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November 06, 2007
happy birthday, Alois Senefelder
When I was a kid my favourite birthday cake was chocolate cake with brown sugar icing, an icing that was cooked on the stove and spread while still warm, and which hardened into a miraculous fluffy crust rather than a runny glaze. I asked for this cake every year. At some point my mom stopped making it and later said that she had lost the recipe (perhaps when we moved in 1982, because I'm sure that it's been at least that long since I had it). No birthday cake I've had since has lived up to the memory of my beloved brown sugar icing, and I've longed for the day when my mom would come across that dog-eared recipe card in her kitchen, wedged behind something-or-other (highly unlikely, as she's moved house twice more since '82).
While sorting through old cookbooks at Peter's mom's house over the summer, I came across a frosting recipe that sounded like it could be the one, and scribbled it down in my sketchbook for later. I don't really have much of a sweet tooth anymore and don't eat cake often, but I thought I'd like to give this a trial run before my birthday, to see if one magical taste would spirit me back to December 1978, before serving it up to my birthday guests this year. And since it just happened that the birthday of good old Alois, the inventor of lithography, falls on a day that I teach my litho class, what better time to try it out (and use my students as guinea pigs).
(this is where, were I a good enough documentor not to be totally distracted by the thrill and anticipation of finally ending 25+ years of sugary longing, there would be a mouthwatering photo of a fat, glistening, brown-sugared chocolate cupcake. Alas. . . )
The consistency of the icing was runnier than I remembered, and acted more like a thick, caramel-ish glaze than a fluffy frosting, but I suspect that the soy milk might have been a factor there, so perhaps next time I'll break down and use cow's milk (ew). I also used Earth Balance instead of butter, but I'm pretty sure that my mom was using margarine back then anyway so that shouldn't have made the difference. I even used a cake from a box for that authentic 70s childhood touch, (although the authenticity may have been spoiled a bit by the hippie-wholemeal-organic cake mix and organic grain fed cage free eggs). Still, the whole thing was delicious, my students enjoyed it and the sugar high I put them on didn't cause any accidents later on when I taught them how to use the big scary guillotine book trimmer. And I'm pretty sure that if Alois were still with us at age 236, this is the cake he would have requested for his party.
One of my students said that the icing tasted like that of German Chocolate Cake, and my heart sank for a moment, because my mom's family is GERMAN. And if this is some common old German recipe that everyone knows about, then I've been missing out on 25 years of delicious birthday cakes for no good reason. I was pretty relieved to discover that not only is German Chocolate Cake not really German, it's got coconut and pecans in it and thus is clearly not MY cake. Whew. My mom never would have heard the end of it.
Posted by jodi at November 6, 2007 08:06 PM | categories: food
Comments
I had a marvelously decadent German Chocolate Cake for dessert last night. Well, not a WHOLE CAKE, just a slice. But oh, what a slice of Heaven it was.
Posted by: NWJR at November 7, 2007 07:52 AM
Could you at least post the recipe for those of us who *do* have a sweet tooth? It sounds delicious, hippie-fied and all. :)
Posted by: grace at November 7, 2007 09:30 AM
Nevermind as I didn't realize that your lovely art had the recipe in it.
Posted by: grace at November 7, 2007 09:32 AM
Ah! Food memories. They can be really weird at times. I occasionally crave macaroni and cheese the way my mother made it - with kraft singles slices.
Posted by: connie at November 7, 2007 10:50 AM
Oh, and lovely sketch book peek too!
Posted by: connie at November 7, 2007 10:50 AM
I would think it would be the milk. Cooking milk an sugar together in a pan makes it froth and bubble, and baking is generally a more exact science than other cooking. Give the milk a try!
Posted by: Lissa at November 7, 2007 06:20 PM
I've never heard of cooked icing. Intriguing.
Posted by: Carol at November 11, 2007 11:24 AM
Your description sounds just like the icing my Grandma made!
Posted by: Cindy Ericsson at November 17, 2007 10:32 PM