Eating: March 2008 Archives

'The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago.' - REM, Nightswimming

This month's Daring Baker challenge was hosted by Morven in New Zealand and she chose Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake. Dorie Greenspan's recipes popped up all over the internet last year when this book was first published and it's been on my cook book wishlist ever since. So I was pretty happy to get a chance to make one of her recipes as part of something where I absolutely had to get in the kitchen and do something.

It's funny actually, thinking about life in retrospect, I always associate it with food. Growing up we had a cook at home who did all the 'boring' cooking, so anything my mom or I made was more complicated or a dessert or a cake. I got to mess about in the kitchen and someone else got to clean up. Perfect huh?

When I started dating Nick, my first love, I was a little less than enthusiastic about him. He wasn't my type. I thought he was all wrong for me and that he would break my heart (which he did). He was rather persistent about getting me to go on a date with him though. He called me one evening while I was baking a cake, which needed taking out of the oven. After a few minutes talking, I said 'I'm sorry, I really need to go now, I'm baking a cake', to which he replied 'and I'm flossing the cat' and hung up! I don't know if that was the moment that I stopped being resistant to being pursued but it was pretty funny. He never believed that I was really baking a cake, even after we'd been together a while. Obviously I have no doubt at all that he really was flossing the cat.

Back to Dorie's cake. I enjoyed making this recipe, but I think the differences in ingredients here in Europe vs. the USA really came to the fore in this recipe. First off, I used English baking powder and the cake barely rose, which is why it's two layers instead of four.  The flour was also a problem I think. Even though I used patisserie flour the texture was somewhat grainy instead of the superlight texture the cake should have had.

The buttercream split when I was beating it, and it separated a little on standing, but I think that was because I didn't cook the egg white/sugar mixture long enough over the double boiler. I've made swiss meringue based icing before, but this one was a little more difficult to achieve a very smooth result with. I'll be trying it again though to see if I can improve on it.

Those things aside, this cake actually improved with standing. The buttercream was much lighter than I expected it to be and the texture of the cake was no different on the Friday after baking than on the Monday when it came out of the oven. I especially appreciated the opportunity to use up half a jar of raspberry jam that had been standing in the fridge for ages.

My only complaint is that I ate almost the entire cake on my own! Definitely a thing to make for a group of people or to take to work. I just don't want my colleagues to get too spoiled, especially after the hot cross buns of the week before. And let's be honest, I liked eating the majority of the cake on my own. Not sure about my hips and thighs though ...

You can read other daring bakers' adventures in cake baking over here. See my last challenge here. You can find the recipe here.

'This little universe between our backs is so beautiful, and colorful, I lean on that.' - KT Tunstall, Little Favours

So last year I made some hot cross buns.  As buns go, they were perfect.

This year I'm making them again. I'll be tripling the recipe to make as many buns as I possibly can.

Some will go with me to work, some will stay home for the kids and some will come with me for the weekend.

Want one?

'But now old friends are acting strange, they shake their heads, they say I've changed, well something's lost, but something's gained in living every day' - Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

I'm going to stay with someone this weekend and I was thinking today about what to take with me and all I could think of was food.

'Why don't I stop and get that fab strawberry cake from the bakery up the road' and then,

'Prosecco is wonderful, let me get a bottle' and it didn't stop there.

Soon I'd bought most of the inside of Parti. Then I started thinking of what I could make to take with me. Like I can actually plan to make food to take to someone else when I have a family to cook for as well and a new job starting on Tuesday? Hello?

What actually happened, subsequent to buying all the snack supplies in Amstelveen, was that I started to think about the way I perceive the relationship between food and affection and how inextricably intertwined they are for me.

I grew up with my grandmother for a lot of my childhood and she only ever expressed her affection via food. She baked, she cooked, she made you clear your plate to show that you loved her back. As a result I was a hefty kid.  It also made me into one of those very same sorts of people. A 'let's feed you to death and you'll know that I care' kind of person.

'Try this chocolate covered nougat.'

'Have some of this, it tastes fabulous.'

'Try this - you'll love it.'

And the disappointed look when the other person doesn't love the thing you love, and the way they backtrack when they see your crestfallen expression and they say 'well, it was nice really. I quite liked that. I promise.'  .

I cooked spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight after I haven't really been cooking for a long time. Well, I haven't been cooking as in haven't been cooking all of the really intricate stuff I used to make. It's not surprising that they're called 'labours of love'.

Tonight's meatballs were bought instead of laboriously home-made. The sauce was my own, tomatoes, red wine, basil etc. It wasn't complicated as food goes, but I'd taken my head out of my ass long enough to cook so I was pretty pleased with myself. Then we're at the table and one of the boys takes a bite of one of the meatballs and says 'well, I don't really like this that much but I'll eat it because it makes you happy, Mama.'

I had to contain my sudden knee-jerk horrified reaction. Horrified once because he said it wasn't nice and I made it, dammit! and horrified twice because he said he was going to eat it all because it would make me happy.

He was going to eat it anyway because it would make me happy!

How sad is that and what am I doing to my kids? Setting them up for a lifetime of food being the way to express their emotions? Isn't this how you get eating disorders? (That was a rhetorical question.)

So, just how did you enjoy that cupcake? Please, have another. No, I insist! What do you mean you don't want one? What do you mean you're full? Oh my god, you don't love me. I'll just curl up and die. Right NOW!