Pastel de Tres Leches y Chocolate
So what do cooks do when someone they work with at a restaurant is leaving?
Cook. Or bake. Or both.
Chocolate Solves Everything!
A birthday’s coming up and you’re making a cake for someone who prefers not to eat carbs. What do you do? Obviously you want to make something that tastes good, but you also want to make sure it falls in line with the birthday-person’s wishes. After all, it wouldn’t be terribly kind of you to make a cake they couldn’t eat and/or would feel guilty about eating, would it? 
Enter the flourless chocolate cake. There are a lot of recipes for it; some of which call for sugar, and some of which don’t. Obviously, if you’re making one for a carb-conscious individual, you’ll want to cull the sugary recipes from your consideration right away. And as with anything else, there is no one right way to make a flourless chocolate cake.1 But in my experience, this is definitely one case where simpler really is better.
If you want to get into the technique of it, you’re essentially making a very rich chocolate custard. If you think of it in those terms, it’s incredibly simple. Use a good-quality semi-sweet or dark chocolate (depending on your mood, tastes, and the tastes of whomever you’re making it for), unsalted butter, eggs, and a good-quality vanilla, whisk all those eggs into a nice, frothy foam, fold it all together, and stick your springform pan into a lovely hot water bath in your oven. The thing about very simple recipes is that your ingredients should ideally be top-quality. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean “expensive,” and it irks me more than a little when those things are erroneously equated.
Also, have faith in what you like, regardless of whether or not you’ve made a baked custard and/or feel comfortable making one. You can learn techniques and teach yourself things as you go, but no matter how much or little you think you know, you do know what you think tastes good. That knowledge will never fail you, as long as you have confidence in yourself.
As this cake is so simple, it doesn’t need a lot in the way of decoration. A simple dusting of a little powdered sugar, cocoa, and cinnamon does the trick quite handily. While I’m hardly anti-carb (hello constant bread baking), the main goal of cooking or baking anything, to me, is always about whoever’s going to be eating it. If I’ve made them happy, I’ve done my job. And I’m grateful and happy to say that this cake worked wonders for Joe’s mom’s birthday. How do I know? Not much was left at the end of the evening! 
- As long as it isn’t mismarked and doesn’t have you using flour, that is. [↩]
Taro Reading
This photo was taken by me, can you tell? Sorry.
I’ve been meaning to try my hand at making my own taro and coconut custard (a popular and delicious Thai dessert) for awhile, but had never gotten around to it. Either I’d think of it when I was nowhere near a store that sold taro, or I’d not be thinking about it when I was in a store selling taro. It was as though the taro was controlling my mind. “You don’t want to cook at eat us,” they’d psychically channel at me. “No, of course I don’t,” my brain would murmur in response. And indeed, those poor little taro would be safe again for another day.
But finally, their day had to come. It was inevitable, right? And the delicious facts are these: taro and coconut custard is made just like any other custard…but with a few variations.
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Janaki
