Oh, hello.
Are you also distracted by the undeniable beauty of this Marble Bundt Cake?
Wait til you find out how delicious it is.
And how incredibly easy it is to make.
One batter, two bowls, ten minutes to mix 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 
A little over an hour in the oven…
and a thick blanket of ganache later…
you have a Marble Bundt Cake that will put any coffee shop fare to shame. Shame, I tell you.
Between the dense, buttery crumb…
and chocolate marbling that actually tastes like chocolate…
it doesn’t get much better than this.
Marble Bundt Cake
makes one 10-12 cup capacity bundt cake
Cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into 16 pieces
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup milk (preferably whole), room temperature
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
Ganache:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
Place an oven rack in the center position. Preheat oven to 325F. Heavily grease a bundt pan with softened butter (or shortening) and dust with flour. Set aside.
Make the cake. Combine flour, baking powder, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, salt, butter, eggs, vanilla, and milk in a large mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer to mix on low for 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium and mix for 3 minutes. Batter will be thick. Set aside.
Place chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in 30 second increments in the microwave, stirring in between, until melted. This may also be done in a double boiler.
Transfer 1 1/2 cups of batter into the bowl with the melted chocolate. Use a fork and/or silicone spatula to combine the two.
Transfer remaining batter to prepared pan and smooth the top with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon. Tap full pan on the counter five times to release any large air bubbles. Dollop chocolate batter over the top and use a thin knife or skewer to lightly marble it in. Bake 65-75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in several places comes out clean.
Let cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Run a thin, flexible knife around all exposed edges. Invert cake onto a cooling rack and let cool completely.
Make ganache. Place chopped chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. Heat heavy cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until it is steaming and bubbles are forming at the edge.
Pour warm cream over chopped chocolate. Do not stir. Cover bowl with a lid or aluminum foil for 5 minutes. Remove lid/foil. Starting in the center of the bowl and stirring your way toward the edge, use a fork to stir until chocolate and cream are combined and smooth.
Place cake (still on the rack) over a rimmed baking sheet.
Spoon/pour ganache over the top. Let set for 15-20 minutes before removing to a serving plate, slicing and serving.
Leftover cake will keep covered at room temperature for two days or in the refrigerator for up to five.
When I moved in with my roommate, I thought it would be a short-term deal. We were friendly, but didn’t know each other particularly well, and I honestly didn’t think we’d get along in close quarters—the original plan was that I’d live here for six months or so while I recovered from the end of a relationship.
Flash forward three years and I’m still here, living with the same guy. Turns out that an obsessive baker who mostly wears pajamas and a neat freak can, in fact, live in peace. And make each other laugh really hard.
Before I get to the point and why this is relevant to Coconut Cluster Brownies, I have to say that this is not some sort of romantic announcement. Hahahahahaha absolutely not.
But let me confuse you further by telling you that he got me a box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t a romantic gesture. We get each other things all the time—I sometimes make 
The small Whitman’s Sampler that I received only had a few pieces in it, and I immediately determined the order in which I would eat them, one at a time, over the next few days. The caramel went first, followed by the buttercream and the ganache. The last one, the candy that I was the least excited about, was the Coconut Cluster. It was shaped like a peanut butter cup, but instead of being a filling enrobed in chocolate, it was a block of milk chocolate speckled with bits of coconut. As I went to eat it so I could toss the heart-shaped box, I didn’t expect much, but then I popped it into my mouth and suddenly became obsessed with putting this rich, simple chocolate-coconut combination on a brownie. And so, a month later, I did.
These Coconut Cluster Brownies are nothing more than my favorite 
If you love chocolate, coconut, and brownies like I do, you will want to hoard all of these for yourself…
…but maybe set one or two or four aside for your friend who puts up with your late night baking and knows you well enough to know how you feel about sale-priced peanut butter and cheap chocolate. That’s a good sort of person to have around.
Last week, I needed a win. I needed a win badly.
I was reeling from a personal tragedy, having a difficult time getting myself out of bed in the morning, and couldn’t get any recipes to work properly. I suffer from depression and anxiety, so some of this is just part of my normal life, but there’s something about having recipes—something with which I am supposed to have some modicum of talent and control—repeatedly fail that sends me into a tailspin.
I woke up Friday morning determined to get one recipe to work. Just one. Something I thought would be easy and only take two or three tries: a chocolate variation on my single-serving 
Over the course of two hours, I ran the gamut of cookie failure. Too flat, too puffy, too dry, too chemical-tasting—you get the idea. Here are four of them:
But then I looked at my tried & true 
Also, crucial to cookie success? Underbaking. If you bake this cookie until it’s fully done, you’ll end up with a chocolate M&Ms frisbee. This is because cocoa powder tends to dry things out and also because I use a teaspoon of water here in place of the usual egg (a little trick I learned from the regular chocolate chip version). Underbaking will yield crisp-chewy edges, a crackly top, and a soft, fudgy center. Yesssss.
I had a bunch of M&Ms leftover from making 
I am irrationally irritated by the fact that strawberries are so popular in Valentine’s Day treats. The amount of time I spend stewing over this sort of thing is more than a little ridiculous, but can you blame me? Strawberries aren’t in season right now—most of the punnets in the produce section have the flavor and texture of a styrofoam cup, but they are red and pretty, so there’s no doubt that this February crop will sell like hotcakes* for years to come.
Personally, I like to bypass the off-season fruit this time of year and reach for freeze-dried strawberries instead. I buy ‘em at Trader Joe’s, whirl them into powder and fold it into all sorts of 
Fluffy buttercream with a fresh strawberry punch? Sign. me. up ❤
Frosting is, of course, most traditionally used as a flourish on cakes and cookies and bars, but today, I’m putting it in the spotlight with these Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Buttercreams!
These bite-sized bonbons have sweet, creamy strawberry buttercream centers, a crackly coat of dark chocolate coating, and a smattering of sprinkles—I don’t know about you, but that combination of things is definitely the way to my heart.
Add to that that these no-bake beauties are are simple to make and keep for days on end (as long as your heavy cream stays good), and you’ve got a Valentine’s Day treat that’ll have people lining up to get your number.
I mean, they may only want it so that they can get more homemade candy, but is that such a bad thing?
I’m not sure exactly how I’ve allowed 3+ years to go by without giving you my recipe for Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies, but I’m happy to be rectifying that travesty today.
I mean, how dare I deprive you of this dead-easy recipe for these deeply chocolaty, shockingly tender blank-slate cookies for 362 posts! How. Dare. I.
You may think I’m being dramatic—they’re cookies, not rocket science—but these are really delicious. Like more chocolaty than any plain, no-frills cookie really ought to be.
So rich and buttery and utterly decadent that you’d be more than happy to eat them by their lonesome…
…but then you’d be missing out on the cheeriness that comes with a layer of my go-to 
Or perhaps you, like me, prefer your cookies and icing with a little light-hearted snark. I’m not one of those people that hates Valentine’s Day—
Perhaps I’ve had my heart broken one too many times. Or maybe I just know exactly what I want: a man who will tolerate me for all my weirdness and vast amount of baking equipment.
Yes. That and a pile of cookies.
e2 bakes brooklyn 