
Days and weeks are whizzing by, and our heads are barely screwed on around here. They were on in March. I exercised in March. I ate healthy(ish) meals in March. I knocked off to-dos in March. But sometime after March things became a blur, and now here we are, squeezing in email responses in bed before falling asleep, grabbing for yet another Trader Joe's frozen meal, letting the post office pile pile up. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, though. I see it. We're driving to Saint Louis tonight for a not-even-full-day trip, and I'm looking forward to listening to some podcasts and grilling Brian with a million "what if..." questions. We're also getting massages for the first time on Saturday and can't wait for a relaxing date night after.
After weeks of neglecting the kitchen, I jumped in last Saturday and made this chocolate loaf, and even though I gave up sweets this year, and even though I've recently been advised to eat as gluten free as possible (more on that later, it's haaaaard), I dove straight into it on Mother's Day. Despite my love for sugar, I'm not much of a cake person, even less a chocolate cake person, but this is so rich, so simple, so ... comforting? And, because of it, consider me a Dutch cocoa convert. Cya, other cocoas.

Ingredients (makes one loaf):
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and lightly flour a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a butter-flour spray.
In a large bowl, on medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Don't worry if the batter looks a little uneven.
Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt together right into your wet ingredients. Stir together with a spoon until well-blended, but do not overmix.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack for 10-15 minutes, at which point you can cool it the rest of the way out of the pan. Serve with whipped cream and fresh berries, if you're feeling fancy.
Serve with raspberry sorbet if you're feeling even fancier!
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