Death by Chocolate

As most of you know, I've been allergic to chocolate, yet I still like to eat it occasionally. I do shy away from chocolate when it comes to chocolate cakes, though they look tempting. People ask me, what is it that I am allergic to? The cocao? the caffeine? I think it's more the cacao than the caffeine because I drink soda and used to drink coffee like no other. I first realized I was allergic to chocolate when I was a kid - going through the lunch line and hearing "you're not cool unless you drink chocolate milk". So I did, and every day I did, I went home with a terrible headache. One day, there wasn't any chocolate milk in the cafeteria, so I had to drink plain white milk - and no headache. So I stuck with white milk and realized I don't do well with chocolate, who cared what the other kids thought. Dark chocolate hits me real hard, the migraine comes fast. Milk chocolate, I can take little bites of because it's diluted or whatever. So if you offer me a snickers bar, I can eat the fun size and be alright. So - it's not that I don't like it, I'm just not supposd to eat it.

Now, that doesn't mean I rule out baking with chocolate. If someone requests a chocolate cake, I will make it. The first chocolate cake I've made was a chocolate cake, with chocolate/strawberry mousse and a chocolate ganache. It was for my friend Mandi, before she left for Europe. The next few chocolate cakes I made wasn't bad, but there was one cake, I think it was the red velvet cake (b/c of the dutch cocoa - or was it the german chocolate cake??) I inhaled the cocoa dust and the next day had a migraine. Yeah, I know.. what?!? I need to invest in gloves and a mask when dealing with chocolate.

I'm sure my chocolate cake days are not over, since everyone but me can eat chocolate. My toughest challenge was a half and half cake. My aim was to make them side by side (vanilla or almond cake on one side and chocolate cake on the other). Sam suggested I have them put in the same pan, meet in the middle and swirl the middle to be a marble cake. It's an interesting idea, so I tried it. I think it worked out, though I had to quickly make another batch of the almond cake to match the chocolate cake. So far, no complaints.

My only complaint, most of my cakes have icing or frosting - no one can see the inside. I need remind Sam to take pics of when they cut the cakes at his work. I need to see how the inside looks.