What's Valentine's Day without chocolate — or better yet, rich, moist chocolate cake? Nigella Lawson discusses with Steve Inskeep the keys to the perfect chocolate cake and the secrets to chocolate's allure.
The food writer and television host says she has "managed to put away quite a few chocolate cakes and bars of chocolate in my time." But Lawson says she's not an "indiscriminate lover of all things chocolate."
"I don't think one should go to the giddy heights of chocolate snobbery," she says. The most expensive chocolate isn't necessary, but "you've got to use, I think, a good-enough bar."
So Lawson suggests looking for brands containing a minimum of 70 percent cocoa solids.
The perfect chocolate cakes should be damp, rather than dry and should have "a hint of pudding about them," she says.
So, what makes cooking with chocolate so special for Valentine's Day?
"It is not a necessity — it's an indulgence," Lawson says.
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