Could I chart my life in chocolate? Probably. You could too, I’m guessing.
Second grade: Sifting through the shiny pile of miniature candy bars I’ve spilled out onto the carpet after a few hours of trick-or-treating in the frigid October air. The nubby multicolored rag carpet is soft under my knees and there’s a fire blazing cozily in the living room where all the parents sit together. My sisters and I are engaged in fierce, sugar-fueled negotiations with the other kids—three Mounds bar for one Twix; two Kit Kats for two Crunch bars; five Almond Joys and two Butterfingers and a box of Milk Duds for a single king-sized Snickers.
Fourth grade: Kneeling in front of the homemade wooden Advent calendars my mom made for all four of us in her woodshop, each painted with our names on the top. We still have them—they’re works of art and I hope to fill them one day for my own wee ones. Each tiny door opened with a small polished wooden knob to reveal a small compartment within. She’d tuck something into the empty spaces: ten colorful jelly beans or two wrapped Starbursts or—my favorite—a single Ferrero Rocher in its shiny gold foil. I’d peel back the foil and take a tiny bite, allowing the thin chocolate wafer coating to crack delicately between my teeth, giving way to the creamy hazelnut chocolate filling. (In the spirit of honesty between friends here, I confess that there were one (or two…) years where I may have eaten 50% of the candy in my Advent calendar in the first three days. I suspect Santa Claus would look down disapprovingly on that sort of behavior.)
Summer camp on Lake Morey, Fairlee, Vermont: Gooey “hobo packs” of s’mores cooked over a campfire, made by piling graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows onto a square of tin foil, wrapping it up, then placing it over the flames.
Sophomore year of high school: The summer before school started, I spent a month in Spain. For two of those weeks I lived with a host mother in her apartment in Barcelona, tucked into a tiny bedroom, just big enough to fit my narrow bed and a small chair where I propped my suitcase. A tall window with pebbled glass opened onto the interior of the apartment building; I could see down to the courtyard below where women would hang their clothes out to dry and I could hear people calling laughingly in Spanish to each other, shouting merrily into the air. On weekday mornings I took four hours of Spanish class at a small school near the Parc du Turó. After class I’d walk the twenty minutes home down the Avinguda Diagonal, stopping just before the apartment at the local alimentación (a small, cramped corner store). I’d buy two thick bars of chocolate, fumbling to count the strange coins in my pocket. Back in my bedroom, I’d lie on my bed and unwrap one bar, breaking off a shard of the thick slab and letting it dissolve slowly on my tongue, feeling at once homesick and shiveringly happy to be in such a beautiful, foreign place, letting it infuse my very being with newness and experience.
Junior spring, high school: With two dozen other students, I lived for a semester in cabins on the coast of Maine, just south of Wiscasset. The school is described as an “immersive scientific study of coastal ecology, place-based curriculum, and liberal arts” along with a focus on outdoor skills and an appreciation for the natural world. Did I develop all of that? Yes. I also developed a deep appreciation for one of the kitchen’s signature desserts: fudgy oat squares. A buttery oatmeal cookie base is pressed into a pan, topped with a layer of gooey chocolate, then finished with dollops of the same oatmeal cookie dough. We’d sneak them from dinner in folded napkins and carry them out to the Adirondack chairs on the green, grassy lawn in front of the English building, breaking them apart to share, leaving our fingers smeared with chocolate.
Home from college for fall break, legs flung over the armchair in the living room, talking with my sisters and nibbling our way through small squares of frozen brownies, so rich and dense that they stay slightly chewy after days in the freezer.
Back at college, late at night on a Sunday, desperately trying to finish typing an essay on structural violence and disparities in care in Bolivia for my medical anthropology course, fueled by a large fountain Diet Coke and fistfuls of chocolate-covered raisins from the campus center bulk bins.
My first apartment in New York City which I shared with my older sister, where we kept a permanent stash of Ghirardelli chocolate chips in the freezer. At night, we’d watch old episodes on Friends on our tiny DVD player, each of us cross-legged on the couch with a miniature mug of chocolate chips in our laps.
Slices of barely-sweet chocolate bread from Balthazar Bakery in Soho, eaten while wandering the crowded cobblestone streets with their posh boutiques and bustling cafes.
An ordinary Thursday night at home last week, warm couscous salad with green beans and zucchini for dinner, my latest discovery for dessert: a bowl of coconut yogurt (this kind) swirled with a scoop of this salted caramel chocolate pudding. Why yes, that is a surefire way to turn ordinary into extraordinary.
So many other days I could remember in slices of chocolate cake for birthdays and soccer team meetings and end-of-exam celebrations, chocolate chip cookies of every type imaginable, bowls of cocoa Rice Krispies the night before a half-marathon, airy creme-filled Hostess cupcakes split among three of us on the bus back from a lacrosse game, bumpy triangles of a Toblerone bar on a park bench in Switzerland, questionably legal brownies at a party just off campus in Cape Town (sorry mom, it wasn’t a habit! Turns out I’m not much of a rule-breaker.)
And closer to home, I can picture baking my way through years and various kitchens: pumpkin brownies, cheesecake brownies, an ill-advised attempt at avocado black bean brownies. Flourless fudge cake and malted chocolate cake and many-layered Dobos torte. Chocolate babka and Nutella babka and chocolate challah-babka. World Peace cookies and cocoa roll-out cookies and homemade Milanos and mint chocolate sandwich cookies. Savory cocoa nib pasta and stovetop chocolate pudding and ice cream-topped fudge waffles and just plain fudge.
And today—chocolate whoopie pies. A New England classic with a little twist: salty Marcona almonds blitzed into creamy nut butter, then folded into the filling.
Mini Chocolate Marcona Almond Whoopie Pies
Makes about 2 dozen mini cookies
For the Marcona almond butter
1 cup (142g) Marcona almonds
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
For the cookies
1/2 cup (113g) butter, at room temperature
1 cup (198g) granulated sugar
1/4 cup Marcona almond butter (from above)
1 egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 (210g) cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup (56g) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (227g) milk
For the filling
1 /2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups (256g) Marshmallow Fluff
1 cup (115g) confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
To make the almond butter: Place the almonds and oil in a food processor. Process until smooth, adding a bit more oil if needed. Set aside 1/4 cup to use for the cookies and save the rest for another use (by which I mean, eat it straight from the fridge with a spoon).
To make the cookies: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat the butter with the sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes on medium-high speed with a stand mixer. Add the almond butter and beat until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until well-incorporated.
Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined. Add the milk and continue mixing until the batter is smooth., but don’t overmix.
Scoop the batter into mounds on two parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each. If you have a tablespoon scoop, that’s an ideal size for the mounds, if you want to make mini whoopie pies. If you want to make regular-sized ones, use an ice cream scoop.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until just set on the tops. Remove from the oven and let cool.
While the cookies cool, make the filling: Beat together all the ingredients in a stand mixer until fluffy and smooth.
Spread a tablespoon or so of filling onto a cookie, then sandwich with another cookie. Repeat until all the cookies are used up.