I’m studying for the GRE, which is really not a very exciting weekend activity. It makes me think a lot about Ms. Merrick’s math class in 7th and 8th grade and her opener paper. It also makes me think about how amazing brains are that they can remember the Pythagorean theorem, most of algebra, and 25 digits of pi (not for the GRE, just something I haven’t been able to forget), but they can’t figure out how to find the answers to percent problems in any sort of elegant way. Studying for the GRE also means I spend a lot of time poking around the internet, then I practice some vocab, eat chips and salsa, do 6 math problems, read loads of recipes, freak out, calm down, and decide it’s time to bake something.

This recipe has been on my “recipes to try” list for about a million years. It’s not super hard. It’s not especially time consuming. It’s chocolate. I really don’t know what I’ve been waiting for.

It is actually a very good GRE studying recipe because the bake time is long enough that I can get through a good amount of geometry, but not so long that my butt falls totally asleep.

This recipe has less butter and fewer eggs than your average poundcake. But the intense butter flavor that I associate with plain poundcake is 100% replaced by chocolate (hey, percents!). I added an egg, which I think gives the cake a nice little lift. It’s still dense, but the airiness balances out the richness of the chocolate. And now back to studying.

chocolate streusel poundcake
ever-so-slightly adapted from melissa clark

streusel:
½ cup ap flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 ½ tbsp cocoa
½ tsp salt
4 ½ tbsp unsalted butter, cold and in cubes
⅓ cup semisweet chocolate chips

cake:
3 ounces dark chocolate
1 ⅓ cups ap flour
¾ cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ tsp salt
2 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
½ cup plain Greek yogurt
½ cup whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×5 loaf pan and line it with parchment paper (with some paper hanging over the edges). Grease the parchment.
2. In a heatproof bowl over simmering water, melt the dark chocolate. Set aside to cool.
3. Stir together the streusel flour, sugar, cocoa and salt. Smoosh the butter cubes into the mixture until it forms large crumbs. Stir in the chocolate chips. Divide streusel in half and spread one half on the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until baked through.
4. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder for the cake.
5. In an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugars and salt until well combined. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing for about a minute per egg (this is where we get the airiness). Add in the vanilla, yogurt, milk and cooled chocolate, and mix just until homogenous (it will look a bit speckled but that’s okay). On low speed, mix in the dry mixture until just combined. Do not overmix!
6. Pour the batter into the pan on top of the streusel, using a spatula to even it out. Sprinkle the remaining streusel on top. Bake for 75-85 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean (except for maybe a melty chocolate chip). Cool completely in the pan.
7. As your cutting the cake, turn it into a percent problem and evaluate how much cake is left after you’ve eaten 37%. Just kidding. Please just enjoy. Maybe with some barely sweetened whipped cream and berries.