Let's face it: chocolate cake batter is richer in flavor and almost always much tastier than the finished product. But it'd be odd, to say the least, to serve up bowls of cake batter at a dinner party ...

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8-inch-round pans. Combine milk, eggs, vanilla (liquid ingredients). Sift flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder (dry ingredients).

The chef Marcel Desaulniers, who died last month, had an over-the-top approach to dessert, a sweet counterpoint to the guilt-ridden chocolate culture of the time. By Tejal Rao Tejal Rao, the Food ...