My first perfect cake
It’s Christmas season, ’tis the time to be jolly and also to get busy baking cakes. As I dig out my tattered old diary crammed with hand written recipes and food stains, my mind goes back to another time, more than two decades ago.
We were stationed in a mess (for lack of accommodation) and living out of a room with a makeshift kitchen. I was still a novice at most things, baking and cooking included. But we had ambitiously bought an oven in which I was hesitantly trying out basic cake recipes.
And then, in the room next to ours, two young ladies moved in. Fresh out of the Officer’s Training Academy and newly commissioned, they wore their badges and uniform with a flair that I both admired and envied.
It felt good to have neighbours closer to my age and it also helped that they were bright, chatty and enthusiastic. One day I was bemoaning the accumulation of cream (skimmed off the milk) in my fridge and not knowing what to do with it. One of the lady officers promptly said she’d give me the recipe of a chocolate cake that her mother used to make, using the same cream.
I wrote down the recipe as she explained it to me, step by step. That’s when I learned how to make caramel, how to beat and fold in the egg whites (electric beaters were unheard of then!). And most importantly, I learned how to make a rich, smooth, glazed chocolate frosting for the chocolate cake!
Long story short, I painstakingly followed the recipe, checking and double checking at each step. And to my delight and surprise, I beheld an almost perfect chocolate cake which I proudly iced and which we later happily devoured.
Since then, many many Christmases have rolled by. I’ve made varieties of chocolate cakes, some of which were a success and many were also dismal flops! I’ve tried out this particular recipe almost every year, in different moulds, ovens and kitchens. I still hold my breath and cross my fingers every time I tip the cake out of the mould, like I did today! And I still relish its distinct chocolatey, caramelly taste.
But nothing, nothing can match the thrill of tasting my very first perfect chocolate cake baked in my first oven, all those years ago.
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