Birthday Cake

Not my birthday but the blondes and I wanted to bake something special for her. She spent some time in Austria so Sachertorte was my first thought but I've baked that before and as this was really about having an excuse to go for broke with a really indulgent recipe I wanted to do something new (it didn't occur to me for a moment to consult my dearest friend about what she might actually want). 

After some serious time with the baking books (I was like a pig in mud) I found a recipe for Tyrolese Schokolade Torte in Geraldene Holt's 'Cakes'. Perfect. Not only an Austrian theme but also quite unlike anything I've ever baked before. It calls for a buttered and lined 23cm spring clip cake tin and an oven set to 180 degrees C or gas mark 4. When that's sorted you need 150g of fairly finely ground hazelnuts (mine were a bit to ground I think) and 150g of finely chopped plain chocolate (I didn't chop as fine as I would a second time) prepared and set aside. Next 5 eggs need to be separated, the yolks beaten with 150g of pale muscovado sugar until it's light and fluffy at which point the chocolate, and nuts should be folded in along with 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and about half as much of ground cloves. Finally the egg whites need to be whipped until fairly stiff and gently folded into the rest of the mix (I found the mixture really stiff at this point so beat some of the egg white in to loosen it up a bit before folding in the rest of the whites). After that stick it in the tin, smooth it down, and bake for 45 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. After it comes out the oven allow to cool for a couple of minutes and then release from the tin and leave to cool.

To finish off and decorate warm a couple of spoons of apricot jam and brush over the top of the cake (nice and thick) then make a plain chocolate ganache (175g of plain chocolate and 6 tablespoons of double cream gently melted together until smooth) cover the cake (again nice and thick) and leave for a couple of hours to set. The book says it's better made the day before you want it which is just fine, I thought the overall effect was rather like the jammy-in-the-middle-chocolate-on-the-outside-lebkuchen that I used to love and haven't been able to find to buy for the last couple of winters. The chocolate stays in chips (which is good) and the nuts give a great texture.  

Geraldene Holt’s Cakes

Today has been a despondent sort of occasion – no reason for the mood, it should on the whole have been a happy sort of a day, but there’s been far too much procrastinating and not enough action until it’s got unexpectedly late and I still haven’t done many of the things I meant to do. If I can shift myself off the chair in front of the computer (with a nice view of the television and with a handy shelf for a drink / plate of sandwiches / piles of books) my answer to these sorts of moods is to bake and cook my way out of it. That’s finally what I did tonight, so now I do at least feel like I’ve done something.

And indeed I have, I’ve baked a really very satisfactory chocolate cake (actually its bloody brilliant for which I wish I could take more credit) and done something useful but dull (compared to cake) with elderly peppers and a bit of pork rescued from the back of the freezer. Mind you the kitchen looks like a bomb site again which was part of the reason for earlier dejection.

I’ve been playing reading with Geraldene Holt’s ‘Cakes’ ever since I got back from holiday and found it waiting for me courtesy of lovely Prospect Books. (And where has the last month gone exactly?) I meant to write about this properly a bit ago, it’s a brilliant book that deserves some serious attention but I fear that it’ll be passed over. I don’t often see Prospect’s titles in bookshops and amazon don’t seem to recommend them to me which means unless you know about them they can be easy to miss which is a crying shame.

‘Cakes’ is a reprint of a classic (at least a classic to those in the know) and is the fruit of Geraldene Holt’s baking for her local WI stall. I like this edition for the no nonsense approach, by which I mean clear and precise instructions rather than a reliance on styling. I’m getting sick of food books which are more picture than recipe (Nigel Slater’s fruit book is beautiful I don’t deny it, but since I got it for Christmas all I’ve done with it is admire the moody pictures of blackberries which feels like a fail). Not having pictures is unexpectedly liberating – if my cake doesn’t look perfect (but ahem, they always do...) at least I don’t have to compare it to an unfeasibly beautiful piece of baked perfection.

Clear instructions that I can rely on however are another story. The pedant in me craves foolproof instructions which is exactly what Holt gives me. If I do what I’m told I’ll get what I want, and once I know what I’m doing I can think about improvising. This is the best kind of cookbook. It’s also taken me back to an appreciation of the basics; it had been a long time for example since I made a Victoria sponge (I’ve been to easily seduced by other flashier cakes) but after a prompt from the book I made a cracker filled with passion fruit and cream. It was very nice. I can also recommend the chocolate velvet cake, and really have to finish with a list of some of the cakes I mean to make... Angel  cake with St Clemant’s cream, Russian cake, Dutch apple cake, Pineapple fruit cake, Chocolate honey fudge slices, Hazelnut cake with Port wine cream, French coffee walnut cake, Pine nut honey and lemon cake, Congress tarts (because they sound just a little bit wrong), Palmiers, Gold vanilla and Silver almond cakes, I could go on and on, but I need to go to bed, and want to reassure myself that the chocolate velvet cake is still as good as it was an hour ago as I go on my way happy.