wanted to find a good spot to plant myself for a few hours of study this week (okay, it was cramming), and while in search of a new spot, I decided I should also sample a new dessert to review on the blog in celebration of American Chocolate Week. Recently voted "Best Place to Study" by the Berkeley Press, Berkeley Espresso on the corner of Shattuck and Hearst seemed like a good option. And besides, it also has free wifi.Though the place was full, there were tables outside and the weather was warming. Unfortunately, they had a limited chocolate dessert selection. My options were either a brownie, which looked like a basic boring brownie, or a piece of their Mississippi Mud Cake. Thick and dense with a rich layer of chocolate on top, it was an easy decision.
Since I had never heard of a "Mississippi Mud Cake" before, I decided to ask the server about the cake, what was in it, where it came from. He did not know. He just said that they get their desserts from a variety of places and they just sell them. I've discovered this as an unfortunate trend. Most servers in cafes, where desserts are not made on site, have no idea what they are actually serving. No praise if it's good, but also no blame if it's bad.
In many ways it was good I did not know what a Mississippi Mud Cake was before partaking, because if I did, I might have been disappointed. There appeared to be nothing really special about this dessert. It was a dense cake-like brownie, which was rather dry in texture, topped with a rich thick layer of chocolate frosting. Though there was a bit of a sugary grit in the frosting, it was nice and worked well with the cake forming a sweet chocolate combination. A little on the sweeter side for me, but that was probably nothing in comparison to how sweet a "real" Mississippi Mud Cake would have been."A 70s-era treat that features a topping of marshmallow, chocolate ganache, and pecans atop a rich, dense-dark chocolate cake" is how King Arthur Flour describes it.
For Southern Living it is "a luscious combination of chocolate, pecans, and marshmallows.""A fudgy brownie-like base is topped with marshmallow creme and a nutty frosting," is the description from Taste of Home.
And as Paula Deen, the queen of Southern Cuisine describes it,
"Mississippi Mud Cake is serious comfort food, my friends. You can sink into that deep, chocolate-y mud, and those sweet and mushy marshmallows, and feel safe. I could eat a whole cake when I was hidin' under my bed."
Now if you're paying attention to the descriptions above, and compare the photo of my Mississippi Mud Cake with the ones above, you'll notice a theme I've highlighted. First off, there's no marshmallows on mine. There's also no dark "muddy" quality, and where are the nuts? In comparison to the recipes and photos of a real Mississippi Mud Cake, what I was served was definitely lacking. Don't you think?
Compared to what it should be, the Mississippi Mud Cake at Berkeley Espresso definitely misses the mark. If it was simply called a basic "chocolate cake," you'd have a winner. But if you're expecting a deep, dark, gooey, marshmallowy, chocolate-y mud with a crunch, you're sure to be disappointed. While I'm not a marshmallow fan, the dark fudgy nuttiness that is to be a quality of this southern cake is definitely up my taste bud alley. I feel a bit gypped.
But it's all for the best, because if I did have a slice of Paula Deen's "Mississippi Mud Cake," I'd probably be wired with a sugar rush before even cracking open a book, then crashed in bed a few hours later. Instead, I got some studying done and enjoyed a nice big block of "chocolate cake," which in its own way is "serious comfort food."
Overall assessment: 3 cacao beans (out of 5)
If you're looking for a traditional Mississippi Mud Cake, you're not gonna find it at Berkeley Espresso. But if a big hunk of chocolate cake is what you're after, you'll find it. And though it won't be the best you've ever had, it definitely is not the worst.
(review date: 2010_03-15)
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