Anytime someone asks me about the story behind a recipe, my thoughts fly to that hilarious episode of the television sitcom Friends where Monica tries to replicate Phoebe’s grandmother’s cookie recipe without much success, only to find much later that it is the very common recipe written behind the readymade cookie mix manufactured by Nestle. Phoebe compounds the problem and adds to the confusion by stating that her grandmother got the recipe from her French friend, and she pronounces Nestle with a markedly French accent so that it’s unrecognizable. And then I have my own story where my sister tried her hand at baking a mud soufflé for my birthday – my mom and sister-in-law jumped in too, and the resultant was a cake that was half grilled and half baked (pun unintended). Yes, you read that right – the cake was first grilled and then baked. You see, my sister mixed the batter, sister-in-law doled out the ingredients, and mom switched on the oven and left to take a shower. Sis and sis-in-law did not check to see oven settings assuming mom had set it to bake, and popped the dough in. Soon enough, there was the smell of something burning and they realized their mistake. In an effort to make amends, they switched the settings to bake and the resultant was a cake that was neither soft nor crisp, yet tasted good because come on, how can you go wrong when you’ve added flour, sugar, butter and a whole lot of other goodies? So I guess it’s true that too many cooks do grill the cake, sorry, spoil the broth! Anyway, here’s the recipe that led to so much fun and merriment on my birthday; for all you chocolate lovers, this mud soufflé is indeed a treat to savor. Ingredients:

• 250 g butter (room temperature)
• 250 g dark cooking chocolate (in small pieces)
• 1 ½ cups brown sugar
• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 tbsp instant coffee powder
• ¾ cup plain flour
• ¾ cup self raising flour
• ½ cup cocoa
• 2 eggs, beaten lightly

Method:

• Add the butter, dark chocolate, brown sugar, water and coffee to a large saucepan.
• Heat over a low flame until the butter and chocolate have melted and the sugar has dissolved in the mix.
• Set aside to cool for about 15 minutes
• Sift the plain flour, self raising flour and the cocoa into your mixing bowl.
• Add the cooled chocolate mix and beat gently.
• Now add the eggs and beat the resultant mixture.
• Preheat the oven to around 160 ⁰ C (do this before you start preparing the other ingredients)
• Grease a cake tin, pour the mix into the tin, and bake for an hour and a half.
• Test the cake with a tooth pick to see if it’s done.

BTW, we did retry the recipe the next day, this time taking care to double check the oven settings, and I must say I enjoyed some of the best mud soufflé ever!