I spent Saturday making a cake. It was a birthday cake for a friend - she was having a dinner that night, and had invited myself and all her other friends along to celebrate with her. As she had sent us all an email, I emailed all the other guests and asked if anyone else had planned a surprise cake. One of her friends replied, saying "I'm making a carrot cake, but it's not a surprise, so if you make one, it'll surprise her."
I set to work making the best Victoria sponge I could think of. I followed this recipe, which promised "you can't go wrong" in the very first line of text, then filled the cake with rings of raspberries, jam and whipped cream. From the side, it looked like this:
I then iced the top, having created a 'guide' first and pricked the letters onto the cake through a piece of baking parchment. I slid the cake carefully into a box, placed a candle and matches inside, and set off for the restaurant, feeling pleased with myself. Once there, I surreptitiously asked the staff if they could bring the cake in after the main course.
An hour after the dinner started, the girl who was making the other cake arrived, dishevelled and apologetic, clutching a huge misshapen cake tin covered in foil. She put the cake down on the floor with a thud, saying that she thought the cake was too dry. I'm ashamed to admit that I felt a flicker of pleasure that my cake had turned out so well in comparison.
After the main course, we all sang happy birthday as the waitress brought in my cake with the candle sparkling on top. I was pleased that my friend said how lovely it looked. Then the other girl unveiled her cake, saying self-deprecatingly that it was terrible. It thudded down on the table with a splat, as a load of icing oozed out of the bottom. The whole table burst out laughing at the discrepancy between the two cakes.
You can't really see how funny the second cake looked in this photo:
Everyone praised the beauty of my cake, and made fun of the other one. But then - then, as the cakes were served up - I was jolted embarrassingly back down to earth.
Because my cake was dry. It was edible, just, but it certainly wasn't light and fluffy as the recipe had suggested. The raspberries were sour, there wasn't enough cream, and the whole thing was a huge disappointment, a bitter triumph of style over substance.
And the other cake? It was delicious. Moist, juicy, succulent and moreish. What it lacked in appearance, it more than made up for in taste. I could have eaten it all day, and asked for the recipe.
I'm not entirely sure what the moral of this story is. Something to do with "pride before a fall", or "don't judge a book by its cover", perhaps. Or that schadenfreude isn't appealing; or that sometimes, when you least expect them to, things that seem disappointing can surprise you.
Or perhaps it's that you should never trust a recipe that says "you can't go wrong". Because making a Victoria sponge isn't a piece of cake.
9 comments:
I've made a victoria sponge a couple of times (although never all on my own), but use Mary Berry's recipe ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mary_berrys_perfect_34317 ).
That one tastes delicious. Can't go wrong. Never fails. Guaranteed. Only a complete buffoon would mess this..yeah..you get the idea.
Recipe on first glance looks quite similar to yours but then 25g of flour/butter/sugar extra with the same amount of eggs can make a big difference. The cooking time/temperature also different between yours and mine.
I like what you did with the icing though. Did you pipe it from your rough guide, or is it one of those icing pens? Very nice handwriting, anyway. I think they both look nice - yours looks immaculate, while the carrot cake has a more rustic homemade feel to it. The pattern of her topping looks like a giant yum yum.
I'm sorry to hear about your cake misfortune, especially since you've been a dedicated baker these last few months. The way I see it, all professional chefs and bakers have similar stories from their earlier amateur days. This will be something you will look back on and laugh about.
I would absolutely love it if my friends took the time to bake me a cake. Such a sweet gesture, truly!
I was going to suggest that you could get together with Ms Carrot Cake and share tips, but I suspect that the cake baking scene is a dark underworld where secrets are jealously guarded and taken to the grave.
I'm impressed by the lettering though.
I think the moral is the book and cover one. All TV chefs say at least once a minute that you eat with your eyes.
I eat with my mouth and, ultimately, my innards. If a dish looks great then it might well enhance the experience of eating. It might make me feel special for getting to eat it and more so for cooking it, both because some obvious rare skill has been employed. But good looks won't make something taste better, just make it cost more.
You had a nice-looking cake and a nice-tasting cake. That was the perfect setup for an experiment to test whether we eat with our eyes. Have half the people taste the carrot cake while gazing at your sponge and half with their eyes fixed on the carrot cake.
I can't believe you passed up this opportunity.
You can't have your cake and eat it, except on this occasion you had two cakes....... and ate them. The moral of this story is that well known phrases and sayings are quite worthless!
Did you save a slice for me?
@Ben: Thanks for the recipe - I'll try that one next time. I used an icing pen, though it's surprisingly tricky until you get the hang of it. Will let you know if the sponge works next time!
@Alessa: Thanks. That's okay - I just know never to make it again! And yeah, no one's ever made me a cake either, though a friend did bake me about 25 biscuits while I was pregnant. I ate them all in about ten minutes flat!
@Graham: Ms Carrot Cake has already given me her recipe, which I'm looking forward to trying. Funnily enough, she hasn't asked for mine...
@latsot: Good points. Sadly I didn't know my cake didn't taste nice until everyone had started eating it! (And these things are quite subjective anyway, and people are too polite to tell the truth, etc.) But I agree it would be a good experiment.
@Pete: I didn't save a slice for you, no. You walk around naked - you need to keep your figure!
What you made is a catastrophy cake, and I know, I am an expert. I even coined the term:
http://vraiefiction.blogspot.com/2008/03/catastrophy-cakes.html
http://vraiefiction.blogspot.com/2008/04/another-catastrophy-cake.html
The moral of the story is supposedly, that one should not try to impress with something one hasn´t trained well enough. A new recipe is always a good opportunity to goof up. At least for me. It´s the funny little details that make the difference somehow - and hardly anyone tells them. Those are the secrets of cooking and baking, the amount of ingredients is trivial though important when baking. Like for instance lowering the temperature of the stove towards the end, so the surface doesn´t turn dry. Unfortunately I had to give up baking ages ago - otherwise I wouldn´t need my bicycle to roll across town.
Because in my case even keeping my weight stable isn´t a piece of cake. In your case it´s completely different: partying, cakes - nothing can stop you from loosing gravity. Congrats on that!
@Guillaume: Funnily enough, the other cake looked exactly like your first catastrophe cake!
@NoGodZone: I think I'll definitely take the cake out sooner next time. Re. my weight, I only had a very small piece of cake. And I think I probably have more to lose than you, so it's easier!
Post a Comment