Cake
by Adam Robinson
What is or is not a cake might seem obvious to us but a brief look behind the curtain of the word quickly exposes its ambiguity. And I’m not referring to ‘caked in mud’.
I am just talking about that modern sweet construction of flour, eggs, fat, sugar and chemicals.
The word cake comes from an old Norse word and, interestingly, we get the word ‘placenta’ from the Roman word for cake. Hmm.
The original word is an expression of a shape, not the ingredients. As in oatcake or fishcake. But it quickly became associated with enriched breads that were produced during festivals and celebrations. Enriched with fats, eggs, dried fruits, spices and sugar. Yeast was the leavening agent and it would have been wild yeasts, as in sourdough bread. Modern expressions of this are brioche, pannetone, stolen and, most delicious of all, the English lardy cake. To me they all taste like yeast risen cakes rather than bread.
From the renaissance, as sugar became more available and flour more refined, sponge cakes came into existence; invented either in Italy or Spain. Sponge cakes lightened with the whipping of eggs rather than the action of a sourdough culture. The best known remnants of this tradition are the genoise sponge, swiss roll and boudoir biscuits.
And then Alfred Bird came along. An English pharmacist of the first half of the 19th century, he is famous for Birds custard powder. An eggless custard. He also produced the first commercial baking powder. Apparently his wife was allergic to both eggs and yeast. Maybe she had other virtues.
Baking powder is a combination of an acid, often tartaric acid, and an alkaline, often sodium bicarbonate or caustic soda. When mixed with water this produces CO² which lightens the mix. Victoria sponge may be the simplest and oldest recipe made with chemicals. We now use baking powder in lots of other foods including pancakes, biscuits and soda bread. Though convenient, I find it usually leaves an unpleasant aftertaste, particularly in scones and muffins
There are very few cakes that I like. My mother, like many northern European cooks, was a great cake maker. The favourite part of the process for me was when she would let me lick the remnants of the raw cake mix from her mixing bowl. The nastiness of marzipan and royal icing was confusing to me even as a small child.
There are maybe half a dozen cakes that I don’t mind, the best being a tiny madeleine. Only to be eaten hot and fresh from the oven – which is why we don’t sell them at the bakery.
2 eggs
100g sugar
pinch salt
75g flour
1 scant teaspoon of baking powder
75g melted butter
1 tablespoon of honey
By hand, whisk the eggs and sugar together until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Put into buttered and floured madeleine moulds (I’m sure we all have a few of those knocking about!). Cook at 180C for 12 minutes or until the centre is just set. Madeleine moulds are about a quarter of the size of muffin moulds.