of chocolate ganache, and I’m half way through assembling the presentation/cutting cake. Fingers crossed, this whole operation is going to turn out as smoothly and as sweetly as….. vanilla bean buttercream.

There are certain foods I am not a huge fan of eating, yet I still appreciate them as an art form because of the skill involved in their creation. Macarons are an example of this (a shocking admission, isn’t it?), as are souffles.

At one place I worked, we made our souffles a la minute. An order would come in, and we would start whipping the egg whites by hand, adding the sugar slowly, then finally incorporating the resulting meringue into a fruit flavoured base. Quantities were ‘eye-balled’, rather than measured, so it was very crucial to make sure you tasted everything before sliding the little perfectly shiny copper pot filled with souffle mix into the hot oven. No matter how many I may have made, I still got great pleasure from seeing the well risen end product swiftly dispatched by the waiter to the dining room.

The most memorable souffle I have ever eaten, was one served to us at Claude’s several years ago. Six of the most perfectly risen souffles arrived simultaneously at the table. We were instructed to make an indent in our souffles with a spoon, though which a waiter then poured a gloriously boozy custard. I ate -every- single last spoonful of it. It was wonderful and warming, and a tremendous way to end a meal.

A good friend recently asked me for help in finding some suitable non-fruit based souffle recipes that she could use. I tried two, which with a bit of luck, ended up being very successful. Both souffles had great lift, were very stable, and were cooked just the way I prefer souffles to be – set around the outside, with a melting texture in the middle.

No recipe today, as I just wanted to share some pictures. It was my first time baking souffles at home, so I was keen to try my hand at photographing them too. The pictures turned out fairly well, even if the whole process was a combination of being a little frantic and hilarious at the same time. And you know what, I tasted them, and think I may be a fan of “certain” souffles after all!