April 02 2004, 11:44 PM The Qualities of Mercy, Dessert

What with a fresh influx of cookbooks, we were recently given cause to roll together an evening of sugar-fired madness. I didn't really participate in any of that; I left the sweeter things to CR, and also to Mr. Ingonish, whom we invited along. My only job that night was to throw together some Bi Bim Bap, which I did, and I have only two things to say about it: that pepper garlic paste is somehow impossibly tasty after a maddened, sprinting attempt to get through the rest of the jar, and the stirring. The stirring is important. We will get to that.

CR made the less extensively modified of the two attempts at dessert. We have long been investigators of heatful things for eating, and there are several very good recipes for such things in a little book called Burning Desires, by W. Park Kerr. He doesn't bloody muck about with the sweet things, either, and stuck in the slim section at the back of the book between Grilled Peaches with Burnt Sugar Sauce and the lilting Grilled Bananas 'Foster' smugly sits a recipe for Ultimate Banana Pudding. He isn't kidding, although the thing is somewhat misnamed; what he has you build is really a banana Tiramisu, which turns out to be a fine, fine thing. CR added a bit of cognac for an extra jolt, as she is wont to do, and her instincts were proven well. A good dessert indeed.

While all of this was going on (I watched the two of them battle for counter space from the safety of the table) Mr. Ingonish was pulling together the pieces of a Chocolate and Chile Torte, as culled from the pages of Anna Thomas' The New Vegetarian Epicure. This is at its base a chocolate flourless nut-and-egg cake with a bit of pepper in to make it bright, with a chocolate glaze to top it. Mr. Ingonish is the variety of gentleman who rathers his desserts to tend more toward the elephant driving the bus school of weight: he would claim that the cake was a little low because the almonds were not ground finely enough, but I have other notions (and, I should say, it was good like that). The recipe asks for the clean heat of pasillas; Mr. Ingonish fished rumply anchos from our cupboard. The recipe asks for a half cup of refined white sugar in the cake, to accompany the brown; Mr. Ingonish left that out, apparently by accident. The recipe did not ask for any ginger whatsoever in the glaze, but Mr. Ingonish put a bunch in anyway. The resulting cake was bitter, sweet, smoky and with tang from pepper and ginger both. It was a little dry. It was a stunning success. It was fantastic.

We had bowls in front of us, one piece of both for each. We were using bowls, because we are both too stupid and too impatient to allow things to cool and set, as we are every time. We were eating the cake and the pudding from our bowls, first this and then that. Then someone had the notion to have a bit of both in the same bite. This led to a chain reaction of scooping, mixing, lauding, and eventually all of us became intent over the table, stirring madly, stirring.

In essence: Ultimate Gingered Chocolate Banana Chile Pudding Torte.

We just got another Marcel Desaulniers book: it is completely off limits until next weekend. At least.