Chocolate Alchemy

This bad boy just got pulled out of my oven, (see below), and that's good news for a number of reasons. We'll past the bit where I blow my trumpet loudly and rave about how tasty it is as well as acknowledging that I made up the recipe and nailed it first time because my genius is well established by now. (You can be such a dick sometimes. -Ed.).   I'm happy to acknowledge that my cooking skills are amazing, (You're not doing yourself any favours you know. -Ed.), but this should encourage you as I'll now explain. Oh, before I do, let me point out that this piece of alchemy came about because I wanted to create a chocolate dessert for the supperclub.   My take on learning to cook is that practicing recipes is a waste of time. All you end up with is a familiarity with following a set of instructions. Because I'm interested in exploring  the textures and flavours that ingredients bring, I've ended up with a sense of how recipes work and the confidence to make up my own.   After years of this, you should expect me to have enough experience to guesstimate a chocolate cake recipe so in fact there's nothing special about me being able to make up recipes like this. For you however, though you may not be able to throw a cake together as easily, you're already capable of a lot more than you might imagine.   The missing ingredient in your kitchen may only be permission. By which I mean that all that stands between you and being able to cook is just giving yourself the permission to do a bit of alchemy yourself. There's nothing wrong with getting a bit of guidance from recipes, but if you do, pay attention to what's going on. Look at a few recipes for the same thing and see how they differ and I'll bet that within a short time you'll be free-styling with confidence. Then we can start blowing your trumpet which I'm sure you'd prefer listening to. Kirk out Chefsebastian.com