kimikocat (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kimikocat) wrote,@ 2007-07-10 13:43:00 |
|
From Maine to Taipei: Some Notes on Cake
A few days ago, short on ingredients and desperate for a quick dessert recipe, I decided to try a cake recipe out of the Lily’s Cafe Cookbook. Lily’s Cafe is a small restaurant in Deer Isle, Maine.
I’ve only been in Lily’s Cafe once, when I flew out to visit A’s family. We arrived in the middle of a cold snap. Locals described that June as the “coldest June in twenty years.” Seduced by the idea of a romantic Maine summer, I had packed only thin linen skirts and camisoles. To battle the cold (and damp), I made several trips to the local L.L. Bean outlet. I also bought two pairs of children’s jeans at the local hardware store.
Lily’s Cafe was a local favorite. One afternoon, we went to Lily’s for crabcakes and haddock sandwiches. I still remember the crabcakes, served with a home-made mayonnaise. I must have raved about that dish, because when I left Maine, N gave me a copy of the cafe’s cookbook.
*
After some deliberation (and many trips to the refrigerator and the pantry), I chose to follow the recipe for an old-fashioned “hot-milk cake.” This cake is extremely simple, and can be prepared within the hour. It requires the most basic of ingredients, and almost no equipment beyond one or two nine-inch cake pans, an hand-mixer, and a set of decent mixing bowls. (I used a springform pan, but ordinary nine-inch cake pans will suffice.) The individual cakes bake only twenty minutes in a 350-degree oven. As they bake, the cakes give off a rich vanilla scent. The cookbook cautions against over-baking (it toughens the crumb), but if you happen to be absent-minded, a slightly browned cake will still taste fine. It will just be a little chewy. The “hot milk” recipe produces a dense, vanilla-flavored cake, somewhere between a sponge and a butter cake.
*
This cake tastes exactly like the birthday cake that we used to order for my birthday. When we still lived in Taiwan, my relatives would often order layer cakes for birthdays and other special occasions. Taiwanese cakes are lighter and less sweet than the typical American cake, with a finer crumb and a more delicate flavor. Our cakes were typically frosted with a “mousse” or cream frosting (essentially whipped cream flavored with confectioner’s sugar and vanilla). While Lily’s recipe calls for a lemon curd or fudge filling, the Taiwanese version came with a whipped-cream-and-fruit center. Sometimes, in summer, the pastry chef would fill the cake with a fruit- or vanilla-flavored ice cream. I have also tasted similar cakes with a sweet taro-paste center. These taste best with a sweet-tart filling, something to play against the cake’s richness.
Like many Taiwanese desserts, this cake has an uncertain origin. Clemencia, our neighbor, tells me that Brazilians consume a similar cake on special occasions. And the cake does taste suspiciously similar to the sponge cake that serves as the base for the a tres leches cake, a typical Mexican confection. The English also have a similar dessert. I found a description of a similar cake (a “butter cake” with a cream-and-lemon-curd filling) in a recent Vogue. Taiwanese chefs borrow liberally from the Western repertoire, mixing and matching different culinary traditions.
Ovens are rarely found in Taiwanese homes. Although my mother often orders this cake, I have never seen her bake one. Cakes, tarts, and other confections are strictly professional affairs. Yet the cake is a simple affair, and quite impressive when properly filled and iced.
As a child, I remember marveling, at birthday parties, at this incongruous leap from traditional Taiwanese cuisine to a Western-style layer cake. For my relatives, birthday dinners involved no anxiety over menu-planning, no agonizing over themes. We simply ate. And ate. And then ate some more. These days, when friends ask about my childhood, or about Taiwanese cuisine, I tell them that dinner at my grandmother’s house was always simple, but good. Although we no longer lived off the land, we still ate the sort of food that complemented an agricultural culture, a peasant culture that demanded a table laden with food best described as “robust, earthy, and plentiful.”
My grandparents were not provincial, nor were they narrow-minded. They simply did not think in terms of “menus,” nor did they spend much time contemplating the best way to achieve a harmonious relationship between dinner and dessert. Birthdays always meant cakes. And cakes meant a yellow cake, filled with fruit (usually diced strawberries, peaches, and kiwis), frosted with whipped cream.
These days, I seldom get back to Taiwan. I am always short on time, or funds, or both. Certain foods bring me back to my grandmother’s table. This cake, paired (again, incongruously) with a cup of good Taiwanese oolong, sends me straight home.
*
Kyra’s “Hot Milk Cake” (taken, with minor adaptations, from Kyra Alex's The Lily Cafe Cookbook):
Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 cups of granulated sugar
(Note: I like to use baker’s sugar, which has a finer crystal than standard granulated sugar. Baker’s sugar seems to “melt” better, and create a finer texture.)
2 cups of unbleached, all-purpose flour, sifted.
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of whole milk (not skim)
1/2 a stick of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (use the best vanilla that you can afford)
Grease and flour two nine-inch cake pans. Beat the eggs one by one until the mixture is light and fluffy, a pale yellow color. Add sugar slowly, and continue beating the mixture for about three minutes.
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) in a small bowl. Add the flour mixture slowly to the eggs. Beat the mixture until smooth, but do not overmix or the cake may become rubbery.
On the stove, heat the milk and the butter over low heat, stirring constantly to help the butter melt evenly. Bring to the mixture to a slight boil, and then remove from heat.
Beat the milk-and-butter solution into the cake batter.
Stir in the vanilla.
Pour the cake batter into the pre-prepared cake pans. If you are only using one cake pan (like me), bake one cake first, then the other.
After about 20 minutes (when the cake has just set and the toothpick comes out clean), remove the cake from the oven. Let the cake cool for about 5 minutes in the pan, then turn it out of the pan. Let the cake cool on a cooling rack. Don’t forget to trim the cake before icing it.
You might ice the cake with a whipped-cream-and-vanilla mixture. (Try 2 cups of whipping cream, a quarter cup of confectioner’s sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla, or you might like Kyra’s lemon curd mousse frosting. If you are using the lemon-curd-mousse, substitute two-thirds of a cup of lemon curd for the vanilla.) The cake looks particularly elegant as a two-tiered layer cake, garnished with candied violets.
A few days ago, short on ingredients and desperate for a quick dessert recipe, I decided to try a cake recipe out of the Lily’s Cafe Cookbook. Lily’s Cafe is a small restaurant in Deer Isle, Maine.
I’ve only been in Lily’s Cafe once, when I flew out to visit A’s family. We arrived in the middle of a cold snap. Locals described that June as the “coldest June in twenty years.” Seduced by the idea of a romantic Maine summer, I had packed only thin linen skirts and camisoles. To battle the cold (and damp), I made several trips to the local L.L. Bean outlet. I also bought two pairs of children’s jeans at the local hardware store.
Lily’s Cafe was a local favorite. One afternoon, we went to Lily’s for crabcakes and haddock sandwiches. I still remember the crabcakes, served with a home-made mayonnaise. I must have raved about that dish, because when I left Maine, N gave me a copy of the cafe’s cookbook.
*
After some deliberation (and many trips to the refrigerator and the pantry), I chose to follow the recipe for an old-fashioned “hot-milk cake.” This cake is extremely simple, and can be prepared within the hour. It requires the most basic of ingredients, and almost no equipment beyond one or two nine-inch cake pans, an hand-mixer, and a set of decent mixing bowls. (I used a springform pan, but ordinary nine-inch cake pans will suffice.) The individual cakes bake only twenty minutes in a 350-degree oven. As they bake, the cakes give off a rich vanilla scent. The cookbook cautions against over-baking (it toughens the crumb), but if you happen to be absent-minded, a slightly browned cake will still taste fine. It will just be a little chewy. The “hot milk” recipe produces a dense, vanilla-flavored cake, somewhere between a sponge and a butter cake.
*
This cake tastes exactly like the birthday cake that we used to order for my birthday. When we still lived in Taiwan, my relatives would often order layer cakes for birthdays and other special occasions. Taiwanese cakes are lighter and less sweet than the typical American cake, with a finer crumb and a more delicate flavor. Our cakes were typically frosted with a “mousse” or cream frosting (essentially whipped cream flavored with confectioner’s sugar and vanilla). While Lily’s recipe calls for a lemon curd or fudge filling, the Taiwanese version came with a whipped-cream-and-fruit center. Sometimes, in summer, the pastry chef would fill the cake with a fruit- or vanilla-flavored ice cream. I have also tasted similar cakes with a sweet taro-paste center. These taste best with a sweet-tart filling, something to play against the cake’s richness.
Like many Taiwanese desserts, this cake has an uncertain origin. Clemencia, our neighbor, tells me that Brazilians consume a similar cake on special occasions. And the cake does taste suspiciously similar to the sponge cake that serves as the base for the a tres leches cake, a typical Mexican confection. The English also have a similar dessert. I found a description of a similar cake (a “butter cake” with a cream-and-lemon-curd filling) in a recent Vogue. Taiwanese chefs borrow liberally from the Western repertoire, mixing and matching different culinary traditions.
Ovens are rarely found in Taiwanese homes. Although my mother often orders this cake, I have never seen her bake one. Cakes, tarts, and other confections are strictly professional affairs. Yet the cake is a simple affair, and quite impressive when properly filled and iced.
As a child, I remember marveling, at birthday parties, at this incongruous leap from traditional Taiwanese cuisine to a Western-style layer cake. For my relatives, birthday dinners involved no anxiety over menu-planning, no agonizing over themes. We simply ate. And ate. And then ate some more. These days, when friends ask about my childhood, or about Taiwanese cuisine, I tell them that dinner at my grandmother’s house was always simple, but good. Although we no longer lived off the land, we still ate the sort of food that complemented an agricultural culture, a peasant culture that demanded a table laden with food best described as “robust, earthy, and plentiful.”
My grandparents were not provincial, nor were they narrow-minded. They simply did not think in terms of “menus,” nor did they spend much time contemplating the best way to achieve a harmonious relationship between dinner and dessert. Birthdays always meant cakes. And cakes meant a yellow cake, filled with fruit (usually diced strawberries, peaches, and kiwis), frosted with whipped cream.
These days, I seldom get back to Taiwan. I am always short on time, or funds, or both. Certain foods bring me back to my grandmother’s table. This cake, paired (again, incongruously) with a cup of good Taiwanese oolong, sends me straight home.
*
Kyra’s “Hot Milk Cake” (taken, with minor adaptations, from Kyra Alex's The Lily Cafe Cookbook):
Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 cups of granulated sugar
(Note: I like to use baker’s sugar, which has a finer crystal than standard granulated sugar. Baker’s sugar seems to “melt” better, and create a finer texture.)
2 cups of unbleached, all-purpose flour, sifted.
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of whole milk (not skim)
1/2 a stick of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (use the best vanilla that you can afford)
Grease and flour two nine-inch cake pans. Beat the eggs one by one until the mixture is light and fluffy, a pale yellow color. Add sugar slowly, and continue beating the mixture for about three minutes.
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder) in a small bowl. Add the flour mixture slowly to the eggs. Beat the mixture until smooth, but do not overmix or the cake may become rubbery.
On the stove, heat the milk and the butter over low heat, stirring constantly to help the butter melt evenly. Bring to the mixture to a slight boil, and then remove from heat.
Beat the milk-and-butter solution into the cake batter.
Stir in the vanilla.
Pour the cake batter into the pre-prepared cake pans. If you are only using one cake pan (like me), bake one cake first, then the other.
After about 20 minutes (when the cake has just set and the toothpick comes out clean), remove the cake from the oven. Let the cake cool for about 5 minutes in the pan, then turn it out of the pan. Let the cake cool on a cooling rack. Don’t forget to trim the cake before icing it.
You might ice the cake with a whipped-cream-and-vanilla mixture. (Try 2 cups of whipping cream, a quarter cup of confectioner’s sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla, or you might like Kyra’s lemon curd mousse frosting. If you are using the lemon-curd-mousse, substitute two-thirds of a cup of lemon curd for the vanilla.) The cake looks particularly elegant as a two-tiered layer cake, garnished with candied violets.
