The Best Chocolate Cake in the
World
By Valerie L. Egar
From
the time she was 9 or 10, Serena was on a mission to find the perfect chocolate
cake. She admired her mother’s, of course. Bold, with just the tiniest surprise
of cinnamon, her mother’s cake tasted delicious, but Serena doubted it was the
best in the world. She decided that she would eventually find the best by
tasting chocolate cake whenever she had the opportunity.
In
the beginning, Serena sampled chocolate cake at birthday parties and weddings.
Some were average, a few below par. None were close to best. If asked, Serena wouldn’t
have been able to say what she was looking for, exactly. “I’ll know it’s the best one when I find it,”
was all she could say. She believed a perfect chocolate cake existed, the way
an explorer had faith distant lands waited to be discovered.
As
she grew, Serena began baking, experimenting with various recipes. Perhaps she
would create the perfect chocolate cake herself. More sugar, less sugar, a touch
of honey, a dab of molasses. She tried
different spices and flavors to enhance the chocolate— coffee, the finest
vanilla, even a touch of cayenne pepper. She considered the merits of milk
chocolate and dark. Though she received many compliments and even won prizes,
she remained dissatisfied. Her cakes were very good, but she was convinced a better
chocolate cake existed somewhere other than her kitchen.
Serena became a
journalist and traveled widely. No matter where she ate, she invariably ordered
chocolate cake for desert. A divine
slice of moist cake with rich chocolate icing, filled with chocolate mousse
thrilled her in Paris. A fancy chocolate meringue cake filled with chocolate
whipped cream and chocolate sponge wowed her in Mexico City. Still, they fell
short of what she imagined.
One
day Serena wandered into a small café on a side street in a small village in Finland.
The last thing on her mind was chocolate cake, but there it was on the menu, in
large red letters. She ordered a slice, but didn’t expect much because she was tired
and her feet hurt from walking.
When the cake
arrived, it looked beautiful— two moist layers with small fresh strawberries in
between, iced with creamy chocolate frosting.
She took a small bite. The strawberries tasted like sunshine and
flowers, perfectly ripe, sweet as honey. The cake wasn’t overly sweet and
provided contrast for the sweet berries. Serena slowly ate the cake and decided
it was perfect. As the flavor of chocolate and strawberries lingered on her tongue,
Serena knew she would never eat chocolate cake again, ever. She had found the perfect one, and there
would be no comparison.
Shortly after,
Serena wrote an article for a magazine about her quest and mentioned the small
Finnish restaurant. People flocked there. “No chocolate strawberry cake,” the
owner said. “The growing season for strawberries is very short.” When
strawberries were in season again, they weren’t as sweet as the ones Serena ate.
“I cannot tell strawberries how to taste,” the restaurant owner said. “That
depends on the sun, the rain and the strawberries.”
People wrote angry
letters to Serena, disputing that the cake she tasted was best. “Try mine,” a
few offered. “You’ll see you were wrong.” Or, a letter might begin, “When I was
in Argentina, I discovered the best—” or, “Obviously, you have never travelled
to British Columbia.”
Serena sighed and answered
every letter. “I was writing about my quest to find something I believed
existed,” she wrote. “I wasn’t writing a
restaurant review.
“Your quest will
be different from mine. Maybe it’s climbing the highest mountain or experiencing
the loveliest sunrise. If it’s finding the best chocolate cake, the one you
like best probably isn’t in Finland. I can’t tell you where yours exists,
because I don’t know.
“You’ll have to
find it for yourself, ” she added. “And that’s OK.”
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Copyright 2018 by Valerie L. Egar. May not be copied, reproduced or distributed without permission from the author.
Published July 29, 2018 Biddeford Journal Tribune (Biddeford, ME).
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