Charlie Eppes - Sex on Toast? Chocolate Curls on a Cupcake!
After six seasons of Numb3rs we know so many things about Charles Edward Eppes that it is hard to describe him in only a few words. Now that the season finale has provided us with some closure, I’ve been able to take a step back and look at this character from a different point of view. The reason why it is so much easier to capture the essence of a recurring supporting character is in their very nature. They are flat characters – in order for them to be recognizable they all have their quirks (e.g. Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations) and it is very easy to work with these obvious character clues. After six seasons, Charlie has become such a round character, that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I had to step back to get a clear picture: If we look at Charlie as if we hadn’t seen a single episode of Numb3rs, who would he be to us? The most obvious answer to this question is: Charlie is a curly-haired mathematician. This is basically all the character information I ended up using in this recipe.
How on earth can one turn “mathematician” into a cake flavour? The Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős famously said "A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems." This quote reminded me of a jar of coffee-Amaretto cream I had bought a couple of months ago but hadn’t tried yet. I will use this cream as a filling for the cupcakes.
Now that we’ve taken care of the “mathematician” part, we only have to take care of the curly-haired part and we’re done. Adding curls to a cupcake is rather easy: chocolate curls! I did not have cute little store-bought chocolate curls (my supermarket only stocks rather big chocolate shavings), so I had to make them myself. Because the temperature of the chocolate (or my kitchen) wasn’t exactly right, my curls did not become as curly as I wanted them to be, but they look cute nevertheless. Maybe your supermarket stocks cute chocolate curls? Make sure that the curls are made of good chocolate – if the curls look pretty but taste awful, they probably ruin the whole cupcake.
The cupcake is based on a chocolate-coffee-dough (yes, more coffee) I usually bake in the form of a loaf cake. I only made half of the dough and filled 10 instead of the usual 12 liners in order to get rather big cupcakes. I let them cool down, cut off their tops and spread them with the coffee-Amaretto cream before putting their tops back on. I frosted the cupcakes with vegan cream cheese icing and decorated them generously with chocolate curls.
The coffee-Amaretto cream I used is basically coffee jelly (the kind of jelly used in peanut butter sandwiches, but made of coffee instead of grape juice). I bought it at KADEWE in Berlin, but I think it’s pretty easy to make. (Ingredients list: 55% espresso, sugar, 3% Amaretto. Gelling agent: modified corn starch, pectin, salt. ) If my jar is empty, I’ll try to make some myself. Any other caffeinated spread may be used as a substitute.
If anyone is interested in the detailed recipe, you can drop me a note and I’ll be happy to send it to you.
