Like Water for Chocolate

“Traditional Chabela Wedding Cake”

Tita’s recipes came to change the flavor of my destiny, just as you read it with sweet and bitter words capable of describing the most exotic flavors that make us fall at the mercy of a recipe, repeating it and giving it a place on the table for decades.

This story transcended from the pages of the novel to the big screen and came to stay in my recipe book. I could say until the day I close my eyes to this world.

Giving no further preamble to the story, I want to tell you about one of my favorite recipes discovered and taken from the magical realism novel, Like Water for Chocolate, by the writer Laura Esquivel. It would feel very selfish if I don’t share with you these unique moments that mark a before and after a week without this drop of inspiration.

This no longer has to happen! In case you are having a lousy week, like those flavorless soups that we bought in a hurry at the supermarket, but don’t worry, to add some flavor to your day, you have the grace to read me and I still wonder.

What would have happened to me all these years and my insatiable, naughty curiosity about cooking new dishes? If I had not discovered this book? I might be a terrible cook without enough imagination to read at the bottom of the pans when they try to talk to me.

I think! Luckily for me, already engendered from my mother’s womb and inherited from my grandmother’s genes, the superpower that I may read further and decipher the magic of literature that transcends time and space.

From my fingertips and the subtle invisible thread that ties my fertile imagination and skill in the kitchen, still training and under the supervision of my grandmother, of course. I leave you on this autumnal day a new recipe for your collection.

I hope you enjoy it and not like Aunt Tita. You suffer from some lovesickness.

Like water for Chocolat Chapter 2:

Chapter number 2 begins with the Chabela wedding cake which Tita and Nacha are baking for the future celebration and preparation of Rosaura and Pedro Muzquiz's wedding.

“Chabela Wedding Cake”

Ingredients:

Flour (3 Cups)

Baking Powder (1/Tbsp)

Baking Soda (1/2 Tbsp)

Salt (1/2 Tbsp)

Unsalted Butter Softened (2.5 Cups)

Large Eggs (3) room temperature

Buttermilk (1 Cup)

White Sugar, Granulated (2 Cups)

Vanilla Extract (1 Tbsp) I recommend using high-quality vanilla extract.

Lemon zest is the thin outside layer of the skin.

For the Lemon Curd

8 Large Eggs

Granulated Sugar (2 Cups)

Lemon Juice (1/4 Cup)

Unsalted Butter 1 1/2

Lemon Zest (6)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together (Sift) the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl mix, the wet ingredients beat sugar and butter until well-combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla extract, then continue alternating the wet and dry ingredients.

Preheat Oven to 350° and prepared the 8-inch pans with parchment paper and butter the side before starting the batter always.

Bake the cake for 25- 30 minutes.

To assemble the cake, we cut it into two pieces

When is ready, we cool the cake out of the mold for about three minutes onto a cooling rack and remove the paper. Then we cut in half ladle the curd onto the cake pour the remaining lemon curd finish the cake with more zest and glaze.

Serving 12–14 approximately.

For The Lemon Curd

What is Lemon Curd?

Lemon Curd is a very rich dessert topping or spread.

It’s sweet and tangy cream and buttery

Ingredients:

Step 1. Whisk the 8 eggs yolks with a fork in a medium-sized bowl.

Step 2. Cut the butter into several cubes.

Step 3. Heat lemon juice, sugar, and lemon zest and set the bowl over a double boiler pot of medium-low heat until warm.

Step 4. Pour 1/4 of the lemon juice into the egg yolks whisk to temper the eggs by pouring a minimal amount. Add another quarter of the lemon mixture to the egg yolks and whisk.

Step 5. Mix the remaining lemon juice and the yolks in a saucepan and heat medium to low heat and whisk together.

Step 6. Add one piece of butter at a time, whisking until melted. Continue adding the rest of the butter until it has all been incorporated.

Step 7. Whisk until the mixture thickens approx 5 minutes.

Step 8. Pour the curd into a bowl and let cool for an hour.

Optional: Strain through a mesh strainer to smooth out lumps and remove any piece of lemon zest.

“She felt so lost and lonely. One last chile in walnut sauce left on the platter after a fancy dinner couldn’t feel any worse than she did. How many times had she eaten one of those treats, standing by herself in the kitchen, rather than let it be thrown away. When nobody eats the last chile on the plate, it’s usually because none of them wants to look like a glutton, so even though they’d really like to devour it, they don’t have the nerve to take it. It was as if they were rejecting that stuffed pepper, which contains every imaginable flavor; sweet as candied citron, juicy as pomegranate, with the bit of pepper and the subtlety of walnuts, that marvelous chile in the walnut sauce. Within it lies the secret of love, but it will never be penetrated, and all because it wouldn’t feel proper.”
― Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate