Cake love

I turned older yesterday and, if not exactly wiser, at least wider. Over the years, part of the widening process has been because of birthday cake…or different kinds and sorts, flavours and finishings, bits and bobs and baubles that have been part of the overall presentation. For some years, when I was very young, I would get a cake ordered especially for me from the neighbourhood bakery. On one memorable occasion, when the children of the residential complex were invited in for a small party, I had a heart-shaped cake iced in marzipan of the most improbably lurid strawberry pink colour. The frosting layer was thick and rich and sweet, of a sugar level that would appeal to the very young with its teeth-shrinking brightness.

A few years later, I learned how to bake and between my parents and myself, we produced all manner of esoteric baked goods and fancies. For a few years, my mother insisted on making me what she called a Pineapple Upside Down Cake, one that was richly soaked in golden syrup and pineapple juice and studded with the fruit, with layers of stewed golden rounds to create that subtle change of colour and startlement of texture in each bite. The whole thing was frosted in pineapple-flavoured royal icing, which made it even richer and sweeter, leaving us all feeling rather bilious at the end of the cake-eating experience. It took a while for all of us to communicate to all of us (which is not an editing goof, trust me) that not all of us liked such an overwhelming abundance of pineapple, but once done, it was a relief all around.

From then on, most of the cake-making was done by me for everyone. One year, for my own birthday, I made a jam roll, using a combination of strawberry jam, orange marmalade and chocolate. While it was appreciated from the aesthetic point of view, literally, our tastebuds shrank somewhat from repeating the wonderfully pinwheeled product. I think we made a trifle of the rest of it once the celebrations were done with.

Some time ago, I found an old cookbook in an old book store. I am not sure it didn’t have bug, since it fell apart every time I opened it at any page for too long, but it did its job where I was concerned. I got stories as well as recipes, and managed to create a happily delicious mess with it all. My favourite concoction, however, was what we called a ‘Sin Cake’, a chocolate overload that never rose more than about an inch and a half, if that. It had more chocolate and cocoa than any other ingredient, and rose only with the help of a gently beaten egg white or two. Which meant that, like all soufflés, it needed to be seen and admired for the two seconds it took for the entire disc to stay risen…for, very soon after it was taken out of the oven, it would fall, as ignominiously as the Roman Empire or the Third Reich, take your pick. Take a bite and it was thickly chocolate, rich and dense and fabulously semi-sweet chocolatey, perfect for a more adult tooth.

Over the past couple of years, birthday cake is hardly what I focus on when the Big Day rolls around. All I want is a good day, with no sulks, no bad tempers, no hassles, no unpleasantness, at work or at home or in transit. Sometimes, if I am lucky, it happens that way. And then it’s far better than any cake every baked!