Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Angel Food Cake Story


I'm not sure why, but my "Angel Food Cake Story" has become something of a legend.  Every few years, I am asked by the writers in the WWFC community:  Oh please, read the Cake Story!  Well, it's a bit long, and I'm not really willing to cut it short, so here it is, in its entirety.  Enjoy!

“Where did I go wrong?” my mother lamented when I telephoned her as a last resort for advice on a cake I was trying to bake.  You should know that my mother – except for a scrumptious lemon cake and her prize-winning German potato salad – was not a very good cook.  She enjoyed a sparkling kitchen more than good food.  I learned how to polish silver, but I didn’t learn to cook from my mother.  Nor did I get any practice in the kitchen during my twelve years in the convent, where I ate whatever was put before me without complaint, grateful I didn’t have to cook it myself.

So here I was, a year or so out of the convent and on my own, learning to cook – which was another way of saying that I was getting good at dumping all manner of things into a crock pot.  However, when a love interest entered my life, I sensed the need to make him believe I knew how to cook.  During a romantic weekend we shared at Shaker village in Pleasant Hill, KY, I even bought a Shaker cookbook, perhaps to give the impression that someday I would use it.  This happened sooner than I expected, when he suggested that, for his birthday, I bake him the coffee angel food cake we’d both admired in the book.  This I agreed to do.

Impressed with the Shaker philosophy of simplicity, I mistakenly assumed that baking this angel food cake would also be simple.  Once I’d read through the ingredients, I realized that not only would it be a lot of work, it would also not be cheap.  Besides the staples of flour and sugar, this recipe called for a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, and a special kind of coffee.  I also had to buy an angel food cake pan, and since I didn’t own an electric mixer, I decided it was probably best to buy one of those too.  

I stopped at the natural foods store for the coffee, before going on to the local Krogers grocery store, where I gathered the ingredients:  the dozen eggs, a bag of sugar, unbleached flour, a box of baking powder, the butter, and Krisko to grease the pan.  I was stumped by one ingredient – cream of tartar.  After scouring the dairy department, I searched up and down the condiment aisle.  When it didn’t turn up there, I decided to ask the Krogers manager, who seemed a bit puzzled and walked back with me to do his own search.  Finally we both decided that Mrs. Paul’s tartar sauce would probably do just as well.

Back home I mixed all the ingredients together in my largest mixing bowl.  Within seconds, the mixer’s beaters twisted and collapsed like paper clips.   Maybe the butter needed to be melted, I thought.  I left everything sitting in the bowl while I drove back to the hardware store for another set of beaters.   But after nearly an hour of beating, the mixture remained the consistency of cement.  Re-reading the recipe, I was shocked to find I should have separated the egg whites from the yolks.  No wonder the whole mess was so yellow and sticky, I thought.  Nothing to do but trash this batch and begin again.

Back at Krogers, I picked up another dozen eggs and another pound of butter, swinging by the mayonnaise section again just to make sure I hadn’t missed the cream of tartar.  With new vigor, I was careful to separate out the yolks, only breaking one or two in the process, and wondering what I was supposed to do with this bowl of floating orange slime.  In order to keep the beaters from breaking, I decided to melt the butter in a sauce pan first, which speeded up the process considerably.  I greased the angel food pan, as directed, and sloshed in the mix.  The oven had been preheated for two hours, so I was ready to pop it in. 

When the timer went off an hour later, I was speechless to find the thing had not only not risen, it had shrunk from its original size.  I could hardly recognize the thick brown mass, which weighed about fifteen pounds.  Refusing to panic, I re-read the directions again.  I was surprised to discover that I had missed the part about adding the ingredients one by one, a little at a time, beginning with the egg whites.  I also noted that the butter should be softened, deciding that completely melting it might have also jinxed me.

I was hoping not to run into the manager at Krogers this time, thus tipping him off that things were not going well with this project.  Keeping my head down and heading directly to the dairy section, I tucked another carton of eggs under my arm and grabbed another pound of butter, wondering at this point how much this cake was actually going to take out of my meager receptionist’s paycheck.

Back home I renewed my resolve.  This time everything went smoothly.  I had practically memorized the directions by now, so I was feeling confident and I scooped the mixture into the greased cake pan, smoothing it out with the spatula I’d bought during my second trip.  I set it carefully in the thoroughly pre-heated oven and waited, afraid to open the oven door one second ahead of the prescribed time.  I’d remembered hearing something about the oven door causing a cake to fall – or was that bread?  I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t afford to take the chance.  When the timer went off, I opened the oven door a crack, expecting to see my masterpiece puffed up around the rim of the pan, golden brown and glowing.  This is not, however, what was there.  All those eggs, the butter, sugar, yes even the teaspoonful of cream of tartar, were somehow reduced to a dark brown ring no higher than an inch, but every bit as heavy as the previous batch.

It was then I decided to call my mother.  “Read me the recipe,” she said, and when I did, she said, “Wow, that’s a really rich angel food cake, but with the baking powder and the cream of tartar, it should rise just fine.”

“Well,” I offered, “there was this one little problem with the cream of tartar.  What is that stuff anyway?”

“Oh, it makes the cake rise,” she went on.  “A little white powder with a whole lot of punch.”  There was a pause.  “What was your problem with the cream of tartar?”

I told her how I’d searched in the dairy section, then among the condiments – how even the store manager thought the tartar sauce would work.  There was another long pause.  “Where did I go wrong?  I’ve failed you as a mother, haven’t I?  I can’t believe you didn’t look in the baking section.”

“Mom, I gotta get going.  If I hurry, I can still make this cake.  You may have just rescued me and your reputation.”

That evening, I watched my boyfriend blow out the candles and cut into my masterpiece.  “Ummm, this is delicious,” he glowed.  “I had no idea you were such a good cook.”
I smiled as I took a bite and said, “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

1 comment:

  1. My name is Mary michaeleen Mendoza. Sister Mary Michaeleen (Sissy)which I called her is my great Aunt. I am so Bleesed to have known her, have been loved by her and Honored to have been named after her. I love your artical and all the articals I have found on Sissy. We always lived far apart but are hearts where close. Sissy never missed my birthday and her love I felt will always be in a special place in my heart. Thank you for your artical it will be going in my Sissy scrap book. Thank you ---Mary michaeleen Mendoza (hazel_eyes1976@hotmail.com)

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