All Cakes Considered - Melissa Gray [25]
TO FINISH THE CAKE
12. When the cakes are done, cool for 5 minutes in the pans before unmolding them and transferring them to cake racks. (Remember our technique from the first recipe on page 28? Well, you’ll want to flip the loaf pans like you would the tube pan, so the cakes end up with their browned tops facing up, unless you’re using decorative molds.)
13. Place the cake racks over a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper to catch the drips. Using a thin knife, a long toothpick, or a cake tester (a thin wire you can buy in a specialty cooking store), poke holes through the cake.
14. Slowly brush the cakes with syrup, allowing time for the cakes to absorb the syrup. Leave the cakes on the racks to cool to room temperature before serving.
Of Office Cake and Office Cake Eaters
You’ll notice after you’ve made several office cakes that your co-workers have definite likes and dislikes. Because of this, I try to keep everybody happy by varying the type of cake I make from week to week. At NPR, here’s the breakdown of tastes around the office:
The People’s Pound Cake Coalition
This is a conservative group for which there is no other type of cake. They like it moist. They like it heavy. They like its thin, sweet, chewy crust. Try to talk to them about the glories of another type of cake, and they’ll pretend they didn’t hear you, that a fire truck just passed by, or that you spoke in Urdu (I think one person on staff actually speaks Urdu).
The Chocolate Cake Caucus
Dedicated hedonists and out-of-control addicts, they don’t care if it’s pudding, pound, or layer, so long as it is chocolate. There’s no need for interoffice e-mail or a call over the P.A., these people communicate and orchestrate their movements like army ants. They will appear suddenly in one long, continuous line, and they will ravish said cake. There will be nothing left. No crumbs. No icing. One time, even the plate went missing (it’s true—I found it in the second-floor pantry the next day, and I swear, it had been LICKED clean). Now, surely you jest, Melissa. Um … no, it’s been my experience that a chocolate cake at the office will be whittled down to the last quarter slice in less than 30 minutes. Science reporter Joanne Silberner has a lot to do with this. If the CCC ever marches down the block to Capitol Hill in an attempt to overthrow the federal government, arrest her.
The Spice–and–Vice Alliance
Lovers of fruits and nuts join forces with those who relish spice and liquor in their cakes. This is a live-and-let-live kind of group. While they don’t share the narrow tastes of the PPCC or the all-consuming drive of the CCC, they do believe in the freedom to hold such narrow views of cake, so long as it doesn’t interfere at any time with having apples, walnuts, ginger, or rum in their batter. While membership in the CCC tends to be mostly female, I’ve noticed that the S & VA members tend to be mostly male.
Now, there are smaller factions of cake eaters, but they’re either one-man islands (with mantras such as “I eat NO CAKE BUT ALMOND CAKE!” “COCONUT OR COCONOT!” and “IF IT’S NOT GOT SOUR CREAM, IT’S BLOODY WELL NOT FOR ME!”), or they’re so congenial that they fall into a broader convention: the big tent o’ cake eaters.
These folks just love having cake, any cake, and rather than fight over the flavor (which may result in cessation of all office cake), they just want all of us to get along.
Now, you might think that I’d fall into the big tent o’ cake category, given that I’m writing this book and all, but you’d be wrong. While I do generally like all cake (except that spawn of the devil, carrot cake, a recipe that will not appear in this book), I’m an unapologetic member of the Spice-and-Vice Alliance.
In fact, if I had a party handle, it would be Ginger. Not because I have red hair, not because I wish I was Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, nor because I wish I were as smart as