note to self: just because it looks like chocolate...

I have been experimenting with variations on my favorite chocolate cake recipe, one of which calls for dissolving cocoa in boiling water before mixing it into the batter. It is supposed to intensify the flavor of the cocoa when used in cake batters that do not use milk, and it seems to work. What does not work, however, is my auto-pilot. Or maybe it works too well.

Today, I am making the exact same cake for the third time in three weeks. Yes, the cake that was homeless. This cake has a home already planned - although that's a story for another day - and it's a good home, so I am happy to go bake the cake.

What I am not so happy about is that autopilot. Just now, I wiped up a drip of the cocoa-water mixture with my finger. Then I did what any self-respecting cook does when they have a chocolate smeared finger: I licked it off.

Bleech! Oh my goddesses, is that ever disgusting! You would think I'd have noticed the first time, but no!

Apparently there is a fine line between 85% cacao solid nibbling chocolate and cocoa and I can't find it. Or having found it, I can't locate it again a few days later. Because the good part is that this isn't the first time I have done this. Nor is it even the second, for a small failure of memory I could excuse. No, my friends, this is the third time in as many bakings. Because I am nothing if not predictable.

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