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And then some days, you just get disgusted.  I was talking to someone on an online dating site, I won’t tell you which one, except that it rhymes with Hague’slist.  I’m charmed by the man I’m talking to.  He’s erudite, he’s witty, and when he finally sent me a picture, he was old enough to be my grandpa.  (Except you sir, are not as good looking as either my Black Irish or my 1/8th African American Grandpa.)

In honor of him, it was time to make chocolate cake.  And, yeah, I know–it’s just one piece.  Something, uh, happened to the rest.*

To make a really moist cake, you don’t need an oven.  You need a rice cooker.

Ingredients:

1 box Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake Mix

3 eggs or equivalent egg replacer

1 stick butter

1 cup of water

1 jar of strawberry preserves

Kitchen apparati:

Regular rice cooker with a metal steamer basket

waxed paper

small hand mixer

mixing bowl

microwave

knife for testing the cake

spatula

measuring cup

Directions:

Take the butter out of the refrigerator and put it into the microwave on defrost for about 10 seconds, still in the wrapper.  Take it out of the microwave and unwrap it.  Put the butter in the mixing bowl.  Open the package of cake mix and pour it into the bowl.  Prepare the egg replacer according to the directions on the package and add it, or crack three eggs into the bowl.  Measure out and pour in the cup of water.  Mix the whole thing with a hand mixer for 2 1/2 minutes.

Line the steamer basket of a rice cooker with wax paper.  Pour the batter into the lined steamer basket, and smooth the edges.  Fill the rice cooker bowl with several cups of water, and turn it on.  Put the lid on the top of the steamer tray and put the tray on top of the rice cooker bowl.  Walk away for an hour.  Take the lid off, carefully, to avoid steam burns.  Put a knife in the center of the cake.  If it comes out clean, it’s done.  If it doesn’t, give it another twenty minutes to steam.  Wonder why the hell you’re torturing yourself with online dating.

Come back, and carefully take the steamer basket from the top of the rice cooker.  Let it cool for about ten minutes.  Lift the edges of the wax paper carefully out of the steamer basket and move the cake to a plate with the wax paper still attached.  Get another plate and put it on top of the cake.

You’re going to flip the whole thing over. Take a deep breath, and flip.  Once it’s flipped over, peel off the wax paper, put the plate back on the bottom of the cake and flip it back over.

This isn’t a perfect, pretty cake, but it’s moist, and will stay so for days, unlike a lot of gluten free baked goods.  Cover the cake in strawberry preserves, using the strawberries to hide the imperfections created by the wax paper edges during steaming.

This is really good.  Cost:  About $1.30 a serving, including the power for the rice cooker.

*Actually, 1/3 of the cake is still in the refrigerator three days later.  I swear.