The Expat Kitchen

For those of us who live overseas our kitchens are the means through which we create a home.
Our kitchens are probably the same as yours but with a few twists. We bring things from all the places we have lived, taste memories and smells, and blend them into our new lives. For example your mothers roast chicken may sport a new Harissa glaze, and the curry you learned to make from your Amma, or housemaid, in Asia becomes something your children identify with as "home food". We don't love Laksa or Mee Goreng or Shwarma because street food is trendy, we love them because those foods are identified with a place, and people. The boundaries of our culinary worlds are a little blurred, and our kitchens reflect that.
When we go home we pack our suitcases with "essentials" to bring back with us. I often wonder what custom agents think when they see suitcases filled with peanut butter, tortillas, gatorade packets, and feta cheese. We visit grocery stores when we travel in the hopes of finding a longed for item, and when we find those things in our host country, we hoard. Even though we stockpile favorite foods we are quick to throw open our pantries to each other, to share our cache of chocolate chips, canned chipotles peppers, or vanilla extract.
There are some recipes however that we will never change. No matter where we live, or how many times we have moved, some recipes evoke such a strong memory of home that we would never dream of tinkering with them. This chocolate cake is one of them. My babysitter Stephanie taught me how to make it in elementary school. It was my favorite after school snack and I took pride in being able to make it myself. It's not a fancy cake but it is perfect for a lazy weekend afternoon at home.

Chocolate Crazy Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
This cake is vegan, the frosting however is not. The cake goes by many names, wacky cake, crazy cake, depression cake.....the baking soda interacts with the vinegar giving the cake its rise.
Spoiler alert: This is not a deeply gooey chocolate cake. It is very moist and lovely, but not super chocolatey. You can try to mess around with it, increase the cocoa powder or add chopped chocolate if you want, but when I make it, I don't change a thing.

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon white vinegar

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup strong coffee

Preheat to the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 9-inch square or round pan.

In a medium size mixing bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt  and sugar. In a glass small bowl combine the vanilla, white vinegar, vegetable oil and coffee. Pour the liquids over all the ingredients and stir the ingredients together until you can’t see any more flour and the batter looks fairly well homogenized.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the top is springy and a tester inserted in the center comes out dry. Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack, then cut and serve it from the pan.


Variation: Instead of frosting this cake with the buttercream I have also had this cake sprinkled with 2 tablespoons of sugar mixed with 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon before baking. It is excellent!

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

2 cups confectioners' sugar

½ cup butter at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-4 tablespoons milk

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes until very fluffy.

Add vanilla and 2 tablespoons of milk and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more milk if needed for spreading consistency.

Perplexed

Many things have perplexed me over the years but this week topped them all. Okay, I may be overstating things. 

I do that sometimes.

Here are some of the things that cause me considerable thought and concentrated effort to understand.

Drivers in Singapore. I used to believe that no one should have told the Italians about the invention of the automobile. I was wrong. Driving in Singapore is not good for my soul. It would seem that the rules of the road here are merely suggestions. You can do whatever the heck you want to do as long as you put your flashers on.

Pirate Guy. We spend our summers in Bellingham Washington. It is a beautiful college town with sweeping views of Bellingham Bay and the San Juan Islands. We do have our fair share of quirky people, but that just give us character.  Every summer though I see the same guy dressed as a pirate. Why? Why a pirate? What does he dress as in the winter? It doesn't keep me up at night but it does make me wonder.

Paris Hilton.  I don't think I need to go into details here.

Which brings me to this week.  My daughter turned 16. How did that happen? Where did the time go? I found myself wondering, did I hold her enough, have I told her how extraordinary she is, does she really need to learn how to drive?

That wasn't what puzzled me. It was the request she made for her birthday cake. In preparation for her birthday dinner I had been looking at recipes and made a little list of some particularly scrumptious sounding cakes. There was this one from Epicurious, a Fudgy Chocolate Cake but I ruled it out because it used a cake mix and I wanted to make something homemade. Then there was Tyler Florence's Gooey, Decadent Chocolate Cake and even Ina's Beatty's Chocolate Cake  Any of which would have been fitting for such an occasion.  So which one did my lovely daughter choose?

A Betty Crocker Rainbow Chip cake mix and Rainbow Chip frosting from a can. It killed me to make it, but she giggled and clapped hands when she saw the mix at the store and after all, it was what she really wanted.

What's a mom to do? Happy 16th Birthday McKenna!  I hope the year ahead is as remarkable as you are!