The Cocoanut

As such, proper meals, the kind that involves meat and veggies, take precedence over ancillary dishes that would be categorized as appetizers or desserts. The stubborn sugar-fueled souls among us might persist and make their own puddings, but I’m not that rebellious. So I take the easy way out and buy a box of biscuits from the grocery store.

But we all need a break from mass produced cookies and supermarket brownie mix, so I thought I’d sacrifice an hour or so making my favourite chocolate cake. This cake I inherit from a friend during my time in Geelong. It has been five years since my first taste, and it has held me captive ever since. Like the forbidden apple that brought Adam down to earth, this cake promotes self-destruction in my inability to restrain myself from finishing it. I learnt my lesson the hard way, and after many days of repentance and atonement at the gym and the swimming pool where I often reflect on my errors, I swear to only make this cake once a year.

This cake and its many versions are better known as flourless chocolate cake. But I baulk at that name and its unfortunate suggestion that this cake is somewhat lacking in constitution. I understand the need to inform and cater to coeliacs, but I prefer not to have to mention the flour content of my cake in its name. Perhaps some people might even be fascinated by the irony in ‘flourless chocolate cake’, like it is with vegetarian chicken or dairy free cheesecake (both made with derivatives of tofu), but I like to keep things simple and just call a chocolate cake a chocolate cake.

I enjoy it unadorned, with no frostings or tappings of icing sugar that might make it pretty and more presentable. I love watching the surface crack as I slice it with my blunt knife, the fragile crust offering the faintest protection to the rich dark body of the cake.

The Unadorned Chocolate Cake

300 g dark chocolate
125 g butter
200 g ground almonds
2/3 cups brown sugar (lightly filled, not tightly packed)
5 eggs, separated

Pre heat the oven to 180 ºC.

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt with the butter. If using a microwave, as I do, melt the chocolate in 30 second sprints. Chocolate somewhat retains its form when melted, so stir them after each interval to check that they’re melting. Burnt chocolate is both a waste and a source of depression, so this bit of extra effort goes a long way.

In a bowl, beat the egg whites with a little bit of the brown sugar until soft peaks form. I use an electric mixer because it gives better results and I’m lazy anyway.

In another bowl, mix the egg yolks, chocolate mixture, ground almonds and remaining sugar. Fold the egg whites into the mixture as gently as your patience allows you. I find folding the egg whites in 1/3 batches is easier than adding it all in at once.

To save yourself from trouble later on, I recommend lining the base of a 20 cm round cake tin with baking paper. Mine is supposedly non-stick, but the cake sticks to the base nonetheless. Grease the edges of the tin with butter for easy separation.

Pour the cake mix into the tin and bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes. Cool in the tin for 10 or so minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to let cool completely

I saw an episode on Ready Steady Cook where the chef makes an Asian-style omelette by swirling the egg continuously on the wok. I tried imitating her movements but the egg didn’t quite swirl around the curving edges as shown on TV. In any case, I managed to get myself a flat piece of omelette, on whose centre I placed some leftover coral lettuce and rolled it up nicely. On top of the omelette I put a dollop of pesto, just to see if pesto goes with egg. It doesn’t.

My judgement? It was very refreshing to have omelettes as a roll. Now all I have to do is think of a way to make the omelettes sturdy enough to be able to eat it on the go, like all the great modern rolls of our time.

However, weekend breakfast is a different story altogether. Ideally, I would like to have brunch on Saturdays and Sundays but for some reason my brain has automatically programmed itself such that I still manage to wake up at 7 am on weekends. I don’t like waking up early, because weekends are the only time I can afford to sleep in, but unfortunately my brain overpowers my desire to sleep longer, and so I am forced to have an early breakfast.

The weekend morning meal is a treat I give myself for surviving 5 days of eating the same thing. If weekday breakfast is marked by austerity, eating wholegrain cereal with low-fat yoghurt and milk, its weekend cousin is an altogether laissez-faire occasion. Ready-made waffles, simply toasted and eaten with a generous spread of peanut butter and banana provide a great pick-me-up at 7 am on Saturday, as is scrambled eggs on Sundays.

This morning, at the ungodly hour of 6:45 am, I find myself woken up again by the brain-that-seems-to-be-taking-control. Today I decided to take a break from the usual waffles and make pancakes instead.

For the past month, I have been trying a different kind of cheese each week, just to take advantage of the many different kinds of cheese available here in Australia. The first week was ricotta, the second parmesan, the third a trio of blue cheese, brie and really good, vintage cheddar. For today, the Cheese Of The Week is mascarpone, the soft cheese whose most famous offshoot is tiramisu.

Basing and modifying my recipe from Nigel Slater’s Real Food, I added a sprinkling of icing sugar to my sour-ish strawberries and mashed some with a fork to give a rough, thick strawberry slurry that would add a fluid texture to the more solid ones. I then added a few drops of vanilla extract to my mascarpone before creaming it to incorporate the vanilla fully.

Onto the hot and slightly charred pancakes I place a dollop of mascarpone cream, and arranged the strawberries, slush and all, on top to give me a breakfast treat that would make waking up at 7 am actually seem like something to be happy about.

Considering we were right on Lygon Street, an area exclusively catered for the consumption of food, it seemed like the perfect idea. That, and the fact that College was serving baked potatoes, made the decision-making process a whole lot easier.

Choice is a double-edged sword on Lygon Street. How does one pick from so many, almost identical restaurants?

We made a pact at the start of the year to try out as many of Lygon Street’s establishments as we possibly could, and today seemed just as good as any day to deliver that promise. Trotter’s, at the end of the strip, is popular among the college fraternity as a brekkie joint. I have often passed by the place to find it busy with patrons, and I often wondered if it was its rather quaint size that gave me that impression.

The ambience was comfy, relaxing and had a certain chaotic flair to it, typically what you would expect from a small restaurant filling up busy lunch orders. The menu offered the usual Italian fare, and a whole page dedicated to breakfast, which, conveniently, is served till 3 pm. That explains its popularity with the ‘brekkie bunch’.

I ordered Eggs Florentine, which my waiter commends as a fine choice, which I’m sure he says to pretty much everyone. I’ve wanted to try this rather indulgent take on breakfast for some time now - poached eggs on a bed of spinach and toasted English muffins, glazed with hollandaise sauce. It definitely was a big departure from muesli and yoghurt, which normally defines my breakfast.

Trotter’s version features perfectly poached eggs, with the yolk still golden and semi-solid that instantly oozes when you poke. The hollandaise goes so well with spinach, the salty, rich, creamy emulsion layered on the clean, neutral taste of the vegetable. And the muffins, nicely toasted and buttered, provide the right base from which to eat this beautiful combination of food.