No Flour Chocolate Moon Cake

      So what does a full moon have to do with chocolate cake?

Blue Moon December 31, 2009, and Blue Moon Cake December 31, 2010

Recipe

9 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate

7 ounces of butter

6 egg yolks

6 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla

1) Preheat oven to 300.

2) Generously butter the sides and bottom of a 9” spring form pan; a round of buttered parchment on the bottom is helpful.

3) Put remaining butter and chocolate in a large bowl in the microwave and melt, or melt in a metal bowl over simmering water in a double boiler

4) Beat egg whites until stiff, adding sugar and salt.

5) Beat yolks with a fork, then combine yolks with chocolate, vanilla, salt, stirring rapidly while adding yolks.

6) Fold in whites

7) Bake 45-50 minutes, until firm. Will rise up while cooking, but settle down into a dense rich cake as it cools.

Dust with powered sugar when done.

Serve by moonlight on a platter of stars and the infinite dark, with whipped cream with a bit of freshly grated nutmeg on top, and fresh raspberries to the side.

Music to bake by:

John Coltrane’s A Few of My Favorite Things

     I’m making this cake for friends today, December 31, 2010.  This day is a day for remembering, and so that is what I’m up to. I’m remembering fondly one year ago, a New Year’s Eve where I imposed upon our guests and my family and made them sing for their supper. Each had to offer up something to share to celebrate the beginning of a new year – a song, music, poem, a reading.  It was a full moon, and in fact a Blue Moon (the second full moon of a month is a Blue Moon, and this Blue Moon was particularly once-ish, landing on New Year’s Eve).  My husband James, in return for his supper, gave us a lesson on how to find the Mare Tranquillitatis, or Sea of Tranquility, and the Apollo 11 landing site.  It was a bitter cold night, and very clear. We grabbed our jackets, went out into the night, and huddled together. The shivery air was fragrant with the smell of pine, chill and fresh. James began his lesson by noting that Japanese people (sensibly) see The Rabbit, not The Man, in the moon.  The Rabbit is a more friendly, and easy to spot, ears up top.  The Sea of Tranquility is his head. Neil Armstrong’s footprints were left swimming in the dust near the “shore” line of the Sea of Tranquility, tucked under one of the rabbit ears.

     This December, 2010, near the year’s closing, we were graced with another remarkable full moon, a full lunar eclipse on the solstice. James caught that moon as well as, with the eclipse near totality. The last time that particular convergence of events occurred, Queen Elizabeth reigned in England and Pirate Grace O’Malley was making the wild Irish seas her own.  

Solstice lunar eclipse, December 21, 2010 

     So back to the question at hand: What does a full moon have to do with chocolate cake?  Both appear as perfect circles to the observer.  Both have slowly kissed a fine year good bye.  Both go well with raspberries.  And if you are totally weird with too much time on your hands, you cut out a paper pattern of the rabbit in the moon, lay it on the cake, dust the powdered sugar around it, and serve up a lunatic cake.