Sauerkraut Chocolate Cake

The week after my birthday. The post-birthday quiet of January, the year newly established, the seventy newly worn. I've been going about the ordinary work of winter — the woodstove, the long cooking, the reading and writing — with a particular ease that I attribute partly to having passed the milestone and partly to something that has been accumulating for several years now. You arrive at a kind of ease with yourself at a certain age if things have gone reasonably well. Not complacency. Ease.

Teddy's cooking lesson this week was the surprise he'd been holding: a proper mole negro — a real one, the kind with more than twenty ingredients and a full day of work. He'd been researching it for two weeks. The process: multiple dried chilies toasted and soaked, the burnt tortilla, the plantain, the chocolate, the spices. A sauce that is a week's ambition made into something you eat over rice. He sent a photo and a voice note describing how it tasted. The voice note was three minutes. He said everything right about it. I called him back to say: that's the voice of someone who knows what they're doing. He said: I'm going to make it again. I said: yes, because that's what you do with something like this. He said: how many times? I said: until you don't need to think about it. He said: that could take a while. I said: yes. That's the whole thing.

The tomato seedling trays are ready in the spare room. I'll start them next week. February is almost here.

Teddy’s mole negro stayed with me all week — not just the ambition of it, but what he understood about chocolate: that it belongs in places that surprise you, that it earns its depth by sitting alongside things that resist it. That’s exactly what this sauerkraut chocolate cake is. The sauerkraut does what the dried chilies and burnt tortilla do in a mole — it pulls against the sweetness, gives the chocolate somewhere to go. I made it because after hearing that three-minute voice note, I wanted to be in the same conversation he was in, even from here.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 12

Ingredients

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup water
2/3 cup sauerkraut, rinsed, drained, and roughly chopped
For the frosting: 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/3 cup whole milk, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Heat your oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans, or one 9x13-inch baking pan.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3–4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract.
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until evenly blended.
Alternate wet and dry. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three additions, alternating with the water (beginning and ending with the flour). Mix until just combined — do not overmix.
Fold in the sauerkraut. Gently fold the rinsed, drained, and chopped sauerkraut into the batter. It will disappear into the crumb during baking, leaving moisture and a subtle tang behind.
Bake. Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Bake for 30–35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
Make the frosting. Beat the butter until smooth. Sift in the cocoa powder and mix. Add powdered sugar and milk alternately, beating until the frosting is smooth and spreadable. Stir in the vanilla. Add a splash more milk if needed to reach your desired consistency.
Frost and serve. Spread frosting between layers and over the top and sides of the cooled cake. Slice and serve at room temperature.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sauerkraut Chocolate Cake — When the Chocolate Is the Whole Lesson