Southern Chocolate Torte

New Year's Eve 2026. The last night of a year that added three great-grandchildren (Zoe, Zara, Simone), lost a brother (Clarence), taught a cooking class, grew a second-generation watermelon, fed two hundred and forty-four people at the Lowcountry boil, watched a baby walk and talk and eat cornbread, and kept me alive for another three hundred and sixty-five days on a planet that is not always kind but that has a really good grocery store and a cast iron skillet that has never let me down.

I am sitting in my kitchen at ten p.m. with journal volume twenty-eight and a cup of tea — unsweetened, the diabetes tea, the tea that tastes like principles and compromise — and I am writing down the year the way I always do: in food and family and the things that happened between meals.

The 2026 list: Twins Zoe and Zara arrived in May. Simone arrived in October. Clarence died in February. The cooking class taught six people to cook the Lowcountry, and the Lowcountry survived the teaching. The watermelon grew again. Michael turned one. Gladys's cobbler got closer. The garden produced. The church held. The family grew. The food continued. The chair was set. The missing was present. The love was total.

I will not stay up until midnight. I am seventy-one. Midnight is for people who still believe that the next year starts at a specific time. The next year starts when you wake up and put on your apron and stand at the stove and decide that today is a day worth cooking for. That's when the year starts. That's the only clock I trust.

Made black-eyed peas and brown rice. The tradition. The luck. The thing you eat on New Year's not because you believe in luck but because you believe in tradition, and tradition is the only luck that actually works. You cook the food your mother cooked and her mother cooked and the line goes back further than luck, further than calendars, further than midnight. The line goes back to a kitchen. The kitchen is where it all starts. The kitchen is where the year begins.

Happy New Year, baby.

Now go on and feed somebody.

After the black-eyed peas were done and the rice was resting and I had written the last line in volume twenty-eight, I did what I always do when a year has been this full — I made something sweet, because Clarence had a sweet tooth I never properly honored while he was here, and because Gladys isn’t the only one in this family who can get closer to something beautiful one year at a time. This Southern Chocolate Torte is the dessert I bring out when the occasion is too large for a cake and too serious for a cookie — rich and quiet and exactly right for a kitchen at ten-thirty on New Year’s Eve.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (70% cacao), roughly chopped
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 large egg yolks, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder (optional, deepens chocolate flavor)
Powdered sugar or whipped cream, for serving

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 325°F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan or springform pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter the parchment.
Melt butter and chocolate. Combine the butter and chopped chocolate in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until fully melted and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
Whisk in sugar. Stir the granulated sugar into the chocolate mixture until well combined. The mixture will look thick and grainy — that’s right.
Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract.
Fold in dry ingredients. Sift the flour, salt, and espresso powder (if using) over the chocolate mixture and fold gently with a rubber spatula until just combined and no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 32–35 minutes, until the top is set and a toothpick inserted 1 inch from the edge comes out with moist crumbs (the center will look slightly underdone — it firms as it cools).
Cool completely. Let the torte cool in the pan on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then run a thin knife around the edge and invert onto the rack. Remove parchment and cool completely before slicing.
Serve. Dust with powdered sugar or serve with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream. Keeps at room temperature, covered, for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Southern Chocolate Torte — The Year in Sweetness, the Stove Where It Starts