Mud Cake Recipe

There are a lot of mud cake recipes out there. What they all have in common is the addition of melted bar chocolate to the batter. This one fits nicely into the tradition. In the world of mud cakes I’ll say that it leans European, being a bit richer and denser than most of its New World and Australia-New Zealand cousins. I doubt there will be many complaints!

8 ounces (2 sticks) butter
8 ounces semisweet or dark chocolate
5 1/2 ounces (1 cup) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
2 ounces (1/2 cup) cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
14 ounces (2 1/2 cups) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
4 ounces (1/2 cup) buttermilk

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Phenylethylamine

Brother, what a mouthful (no wonder they just call it PEA). But this is the so-called “love chemical” that chocolate has become famous for since 1983. How can I be so precise about that? Because that was the year a researcher by the name of Michael Liebowitz published his book, The Chemistry of Love. In the course of his promotional tour he claimed that chocolate is “loaded” with PEA, a statement that became the basis for a now-famous New York Times article on the subject.

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Tryptophan

This is another chemical compound found in chocolate, and it’s one we all hear about every year at Thanksgiving, since it’s said to be the stuff that causes those post pig-out sleepies among your relatives. But what is it really? Tryptophan is an amino acid that’s critical to human health, but one that our bodies can’t make on their own. Good thing there’s plenty of it around: in virtually every dairy product, every meat (especially poultry), as well as in oats, bananas and chickpeas. Our bodies use tryptophan for a variety of functions, among them the manufacture of serotonin, an important neurotransmitter which (again, among other things) regulates mood. This it does by relieving anxiety.

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Well that was fun!

Last night was a blast. I’d never seen an Iron Chef-style competition up close before, and I have to say I have nothing but admiration for anyone willing to cook under that sort of pressure. Last night was especially intense for the two competing teams as they had to prepare a meal using only lab equipment: beakers, bunsen burners, hot plates and such. A very funny idea, but frustrating in the extreme for the chefs. Just getting water to boil was a project. Yet somehow both teams pulled it off, delivering handsome plates of food in 45 minutes.

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Media Alert

Who’s the guy in the brown shirt? He’s got a great face for radio! Why that’s Joe Pastry! Tonight I’ll have the honor of judging a local chef showdown at the Kentucky Science Center’s food science celebration MegaBITE. I’m told the event will be Iron Chef-like, except that the chefs will be using nothing but lab equipment to prepare the meal. I hope I survive. If you live in the Louisville area stop on in!

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Anandamide

Boy, this is fun, isn’t it? Based solely on the titles of today’s posts, someone might confuse me for someone who actually has a clue about chemistry. So anyway, anandamide. This one is a favorite of fluff piece writers everywhere as it is a possible explanation for chocolate’s “pleasure giving” properties. It belongs to a class of chemicals known as cannabinoids, which as the name implies are similar in structure to THC, the psychoactive compound found in cannabis.

Anandamide is present in chocolate in amounts so tiny as to be almost not worth mentioning. However defenders of the cannabinoid theory of chocolate and pleasure continue to press on, pointing out that not only does chocolate contain anandamide, but two other multi-syllabic compounds (N-oleoylethanolamine and N-linolenoylethanolamine) that are so-called cannabinoid breakdown inhibitors. In other words

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Theobromine

Another alkaloid found in chocolate is theobromine. Like caffeine, theobromine is a nervous-system stimulant, though much milder. In high enough doses it can be mood-altering, but then there are those words again: in high enough doses. Most chocolates, especially milk chocolates, don’t contain anywhere near enough to create an effect, particularly since theobromine also acts […]

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Caffeine

Caffeine does quicken the pulse, but chocolate doesn’t contain as much caffeine as people think. Yes, three ounces of pure, unadulterated chocolate liquor may contain as much caffeine as a cup of regular coffee, but a three-ounce bar of your average milk chocolate contains less than a tenth as much. A bar of dark chocolate, […]

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Is chocolate the love drug?

Very interesting question, reader Brandi! Exactly what are you planning to do with this mud cake? You certainly do read a lot about chocolate and its love-inducing/mood altering/stimulating qualities in magazines, however the reality is that chocolate delivers little if anything in the way of real world effects. Like all foods chocolate contains a wide […]

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So what is “mud cake”?

That’s a good question. From what I can tell, the animating idea behind it is similar to that of a flourless chocolate cake: a dense confection for those times when conventional chocolate cake simply isn’t enough. Though this cake is lighter and was probably invented earlier. Nearly all of the recipes I’ve found call for melted bar chocolate in the mix, and usually cocoa powder besides. Many have a topping. The American versions — which I’m noticing are often called “Mississippi mud” cakes — are generally topped with marshmallow, the European versions with meringue.

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