high-bar baking

When we were children (ok, still!) and squealed about stepping out into the rain, my mother would always say, “It’s fine. You’re not sweet enough to melt.”

This recipe is sweet enough to melt. By a long shot. It’s one of the sweetest recipes I make, because usually once something’s met that designation I don’t ever make it again. This one is good, though.

The white chocolate is to blame. That’s a project for another day, maybe, figuring out how to adapt the recipe so it doesn’t use a white chocolate brownie base. Because that’s what’s underneath the red velvet trappings. It’s Sarah’s white chocolate brownie with a smidge of cocoa and acid, and a whole lot of red food colouring. She’s partial to a particular product called a Red Velvet Emulsion (?), but I’ve always used what I had, which is a very red powder from Amazon that saves you the trouble of emptying bottles of gel food colouring into the mix. 

And then you frost the whole thing with cream cheese frosting. 

And then you really ought to take a walk right after. Unless you want to succumb to the imminent nap. Small pieces, folks. This is a small-portions recipe. But it’s tangy and yummy and I would eat cardboard if it had cream cheese frosting on it. So I make it anyway, when the mood occasionally strikes. 

Plus it’s pretty. I do love to stop a show. 

James Clear has a bit about Tokyo. Some store that only sells 70s records and vintage Whiskeys. The point being, how could a store that niche survive in the world? Because Tokyo is that large. There are enough people in the city that you end up with traffic enough for one extremely specific store. His point was that the Internet is your Tokyo. People are out there.

Where is the world in which all my loves come together? I know it is fake. But the imaginary bakery turned pizzeria by nights with social dancing and cooking classes and jam sessions and book clubs and intellectual chat hangouts. Where’s that? 

Or, a different question entirely. How does one do what one loves? When it is impractical. No one ever seems to worry about dreams when they’re lucrative and path-oriented. “No, kid, best not to grow up to be a litigator, who would hire you?” … said no one ever.