Some time during Covid-19 and lockdown, I lost my cooking mojo. And, finding the joy of cooking of any sort once again has been difficult if not impossible. Too little time, too little inspiration and a general boredom with food in general have limited my time in the kitchen over the past several years.

Recently, however, I decided to make my most favourite chocolate dessert at the end of a challenging and intense academic year, partially simply to celebrate surviving the last year, but also and more importantly to celebrate my colleagues and let them know I am enormously grateful for their support, kindness and overall loveliness.

After posting a few pics of the cake to shame all other cakes, several friends asked for the recipe. I finally sat down and wrote it out and put all of the various links in one place.

Here it is….

This is actually several different recipes combined to create my version of the New York Times Cooking’s Mississippi Mud Pie, which The Cuban and I now call The One Cake to Rule Them All.

Layer 1: Chocolate Shortbread Crust

Start by making a chocolate shortbread crust. I used this recipe, but doubled it to make one larger pie crust and another smaller crust. I also use a bit less than 1/4 c of sugar the original recipe or 1/2 c when doubling the recipe.

Once the ingredients are mixed together, I place the dough in between two sheets of parchment paper and roll it out to the desired thickness (I prefer thinner, but thicker works as well). Once rolled out, place the dough on a flat baking sheet and chill it for a few moments (~5 min). Then, use the centre of the springform pan(s) to cut the bottom of the crust, and trim a long straight strip for the side of the tin. You may need to repeat rolling out the dough a couple of times to line the springform. You’ll want the crust to extend to a bit more than 1/2 up the side of the tins.

This is perhaps the hardest step and takes the most patience, to my mind. You may need to use scraps  from the shortbread to fill in gaps. It’s fairly easy to work with, but once it warms up and reaches room temperature it is a bit trickier to roll out. The important point here is to get the crust as even as possible and press it in to the tin so that you have a full crust. If it isn’t exactly straight at the top, that’s fine. It doesn’t need to be perfect. 🙂

Layer 2: Chocolate Fudgy Brownie

This layer and the next are fairly consistent with The New York Times Cooking’s original recipe, which is also available here if you do not have a NYT subscription. Here are my notes:

• I use 95% dark chocolate throughout the recipe. At a minimum I would use at least 80% dark chocolate, but darker chocolate seems to make this even better to our mind, particularly if you like chocolate and want the chocolate flavours to really shine through. I prefer to weigh the chocolate and use a bit more rather than a bit less than the recipe calls for.
• I use about 45 g of light brown sugar rather than 67 g dark brown sugar.
• I also use about 50 g of granulated sugar or less than the 100 g called for in the recipe.
• I recommend slightly underbaking this layer so that it is rather chewy and a bit more fudgy.
  

Layer 3: Chocolate Custard

This layer is also fairly consistent with The New York Times Cooking’s original recipe, which is also available here if you do not have a NYT subscription. Here are my notes:

• Again, I use 95% dark chocolate throughout the recipe. At a minimum I would use at least 80%, but darker seems to make this even better to our mind, particularly if you like chocolate and want the chocolate flavours to really shine through. Use at least as much as you need in the recipe rather than just under the amount. I prefer to weigh the chocolate as well.
• I use about 50 of granulated sugar.
• If you need to smooth out the custard, you can run it through a fine mesh strainer.
• Chilling this before adding it to the to of the brownie layer is crucial. Let it chill completely and then whisk it a bit before pouring it over the baked brownie. I would also recommend chilling the brownie and shortbread layers completely before adding the custard. Tap the pan a bit to smooth it over once you’ve added the custard.

Layer 4: Mocha Mascarpone Frosting

This is an addition I introduced to my version of the Mississippi Mud Pie a few years ago, and I think it makes it an entirely new and extra special cake. I use a modified version of this recipe, which doesn’t come out as dark as it looks in the picture, but it tastes a-maz-ing. Added bonus: the cake recipe in this link is also rather tasty if you need a chocolate cake. 😉 Here are my notes on the frosting only:

• I do not make as much frosting as called for in the recipe, and even with the amount I normally make (which is roughly half what is needed), it will be enough to cover two pies (one large and one small). So, you may have some frosting left over, which goes great with brownies or mixed with strawberries and blueberries or… by the spoonful if you need a late night snack a la Nigella Lawson. It’s a great chocolatey cream cheese-like frosting.
• I do not normally add the espresso powder for this recipe.
• I use about 1/2 of the heavy cream called for, warming up 1/2 c and setting aside 1/4 c of cream.
• I use about 1/4 c of sugar total. We prefer less sweetness and less sugar in general.
• I use 1 container of mascarpone.
• It’s incredibly important to let the warmed cream cocoa mixture to cool completely before mixing in the mascarpone.
• If you want to add a bit more wow to this layer, when warming the milk, split about an inch of a vanilla bean and add it to the cream when you warm it up. Then, remove the vanilla bean strip and scrape it into the cocoa mixture.
• After whipping the mascarpone into the cocoa-infused cream frost the cake top only — that is the brownie layer. You can add as much as you like, but only frost to within about a cm from the edge of the cake.

Once you’ve assembled all of the layers, chill the cake completely before serving. I normally make this the day before we slice it up.

When you do serve this, you’ll want to offer rather smaller slices. Less is absolutely more with this cake. It is rich AF. Folks can always go back for seconds. 🙂 When you serve it, make sure you get all four layers out of the tin. The first slice will be hard to remove from the tin. But, it still tastes fantastic even if looks messy.

It also tastes brilliant with strawberries especially and blueberries.

Enjoy! And, if you do make this, let me know how it turns out for you!