CHOCOLATE BUNDT CAKE // the local food report

Sometimes I forget which recipes I've shared here. The other day I was wondering about a beer-laced chocolate bundt cake recipe from 101cookbooks.com, so I typed the word chocolate into the search function on the side of the page. Apparently this is just about the only chocolate cake recipe I have not documented. The sheer volume of chocolate-related posts is a little alarming. It's also puzzling that this cake doesn't appear, as it's one of my favorites. It's a little less guilty, a little more nuanced, and a little more grown-up feeling than most.

At any rate, here it is. Sally is grunting her approval through massive fistfuls, and I am busy licking icing from the bowl. 

And while we're on the topic of chocolate, I'd like to give a shout out to Katie Reed and Josiah Mayo of the new Chequessett Chocolate in Truro. They've just opened up a bean to bar operation complete with a chocolate café, and pretty much everything about it is spectacular. The chocolate is excellent, responsibly sourced and produced, and the treats they sell in the café are both incredibly good and very creative. You can hear more about it on this week's Local Food Report, and there are pictures of the process below.

The beans as they come to Katie and Josiah, un-roasted, with both shell and nib:

The stone grinder, with two hundred pounds of granite turning cacao nibs into liquid chocolate:

Chocolate that's been ground and cooled but not tempered—see how the cocoa butter rises to the top?

The tempering machine, which Katie calls a "miraculous piece of equipment." Anyone who's ever tried to temper at home knows what she's talking about!

The finished product out for sampling in their café:

Update 12.18.14: Katie and Josiah's bars are available at their shop in Truro, and also at the new winter farmers' market in Orleans. Below are links to a few of my other favorite small-scale producers:

Kerchner Artisan Chocolate

Mast Brothers Chocolate

Middlebury Chocolates

Sommerville Chocolate (a CSA!)

Happy eating!