The Red Velvet Debacle

On a bright February morning, facebook played host to the most innocent of suggestions: ‘Come and stay? I’ll make cake.’

I’ve issued these invitations before, and they’re usually declined – not because I’m not an awesome person to visit (I am) or because my cake isn’t good (it’s excellent, she claims modestly), but because I live in the Middle Of The Country. Those of you who share my fate will know what I mean. We’re the farthest from the sea, we’re neither glamorous urban nor idyllic getaway, and most train tickets from most places cost as much as getting to London in peak hours. Therefore, despite residing in the county of Shakespeare, walking distance from a castle and with the cutest little flat that urges you to curl up on its sofas with one of my many fluffy blankets, I’ve not had many visitors.

But this time, something wonderful happened. ‘Yes!’ came the reply. ‘How’s three weekend’s time?’

I can’t lie, I did do a little dance of joy at the prospect of spending the weekend marauding around Stratford-upon-Avon and other choice haunts with my purple-haired college buddy. And then I got to planning – starting with le food.

My friend is vegetarian, and living as I do with a man who doesn’t consider anything to be a proper meal if it doesn’t contain meat, I was a little nervous about catering appropriately for all three of us for an entire weekend. I checked a few recipe books; I sought a friend’s advice; I may have even Googled. Yes it was probably a bit OTT, but this was someone I’d not seen in ages, and I wanted to feed them well.

In the end it was a completely different food requirement that gave me all the trouble. By the time the weekend in question arrived, my one guest had turned into three and we were on course for a proper reunion. Which was great – until I asked an ill-advised question. 

Lesson one – never let your food-snob friend (sorry Tonny but it’s true) decide what type of cake you’re going to make for their weekend visit.  What started as a quick mercy run for eggs and sugar will become an eighteen-item hunting expedition, which will on at least one occasion result in blank stares from uncomprehending store assistants who have never heard of buttermilk.

I had of course heard of the celebrated Hummingbird Bakery and its brightly coloured flagship-cake – what foodie hasn’t? But when I downloaded the recipe, I was disconcerted to find that my kitchen lacked a significant number of the required ingredients – including white wine vinegar. Who puts vinegar in a cake? Apparently, I was about to; that and enough red food colouring to keep an entire primary school hyper for a week. 

What was going into these cakes filled almost my entire kitchen table, so that I barely had enough space to measure and mix, and was constantly worried that I might have done something in the wrong order and upset the delicate balance of my culinary experiment. Was it meant to have the texture of meringue, and be the colour of primary-school-party strawberry jelly?

Eventually, I was ready to entrust the results to my oven - probably the most dangerous part, as it has a reputation for changing temperature and has a fondness for burning the outside and undercooking the inside of baked goods. I decided that after all my shopping and mixing efforts, I couldn't afford not to sit sentinel, and spent a rather anxious twenty minutes peering periodically into the oven before returning to my icing-making.


It was silly-o-clock by the time they were all cooked and cooled, so I decided to resume my efforts in the morning. 7am found me making butterfly wings (the cake kind), and smearing icing everywhere to create my rather-more-pink-than-red masterpieces:

I was pretty proud of myself, but I have to be honest - they really didn't seem to taste any different to most other cupcakes I've made! The chocolate element was barely noticeable, the texture wasn't exactly velvet, and the overall effect, while pretty, dried out too quickly. So much for posh cupcakes; clearly I still have some way to go!

However, the joke was on my cake-fussy friend a few weeks later, as he decided to undertake the red velvet challenge himself. I was inundated with slightly befuddled and entertaining text messages: "What is buttermilk?" - "So I churn the milk?" - "When the cake is cooked is it supposed to wobble?" - "Is it safe to put foil in the oven?" - and so forth.


Next time I'm going with plain vanilla, and I don't care what anyone says. Some things are just not worth the hassle!

 

 

The Colour Green

In my green kitchen, beneath a window framed in green voile, sits a green pot plant - my cyclamen. Its leaves are full, and stretching toward the sunshine in the tiny courtyard beyond the glass. Draped extravagantly over the whitewashed courtyard walls is yet more green - laurel, ivy, unidentified climbing plants, courtesy of neighbours' overgrown gardens.

This is my favourite time of day to take in the contrast of those bright walls and abundant shrubbery, when the mid-morning sun comes through the leaves and makes their green all yellow-bright. My white walls are creamy, striped with the shadows of dangling branches, and lately a few pink flowers have appeared in one corner, a teasing splash of lurid colour. My cyclamen presses itself against the kitchen window, as if reaching toward its outdoor cousins. Stripes of sunlight respond, passing through glass and slanting along my walls and countertops, kissing the cyclamen leaves as they go.

Green is the operative colour of the season, exploding in every corner of every garden, in the treetops, from the cracks in pavements. We are through the barren time, and life can no longer be contained but weaves freely around and back into its old familiar haunts. I know no other colour with so many shades, and so much power to evoke the most simple and sincere joy. Brand new green, deep rich green, ever-green, the green of watered lawns, of brookside rushes, of poplar avenues... it's almost too much to take in, this lifeblood colour pulsing through the veins of earth.

The local fields at dawn look like every untouched morning since the world began, their damp grass breathing pale mist. When you stand in them time slows, and all the history they've witnessed comes alive, old as the tree-buds are new.

Welcome, March!
Welcome, sun-blushed sky and pink-tipped hedgerows.
Welcome, baby blue cloud-scudded sky.
Welcome, clear brook, mirror of trees.
I'm so happy I'm here to see you...

I'm out of words, so here's Rossetti, and March's speech from 'The Months: A Pageant'.

***

I blow an arouse
Thro' the world's wide house
To quicken the torpid earth:
Grappling I fling
Each feeble thing,
But bring strong life to the birth.
I wrestle and frown,
And topple down;
I wrench, I rend, I uproot;
Yet the violet
Is born where I set
The sole of my flying foot,
 And in my wake
Frail windflowers quake,
And the catkins promise fruit.
I drive ocean ashore
With rush and roar,
And he cannot say me nay:
My harpstrings all
Are the forests tall
Making music when I play.
And as others perforce,
So I on my course
Run and needs must run,
With sap on the mount
And buds past count
And rivers and clouds and sun,
With seasons and breath
And time and death
And all that has yet begun.

* * *