I Fink Therefore I Am

One of the hardest things about raising a little boy is the inability I have to relate to certain quirks, which I hear are most common in boys. One of them is Jack’s love for guns, which I first talked about here. If you remember the particular episode, Jack talked about the animals he saw in the clouds and how one of the clouds was a gun that shot one of the bunnies in the sky. He’s a cool kid.

Another challenge is helping him understand the good and the bad guys, and perhaps the gray areas in between. The villains are always much cooler. That is the truth. It started with Milton’s Paradise Lost, and it went downhill from there. Obviously, Jack can like the villains, but there is a part of me that wants to clarify: Yeah, the scary alien with multiple horns and bulging muscles is impressive, but he’s bad; he hurts people. Sure, Darth Vader is intimidating (even though his asthma would probably make him a very weak opponent) and he seems cool, but Skywalker is good and handsome.

A few weeks ago we were at a local restaurant waiting for our food to come out, when Jack noticed a policeman sitting at the table next to ours:

“Look momma, a policeman…he’s got a gun, look momma.”
“Yes, he does.”
“Momma, does he shoot bad guys with the gun?”
“Well, policemen protect people from bad guys.”
“Does he shoot the bad guys really hard?”
“Well, it depends, baby. Sometimes he just puts people in jail, sometimes he needs to shoot. It depends…”

Jack pauses a minute…

“He has to fink about it?”
“Yes, little doofus, he has to Fink about it…” I say smiling, happy to see that he is starting to understand the complexity of certain choices.

The Chocolate Rum Cake that I am offering today has nothing to do with the story I just told you, but it is complex and balanced: sweet, tart, chocolaty, moist and crumbly. It is a delicious desert that is made even better by the succulent berries that go along with it. I initially found it in The Sociable Cook, by Katie Stewart, and I loved it the very first time I made it. Stewart makes a berry sauce to go with the cake, but if you are under time constraints as I was, fresh berries go beautifully here, in fact, even better than the sauce. Here it is to the beautiful complexities of life the universe and everything. The answer is always 42 (according to Douglass Adams and my husband), or a beautiful chocolate rum cake.



Chocolate Rum Cake with Fresh Blackberries

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa (not Dutch process)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
1 ¾ cups light brown sugar
6 tablespoons canola oil (or any other mild oil)
2/3 cup milk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

For the syrup:

½ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup cold water
6 tablespoons of dark rum

For the topping:

1 2/3 cups of heavy cream
½ cup of powder sugar

Cocoa for dusting

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 325 F. Butter or spray with oil one 9 inch round cake pan.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, and brown sugar into a large mixing bowl.

In another mixing bowl combine the oil, milk, and vanilla. Separate the eggs; add the yolks to the milk and oil mixture and stir to combine. Reserve the whites.

Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix with a spatula to a smooth, slack batter.

Beat the egg whites with a hand held mixer to stiff white peaks and fold carefully into the cake batter. Pour the batter into the oiled/buttered cake pan and place in the oven. Bake for about 45 minutes. Test with a toothpick for doneness.

In the meanwhile, place the cold water and sugar in a small saucepan and set over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and draw off the heat. Add the rum, mix well and set aside.

Once the cake is done, let it rest for a few minutes. Prick the surface with a fork and spoon over it the rum syrup. Let it cool completely.

Turn the cake out on a plate or platter.

In a mixing bowl dissolve the sugar into the cream, and whip it into soft peaks. Swirl a layer of the whipped cream atop the cake. Chill at least 2 hours, dust with cocoa, and serve with the fresh blackberries.
Ju bëftë mirë!
E.