Marble Pound Cake

Now that the kitchen has recently welcomed a cake mixer onto its shelves, we attempted the infamous marble pound cake. The mix of Trader Joe's semisweet chocolate chips with equal weights of butter and flour make this a delectable treat on any Friday night. The decorations, simple as they were, included Ghirardelli white chocolate chips hand-placed on a basic dark chocolate ganache.

The symmetry of the dish was certainly an appealing aspect despite the fact we had to crudely reconstruct the cake after the mold held tenaciously onto several chunks from the top portion. Fortunately, the ganache provided a silky covering to this structural defect.

After pouring the ganache steadily, I found that the streams of chocolate followed the identations of the cake mold in a nealy consistent fashion. I could not help but remember the ago old adage saying that somethings are more than the sum of its parts. Glory be to the Almighty! Too often in life, you find that simple actions on your part yield amazingly unexpected results. Productivity and products are gifts from God. Just tie your camel and take the first step or two!

Spring Break Creations

Its amazing what you can do with ingredients around the kitchen. Behold this dessert creation composed of Gelato & Ben 'n Jerry's ice cream and draped in dark & white chocolate ganache. Of course, this would hardly be complete without several well-placed milk chocolate Milanos.


To the right hand side, my former freshman roommate made a guest appearance in the kitchen to bake these Ghirardelli milk and white chocolate chip cookies. One word for this past week: indulgence. May the Almighty forgive his indulgent servants!

Layered Cheese Cake

Today we adventured into the realm of layered cheesecakes, alternating between the creamy vanilla and milky chocolate textures. While some fatal kitchen mistakes were committed(putting the wrong burner on the stove and trying to figure out why the butter wasn't melting), we brought out spirit of originality back into the game.

The crust is not crust, bhai or bheno. To describe it in a more dignified manner, it is the membrane of our creation composed of tidbits of Oreo's and Chips Ahoy! and sprinkled with Ghirardelli's very own white chocolate chips.

Commissioned specially for a birthday, the technique of layering dates back to an unknown sage in some esteemed century. Whoever she or he is, please keep 'em in mind when you supplicate to the Almighty.

Next time we need to remember to chill the cake for at least 7 hours before serving in order to preserve the layering. Also, we added a touch of Sri Lankan cinnamon to the brownies which truly hit the spot.

Harvard Chocolatier Competition

Last weekend, I led a group at a chocolate competition. Our entry took 3 hours to create and was arranged in components with one person in charge of each. There were basically three main components - a triple chocolate truffle cake, fudgy brownie, and double chocolate sugar cookies. Just when others thought we had finished, we knew the fun was just starting.

Using a few of our trademark decorating techniques, we created chocolate bowls, shaved chocolate, arranged the cake, and infused our sense of order into this mass of chocolate. One cooking rule we learned was to always add more chocolate than you think you need.

At the time of the competition, however, we had to remember the prophetic emphasis on humility. Despite the fact our entry outshined them all, we had keep our chins down so others could seem to have their chins up. We took 1st place!

Al-Fatiha. The Opening

Salam y'all

This is the inaugural post to this blog in which I will share both my love for the words of the Almighty and adventurous chocolatiering recipes. This is my attempt to establish the hierarchy of love between God and his creation- the cocoa bean.

As I upload audio, dont forget to subscribe to the podcast which will have it all available.
Fatiha is available here.


Na'eel