Image 1If you’ve read this blog before, you’ve likely noticed that cookery, and more specifically cake, is a running theme.  This is, at least in part, due to the fact that I have a tendency to try and bake my way out of tight corners. At the moment I’ve reached the stage in a rewrite where it is consuming most available time and headspace, and somehow the overflow for this also tends to spill out as yet more baking. 

The cake you see here is the result of my trying to think-between-the-lines of an imaginary first date of sorts for two characters in Paris.  A cake with Brooklyn in the name might not, therefore, seem the obvious first choice.  Until you taste it, and all is revealed.  Intense, sweet, creamy, and profoundly chocolatey, a bite of this little number is as close to the heady rush of a first kiss you are ever going to find in cake form.

What you see here is my second attempt.  The first was sometime last year but, like most cakes around here, it disappeared before it could be documented.  In addition to its near X-rated nature, this recipe also has several practical things to recommend it.

1. It can be prepared in stages.  I’ve made the sinfully rich chocolate custard the day before, and then carried on with the cake.  I am sure you could prepare it even two or three days before you wanted to serve it.  If anything, the flavours just intensify, lifting this from first kiss to full-blown snog. (Besides, since you’re probably meant to be writing anyway, the less time you spend in the kitchen the better.)

2. The fat content can, theoretically, be reduced.  Strictly speaking the custard doesn’t need all of that butter.  It tastes just glorious even without it.  Yes, the butter does help with structural support, but if your fridge is cold enough it’ll all be fine.  It also is what gives the chocolate custard that candlelit erotic gleam.  But, if you’re at all like us, you are probably going to be eating it late at night while concentrating on Newsnight or some Scandinavian crime thing, so the candlelit sheen can possibly wait for another pud.

I first saw this in a Waitrose magazine, in which they mention there is also a book.  To be frank, I’m afraid to buy it, because I just know it will be fab, and there is a limit to how many baking books it is safe to keep in one house.  Meanwhile, here’s the recipe.

Trust me.  If you like chocolate and/or snogging, this is the cake for you.

Recipe: Brooklyn blackout cake
By Annie Bell

  1. Have ready 2 x 20cm loose-bottom cake tins at least 5cm deep.
  2. First make the filling, as this requires a cooling time. Blend the cornflour with about a third of the milk until smooth. Bring the remaining milk to the boil in a small nonstick saucepan with Continue reading