Week two began with a lesson on simple cakes. We learned different methods of incorporating butter to make three different types: madeleines, cake aux fruits, and week-end. To the delight and dismay of everyone, during the practical we made madeleines (delight) and fruit cake (dismay). Most students (the sane ones) would have much preferred taking home two loaves of the more tedious lemon glazed week-end, but unfortunately we ended up with 250 grams worth of disgusting candied bits of jellied fruit embedded in rum drenched cake. One of my cakes found a good home with my friend’s boyfriend who likes cake aux fruits (really?), and the other “somehow” found its way to the trash (surprise!). I did eat some of it, carefully picking out the neon nibs of toxic waste, but it turned out to be too much work for too little pleasure. Fruit cake is actually more work and complicated to make than it seems. It requires creamed butter, alternating additions of eggs and flour, and enough beating to make elastic. I under mixed, which is why my cake didn’t rise and flattened at the top. Over beating is probably worse, as it causes the cake to be tough, but it’s also not great to under mix as it doesn’t develop the gluten enough. During the demo the chef flamboyantly decorated five different fruit cakes with an assortment of dried fruit and spices, but ours were more humble with just a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
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