Fat Girl Gone Thin

There was a recipe that ran in the New York Times in the mid-1880s. It was for a recipe known simply as Chocolate Caramel.

“Take of grated chocolate, milk, molasses and sugar, each one cupful, and piece of butter the size of an egg …”

Hardly New York Times material these days, but at the time the recipe was a novelty. Like a 21st century duck confit, the use of chocolate in this dish was something that the ordinary housewife would have made a special trip to the store for – perhaps even ordered specially from the grocer.

Fast forward a century or two and the presence of chocolate has become a mainstay in our daily diet (well, at least in mine). Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas. Take a trip to Costco this week and you can find an isle devoted entirely to chocolate – five pound heart-shaped boxes of the stuff to be exact.

Like a metaphor for love itself, chocolate is both bitter and sweet. And for me, when I want it sweet, I want it artificially-flavored mouth numbingly sweet and when I want it dark, I want it as bitter as an unripened lemon.

Tonight I will be attending a fundraising dinner for the Chamber of Commerce in my hometown. As with most small towns, Friday night gatherings are more like family reunions and the food plays second-fiddle to the people. Conversation will be hearty, pictures of children and grandchildren will surely emerge from many purses and most of all a sense of community will be fostered during an economic time when extra shoulders need to be leaned on.

Everyone was asked to bring a treat for the bake sale table in hopes that enough money will be raised to replace the city’s aging Christmas decorations – and with Cupid’s big day just hours away, it seemed only fitting to break out the chocolate and the red food dye.

Something about this holiday causes a gravitational shift in the universe that seems to draw Hershey’s Kisses to my mouth like a chain-smoking European, so it seemed only right to make sure whatever I made had a heavy dose of cocoa.

You can find the recipe for the brownie topped velvet cupcakes with buttercream frosting to the right under the recipe section. I hope it makes your Valentine’s day as sugar-induced as mine.