Dare I Say Chocolate Food Porn?

It’s been a long time since my last chaotic cocoa bean and culinary catastrophe and although I have enjoyed some chocolaty tryptophan highs, I have to confess to a selection box of fudging gastronomic lows where I’ve managed to make a complete sticky chocolate pudding of myself and not told a soul – until now.

I’ll start with Easter Sunday and the in laws – a whisky combination at the best of times and yet still the gastronomic guru within me was eager to bake something rich and sumptuous - like a Gordon Ramsay’s light and gooey chocolate cake.

The baking started well. Melting the dark chocolate was not a problem, nor was mixing in the egg yolks. However, when it came to whisking the egg whites into firm peaks, that’s when my stupidity excelled all expectations and all things chocolaty and fleshy spiralled out of control.

You see I wanted to make sure that I had attached the whisk attachments into the hand mixer securely because for the love of Crunchie the last thing I needed was chocolate coated whisk attachments ricocheting with wild abandon around my brand new kitchen. So holding the whisk firmly, I recklessly decided to test that the whisk attachments were indeed secure - by giving the switch a quick deft, flick.

HELLS KITCHEN!

The kitchen sparkled, blurred and then faded. My hand felt sticky and heavy. Hurricane Gordon rushed through my ears while sickening waves sloshed dangerously in my belly. I desperately tried to chase the black clouds away from my star spangled eyes before crumpling over the counter like a chocolate cornflake cluster.

Believe me when I say there was no Victoria in this sandwich – only my hand wedged tight, bruising and bleeding between the two prongs.

Needless to say I then proceeded to repeatedly scream numerous Ramsay-esque expletives and quite literally stopped the in-laws in their tracks on their way up the M4.

As it turned out my chocolate cake was a ‘bloody’ success. It was delightfully gooey and also cleverly disguised with an optional raspberry coulis as a precaution. My in-laws left with sated stomachs and all the while utterly clueless about my secret accidental ingredient.

My mangled hand however, was not as delightful, nor successful. I was too embarrassed to go to casualty and so the bruising flourished and the scabs crystallised and snapped like the finest tempered chocolate.

But oh Ixcacao, my confessions of a wannabe gastronomic guru did not end there. Remember I mentioned my brand new, modern kitchen? Well I’ve also had to learn the hard way that living and cooking in a digital age with a freshly installed, bleeping, adult proof, electric induction, touch control, four zone hob is quite frankly just another recipe for disaster.

It has taken me ten fudging months to figure out how to simply turn the hob on and then last month? Nothing. It was colder than a refrigerated chocolate hobnob biscuit.

“Unusual…” says the repairman. “Unrepairable. Will be about two weeks for a replacement hob to come in.”

What the fudge?!

You see what concerns me is spaghetti. Spaghetti is an essential part of my Teens’ daily diets. How the Hershey do I cook spaghetti without a hob?

Well let me tell you that my gastronomic notoriety was now teetering on the edge of a chocolaty mudslide but you will be pleased to know that thanks to Google, I learned that it was in fact possible to cook spaghetti in the microwave. I was sceptical Ixcacao, but it worked! All I had left to do was to dollop the specialty jar of readymade sauce into a bowl, cover and blast in the microwave for a few minutes and hey presto, Willy Wonker’s my eccentric Uncle.

What could possibly go wrong I thought as I set the microwave in motion. Let’s just say Ixcacao, that although a built in microwave high above the oven is a great space saving idea for any kitchen, it is not wise to become too lackadaisical to then forget about the possible effects extreme heat can have on plastic combined with the laws of gravity.

Now just imagine my surprise and horror when upon going to remove the sauce from the microwave, the bowl made an unexpected bid for freedom and 500g of squished tomatoes and other suspicious, lumpy bits fell spectacularly to the floor and ricocheted in all directions like projectile vomit.

I have to confess again Ixcacao, that the air once more filled with profanities of a chocolaty kind as the sauce splattered up my legs, the cupboards and walls. The sauce even dared to venture on to my face and mess in my hair. And to add injury to the insult of it all, it then sizzled over my bare feet before seeping into oblivion under the lino. I was fudging furious.

And yes, I did scream some more chocolaty expletives for good measure and in perfect earshot of the Teen who smugly reminded me where the swear box was.

A few days later I was still feeling aerated but not in a light, 'feel the bubbles' Aero kind of way. So for the love of all things chocolaty, I decided to find solace on social media and ended up watching various short videos choc-a-block full of serotonin happiness and dedicated to all things calorifically cocoa. I found myself spellbound. I was going cocoa in my very own chunk of chocolate utopia. Dare I call it chocolate porn? What with so many delicious recipes, I was practically bouncing with ecstasy at the anticipation and thrill of being let loose to cause dark, chocolate chaos in my own kitchen - not to mention the climax of knowing that I could then scoff the lot when I was done.

It was only natural then to say to my Teens:

“Why don’t we make our own lip-smacking chocolate video?!” So armed with an interesting range of culinary contraptions and ingredients, that is exactly what we did.

My younger Teen – the follower of many trendy vloggers, nominated herself as the master chef while my older Teen – the media student took charge of the camera, which of course typically kept flashing a low battery warning. And me? I tried to direct with a disturbingly bossy tone.

Needless to say, we failed epically to perfect the modern day hack of separating eggs using a plastic bottle.

Oh and yes, we were unashamedly blasé and proud of the tasty, Pollack splattered, chocolate and egg white effect that then covered every surface and ourselves – again.

So there you have it Ixcacao, Goddess of chocolate, I am sorry for these and all my other chaotically catastrophic cocoa bean and culinary sins.

And my penance is...? To eat One Toffee Crisp and Three Dairy Milks, you say?

Oh and to remember, for the love of Cadbury, to pray that it's maybe in everyone's best interests that my Teens never tell their teachers about the day we all made our very own chocolate porn movie.