Let Them Eat Cake
Lest you think all my years of studying history were in vain, yes, I realize this title is a historical reference to the wrong country. It just had a nice ring to it.
Justin turned 9 shortly after we got our new house. The poor guy was sick on his birthday, so we waited a few days to have cake so he could fully enjoy it. Baking here is still a bit of an adventure as I learn how to convert cups into grams and liters, and Fahrenheit to Celsius. Also, ovens here have, like, fourteen settings, some of which involve fans and switching heat sources from top to bottom. There is a learning curve! And all of my recipes are somewhere midway across the Atlantic. Well, hopefully at this point they are closer to almost-all-the-way across the Atlantic, but the point is they aren't here, so I had to sort of extemporize. Fortunately, I didn't ruin either his birthday muffins (thanks to my friend S for sending me his favorite recipe!!) or his birthday cake. Please excuse the vacuum cleaner in the background of this photo:
He was still feeling a little under the weather, but he managed to blow out the candles and enjoy the cake nonetheless. Also, you can sort of see our kitchen/dining room in this picture. I will post more pictures once we're more settled (i.e. we have our stuff and it's cleaner than it currently is!)
The cake looked like this:
No, I will not be winning any awards for cake decorating. That's supposed to be a number 9 bus headed for Justin St. But I will take a moment here to praise the British for their food coloring. Justin really wanted a blue cake, and while I usually prefer to avoid food coloring whenever possible, I wanted to give him his blue cake. After all, we had just moved across an ocean to a new country, he was sick (again), and it seemed like a blue cake was the least I could do to help him celebrate.
We went to the local supermarket to get supplies, and I felt a moment of appreciation for Europe and all its overregulation. For what did I discover at the local Tesco? Food coloring with nary a petroleum by-product. The blue in those bottles you see above? Spirulina! This made me so happy that I bought a whole packet of icing writers so I could make the bus scene you see above. And what are those other colors, you ask? Turmeric! More spirulina! I forget what the red was, but it wasn't petroleum! For the record, Tesco is not the British equivalent of Whole Foods, it's more like a Star Market, or a Safeway, or a not-super-cheap Market Basket. In other words, just a run-of-the-mill, decidedly unhippy place to shop.
Also, all of this food coloring cost about a pound a bottle. That's a far cry from the $15 you pay at Whole Foods for natural food coloring. (Yes, I realize we make up for this by paying gigantic amounts of taxes...on everything. I nonetheless rejoiced to buy my petroleum-free food coloring to make my boy his blue birthday cake.) And for the record, the blue was actually much bluer than it looks in these pictures. The lighting was poor, but the cake, with only a few drops of coloring added, was a nice light blue. So, I have proof that you do not need Red 40, or Blue 6 (or whatever number it is) to make a blue cake for a happy, blue-loving boy.
Anyway, there will be more British baking adventures in the future, I am sure. In the meanwhile, let us all eat cake (petroleum-free, blue cake, that is...)
Justin turned 9 shortly after we got our new house. The poor guy was sick on his birthday, so we waited a few days to have cake so he could fully enjoy it. Baking here is still a bit of an adventure as I learn how to convert cups into grams and liters, and Fahrenheit to Celsius. Also, ovens here have, like, fourteen settings, some of which involve fans and switching heat sources from top to bottom. There is a learning curve! And all of my recipes are somewhere midway across the Atlantic. Well, hopefully at this point they are closer to almost-all-the-way across the Atlantic, but the point is they aren't here, so I had to sort of extemporize. Fortunately, I didn't ruin either his birthday muffins (thanks to my friend S for sending me his favorite recipe!!) or his birthday cake. Please excuse the vacuum cleaner in the background of this photo:
He was still feeling a little under the weather, but he managed to blow out the candles and enjoy the cake nonetheless. Also, you can sort of see our kitchen/dining room in this picture. I will post more pictures once we're more settled (i.e. we have our stuff and it's cleaner than it currently is!)
The cake looked like this:
No, I will not be winning any awards for cake decorating. That's supposed to be a number 9 bus headed for Justin St. But I will take a moment here to praise the British for their food coloring. Justin really wanted a blue cake, and while I usually prefer to avoid food coloring whenever possible, I wanted to give him his blue cake. After all, we had just moved across an ocean to a new country, he was sick (again), and it seemed like a blue cake was the least I could do to help him celebrate.
We went to the local supermarket to get supplies, and I felt a moment of appreciation for Europe and all its overregulation. For what did I discover at the local Tesco? Food coloring with nary a petroleum by-product. The blue in those bottles you see above? Spirulina! This made me so happy that I bought a whole packet of icing writers so I could make the bus scene you see above. And what are those other colors, you ask? Turmeric! More spirulina! I forget what the red was, but it wasn't petroleum! For the record, Tesco is not the British equivalent of Whole Foods, it's more like a Star Market, or a Safeway, or a not-super-cheap Market Basket. In other words, just a run-of-the-mill, decidedly unhippy place to shop.
Also, all of this food coloring cost about a pound a bottle. That's a far cry from the $15 you pay at Whole Foods for natural food coloring. (Yes, I realize we make up for this by paying gigantic amounts of taxes...on everything. I nonetheless rejoiced to buy my petroleum-free food coloring to make my boy his blue birthday cake.) And for the record, the blue was actually much bluer than it looks in these pictures. The lighting was poor, but the cake, with only a few drops of coloring added, was a nice light blue. So, I have proof that you do not need Red 40, or Blue 6 (or whatever number it is) to make a blue cake for a happy, blue-loving boy.
Anyway, there will be more British baking adventures in the future, I am sure. In the meanwhile, let us all eat cake (petroleum-free, blue cake, that is...)
Great account of buying dye and making cake. But you didn’t tell us what flavors were in the blue cake!
ReplyDeleteHe wanted vanilla so I made whole wheat maple vanilla cake with regular sugary frosting...It was yummy😁
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