LIVING

Late Night Ponderings

Prozac, photo by Holly Lindem, 2001
Palm Press, Inc., 2004


My hands are so dry the skin is beginning to feel noticeably tight when I straighten my fingers. I’ve had my hands in and out of hot water on a regular basis for several days now, cleaning up after what feels like quite a lot of experimentation. And even though I’ve been trying my hands at several new baking ideas, I’ve had to scrap 2/3 of my work simply because the recipes are no longer malleable. That’s the catch with gluten-free cooking, especially in baking, that you can only push the ingredients so far and then you’re just left with the good, the bad and the ugly. (I only wish to Christ that I had taken pictures of these mutant cakes.)

Take, for example, my three trials at creating a gluten-free genoise. For those of you who have never heard of a genoise, it is one of the pillars of French baking in that it can be made as a base for nearly any layer cake. It’s texture is exceptionally light, yet moist, giving the patisserie carte blanche on the richness of the icings. Essentially, a genoise is a sponge cake that is traditionally flavored with orange water, but can also be made using vanilla extract. Furthermore, there are two versions of a genoise, one with whole eggs and one just with the egg whites. I opted for the whole egg approach.

I was initially drawn to the idea of a genoise because the recipe calls for a relatively scant amount of flour (a mere 2/3 c.) per 8″ cake pan. I set the few tablespoons of butter into a copper pan and turned the heat on the lowest setting and began to melt the butter. While this was taking place, I then got to work whisking the sugar and the eggs until they came to the ribbon. So far, everything was looking perfect. Then I sifted in the flours and poured in the melted butter and combined until smooth. I finished it off with the orange water, incorporating well before I poured the batter into the pan and put it into the oven to bake. Oh how fragrant the orange water was! My senses were standing at attention to this minute yet powerful sensory discovery. Twenty minutes later I thought I had something like a miracle. Everything looked normal. The cake even managed to get a little lift during the baking process, inflating my hopes right along with it. Well, when I pulled the cake out of the oven and allowed it to cool, it began loosing volume almost immediately.

I knew, with every shit avoiding fiber in my being, that I had no other choice than to accept my failure without letting the defeat crush my ego. I was terrified! Oh, it can’t be! Not my baby…no!!!! But then as my eyes curled over the edge of the pan, catching a glimpse of this genetic reject of a cake, I just had to laugh. It had shrunk to 2/3 the original size, collecting quite a few wrinkles in the process. I picked it up. It was dense and when Tim saw it, he asked what was doing with a discus in the house. It still smelled good, so I grabbed a knife and dissected a sliver of a specimen and sampled the flavor. More horrors. Because gluten free flours don’t contain natural leveners as do the standard wheat flours, a majority of the ingredients had settled to the bottom creating a geologists dream: onion paper thin lines to show not so much the passing of time but the passing of a lofty idea. There was my experiment, layer after layer of it, laughing at me. As ugly as it was, I had to have a taste. The orange water delivered a heavenly blossom right into the middle of my tongue with a perfect balance of perfume and sweetness to get my taste buds aroused. It was subtle yet definite. I instantly wanted to make this thing work, it was just the horraneous texture and appearance that needed to be addressed.

I threw my first ever gluten free genoise into the garbage and started my second attempt. This time, I added some levening to see if that helped. It did, but the cake looked like a half-ass tee-pee; all the height was in the center and only the center. The flavor was holding up, so I tossed number two and did an about face for a third. I added more levening agents and it turned out beautifully. It rose symmetrically along the entire diameter of the pan and had a light, tan color. Could it be so?
I sliced into my victory with nothing short of pride on top of pride on top of pride. The trifecta! I again carved out a sample piece.

I nearly gaged. I had added so much baking soda (3 teaspoons) that the flavor was completely ruined. It was all bitterness and decay. Gone were my images of flowers and success. Mais non! C’est tres horrible! Oh, putant! I threw my third and final attempt into the garbage and walked away, but as I left the battlefield, all I wanted was to make something that I knew would turn out. Maybe a batch of cookies or banana bread…then I realized could never cover up my defeat with a pseudo victory. I had to take it in the stomach and keep on walking.


Mark Rothko (1903-1970)
No. 7, 1960
Sezon Museum of Modern Art, Karuizawa

February 15th, 2007 — 10:56 pm

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