A mere trifle
The cake saga continues, but this time with cream and custard
Dear friends,
It's the third cake in a row. The tri-fectionary, if you will. This week's was the aforementioned French apple and nut cake, which is a whipped sponge and a new one on me. Like many cases in my culinary expedition, today's lesson helped me use up ingredients that were overstaying their welcome - in this case, a big bowl of apples.
Looking at the recipe through initial rose-tinted glasses, it seemed similar to a Swiss Roll sponge with the addition of ground hazelnuts. Or, if you're like me and apparently can't read clearly labelled packaging during a shop, ground almonds. The fact that only one additional ingredient had to be purchased to complete the recipe in no way influenced my choice of bake.
It did highlight the amazing power of eggs though, which are the key to the whole cake. You whisk them up into a frenzy with sugar until they are a pale, golden cloud and encapsulate all that lovely air with some gently folded flour and the ground nuts. Or that's the theory; the resulting batter was quite thick so the folding required maximum patience, which is not always my strongest suit. There was a genuine concern it would turn out to be a rather large biscuit. It did rise somehow, and could be described as light but firm. The Mary Poppins of sponges.
The non-biscuit was sliced into two and filled with stewed apples, which felt thoroughly French. A good dusting of icing sugar and a dollop of whipped cream later and we could have been in Normandy on a chilly winter's night. We weren't, we were in the Midlands in the drizzle, but one can dream. As a result of all this darn baking over the last few of weeks there was already one cake on the go1, so a couple of test slices were set aside and the rest of the apple cake was unceremoniusly bunged in the freezer.
Like many of us this week, Christmas came at me hard and fast. Snow, a brass band playing Fairytale of New York in the town centre, and a group of drunken men debating the best Christmas song of all time in the pub (each belting out their fighter with respectable commintment) meant I could deny its approach no longer. While starting to plan Christmas lunch, the infamous trifle came up for discusssion - is it making a comeback? Can you drive after a big scoop? Either way it gave me a brainwave, and the apple cake was given a new lease of life.
A few days later the remaining apple cake was thawed out, sliced into a bowl with the leftover apple filling, covered in a thick blanket of Ambrosia's finest and topped with yet more whipped cream. I've never made a trifle before but everyone knows the jist (although admittedly I did look up a reference image to make sure there were no fundemental layers missing). In a fit of whimsy, some crushed and toasted pecans were scattered delicately over the top too. The whole effect was quite, well, effective. However, as proud as I was of this creation, there is a reason it's a famous hot apple pie. The flavours were nice, the textures were good, but I didn't sneak back to the bowl with my spoon. That's all the review you need for a dessert in my book.
That's enough cakes for a while. Back to savoury for a few weeks, please. There must be a horrendously buttery french sauce on the cards soon, or bread. Or cheese. Who wrote this syllabus anyway?
Yours with whisker's elbow,
Deb
Skills: Whisked cakes, trifle improvisation
Recipe: Normandy apple and almond cake
Sources: Adapted from Leith’s Cookery Bible’s Normandy apple and nut cake and this picture of a trifle.
Oh, woe is me.