Chocolate Cake For One

Baking Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F. Stare at the little oven light for a minute questioning whether you really want to be doing this. It’s a Friday evening and you could be going out for drinks instead, maybe even meet someone new and cute. It might even be easier than making excuses for your friends who won’t stop texting.
2. Use either cooking spray or butter to prepare a 12 inch cake pan. You pull out the leftover butter from the fridge that he used to use every morning. It has been hard to ignore it this last week, so you think it’s probably relief that you’re feeling as you massage the last of it into the edges of the pan; but you’re not really sure.
3. Add cocoa powder, sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt to a bowl. Yep, real sugar. Not that weird sugar substitute he made you use when he was on that low carb kick and you were trying to eat keto together. You've still got a massive bag of the “real stuff” from before you were together. It was waiting there all along, a loyal little bag of sweetness. You pour in an extra tablespoon of the stuff, imagining how much he would disapprove if he could see it. Well he’s not here to judge anymore.
4. Stir the dry ingredients until combined well. Note how easy it is. You can totally do this on your own!
5. Hear the oven beep when it reaches 350º F. The sudden noise makes you realize how quiet it is, more than usual even. You turn on some music to fill the space.
6. Crack some eggs into a bowl to whisk. Open the fridge to see that the few remaining eggs in the carton have little faces he had drawn on them, who even knows when. One is smiling, another has a little monocle, and the other looks terrified. You double check the dates. Was he really feeling so silly even in the last couple of weeks?
7. Crack some eggs into a bowl to whisk. You’re still wondering when he did this. It had felt like non-stop stress and arguing the last few weeks, so was there really a moment when he was feeling light enough to do this? It couldn’t have just been you feeling so strongly, could it?
8. Crack some eggs into a bowl to whisk. You take your time picking which eggs to sacrifice to the dessert altar. Even though the recipes call for all three, you leave one staring back at you in the fridge. You wonder how preoccupied you had to be to have not noticed the little guys for the last week.
9. Add eggs, milk, water, vegetable oil and vanilla to the bowl of dry ingredients. Mix together on medium speed until consistent. You didn’t invest in a hand mixer, yet. It was on the long list of items you were going to get on an IKEA trip together, had the big move gone through. So, using just a spoon, this part feels a little tougher and you miss being able to take turns with someone to do it. It’s ok, you could use the workout. You give yourself some breaks and turn up the music to amp yourself up a bit.
10. Pour cake batter into the prepared pan. You know this is the part where he would want to add some nuts. Or more likely, the part where you would start fighting about nuts. Nuts he’d accuse you of failing to replace after you finished the bag, or nuts that were salted when you were supposed to pick up the ones that were unsalted. Nuts first, and then a missed dinner or late night or any number of other things you weren’t being considerate enough about. You remind yourself that this is all your cake now. You don’t need to bicker and debate about every little thing. You don’t need to compromise. You tell yourself it’s better this way as you add rainbow sprinkles and some chocolate chips instead.
11. Bake for 30 minutes. You had prepared a glass of wine and a show on Netflix for this wait. But you decide to use the time to clean up a bit instead. For some reason, you wanted to do this in silence and you turned off the music. It’s surprising how quickly you are able to clear the table area and you realize you no longer have to deal with the extra dishes of another person. You listen to the silence and wonder what he’s doing right now. Is he out with friends? On a date somewhere? Or maybe he’s alone too, making some super low carb version of this cake with extra nuts?
12. Remove cake from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes before frosting. You had bought one of the containers of sugary frosting for this, but noticed there was still some almond butter he had prepared that will probably go bad soon. He had made it as an alternative for you to try instead of the sugary frosting you liked. At the time, you didn’t like what you felt he was implying with this gesture. But now, standing between it and the surviving egg examining you through it’s tiny monocle, you wonder if maybe you had jumped to assumptions. A stubborn voice tells you to fight the urge to try it and instead stick to the original cake you had envisioned for yourself, sugary frosting galore. Rely on your own baking intuition. This is your damn cake and you’re in control. You grab the sugary frosting container and close the fridge quickly before you can change your mind.
13. Top cake with frosting. As you smother the cake in chocolate frosting, you continue to think about the little egg in the fridge. You wonder if maybe he had hoped you would have seen it sooner. But would noticing something so small have even mattered? Maybe you’re just overthinking things now.
14. Eat and enjoy! The cake isn’t terrible. Definitely been a while since you had something so sweet and you realize you probably went a little too hard on the added chocolate chips. Still, something tastes off. You wonder if maybe you should have sucked it up and cracked the last little egg. But another part of you wonders if maybe all it needed was some nuts. Or maybe almond butter.