Rich and Moist Chocolate Swirl Cake with Peanut Butter Glaze

I meant to make two yummy little breakfast bowls—a cozy breakfast for two. A warm, vanilly, spiced bowl of quinoa, sparkled with a dazzle of summer cherries and a pretty little ribbon of pecans sprinkled across the top. In fact, I did make this. I stirred it, warmed it, and served it up, only to come face to face with what actually became my morning…and then the rest of the tear-filled, dramatic (maybe a touch overly so), everything-I-thought-I knew-was-suddenly-unsure day. A day that called for something sinful, decadent, and (forget the sweet) bitter—a chocolatiness that the sheer baking of it made me feel like I was creating a dark (albeit extremely yummy) illustration of how I felt: depressed and very, very angry.

But I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Breakfast launched the start of an argument. Not just any argument, but one of those revert-to-my-childhood fighting mechanisms fights (you know, run into the bedroom and slam the door behind you).

We’re fine now. But it was ugly. Oliver, the dog, tried to break things up a few times. He did not succeed.

It’s the whole next step/future plan thing coming up and bothering me again. Unfortunately, I’m in a profession (teaching) where there’s one main time of year for getting a job. This year, there are no jobs in the Bay Area, or really the entire state of California for new teachers (or old teachers, for that matter). A fear-inducing fact that I’ve managed to ignore based on the plan (I really love having plans) that the boyfriend and I would be moving up to Oregon come end of summer for him to attend law school and me to start my career as a teacher.

To summarize in a not-too-personal nutshell, this fight brought up all these insecurities. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Fast-forward about five hours. That’s when I found myself splayed across my couch, eating leftover spaghetti straight from the resealable plastic container, and yelling obscenities at my two-week old recording of The Bachelorette. This is when the chocolate light bulb went off: Dark chocolate cake swirled with creamy peanut butter and then topped with a sweet peanut butter glaze. I would create it. I would bake it. And I would eat it.

There’s just something about super rich chocolate that screams comfort food. Recipes like this are easy to make—the basic steps of making any old cake—and can easily be done while watching trashy TV or crying on speakerphone to one’s mother (thanks, Mom). As I stirred the chocolate, I wanted to dive into its blackness and lose myself in its rich and restorative flavor. I may have eaten about a quarter of the batter before even putting it in my oven. And, yes, that did make me feel better.

Rich and Moist Chocolate Swirl Cake with Peanut Butter Glaze
1 ¼ c. oat flour*
1 c. evaporated cane juice
1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder (the good stuff, such as Ghirardelli)
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 very ripe, mashed banana
1 c. hot water
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp. grapeseed oil
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 c. agave nectar
1 c. unsweetened organic peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350. Coat square baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Whisk all dry ingredients together in large mixing bowl. Mix all wet ingredients together in a separate bowl (including banana, not including agave and peanut butter).
3. Add wet to dry ingredients, mixing until fully combined. Pour into square baking dish.
4. Mix agave and peanut butter together. This may take warming the peanut butter in the microwave a bit to make it easier to mix.
5. Drop dollops of this onto the chocolate batter. Use a spatula to swirl it throughout. This will leave a marbled effect after it bakes.

Peanut Butter Glaze
½ c. powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. grapeseed oil
2 tbsp. rice (almond, soy, etc.) milk
2 tbsp. unsweetened organic peanut butter
1 tbsp. agave nectar

1. Combine all ingredients and mix with fork until totally blended. Spread on cooled cake with a spatula.

2. Let dry. Cut and serve.

Use What You've Got
* Don't have oat flour on hand? It's cheaper (and super easy) to make your own. Just grind up regular old quick-cooking oatmeal in the food processor or with an immersion blender.
* Evaporated cane juice: Regular white sugar would work just the same, and brown sugar could be substituted as well. I haven't tried the recipe with a liquid sweetener, like agave, which would probably change the texture a bit.
* Peanut butter: Substitute any nut butter for different twist on this cake.
* Grapeseed oil: Any cooking oil (not olive oil!) will do, like canola or coconut.

*If you need the recipe to be gluten free, make sure you're using gluten-free oats.