Bake and Shake

BUNDTS ARE BABES: Lemon Buttermilk Rhubarb Bundt Cake

"And then I told Pam to calm down, that her Bundt stood a chance next year because I'd be on vacation. I did. I told her that, right before I threw her purse in the street."

I like cake best, except when I like pie better. But pie, as so many have said ("SO MANY!") is something that I don't want to eat unless I can later bow down before it, chanting words of praise, haltingly, as I shudder with sobs. I like great pie - and sometimes I can't find it. But I will happily eat almost any cake, as long as it has frosting on it - thick swaths of frosting, crusted and sugary or silken and voluminous. A dark slick of ganache or crackled, membrane-thin glazes. I just like cake. I'll call cake first, every day of the week. I don't care about our weird mating rituals and rules when it comes to a layered tower, coddled in cream cheese icing.

So, for most of my life I've looked at Bundts as strange, unfortunate impostors. How can they be considered cake? Couldn't you bake Bundt recipes in regular pans, frost them and improve them MIGHTILY? SWIFTLY, even. I grew up in the eighties, when small children were introduced to Grocery Store bakery cakes and the pull between them, with their plastic pick-anchored decorations, palm trees and Hot Wheels and tiny ballerinas, and the homemade cake (often a Bundt) was fiery. I don't know if my ignorant prejudices come from watching a friend's mother slice up a bundt and offer it to us, unadorned, or if I'm just uncovering the depths of my own Cakecism, here but these long-held beliefs were SHATTERED this week when I made one of the best cakes I've ever tasted.

CARL: He's a Fine One

This isn't a recipe post (the loaf was made following this recipe, with a little less water - I've found that I get a texture and hole structure that I enjoy most, when using Carl instead of dry yeast, when I err on the respectable modest side of hydration) but a note - I am enjoying the hell out of semolina-dusted loaves. The finer texture, crunchy grit and sweet flavor make it such a lovely experience. Semolina. Try it next time, instead of bench flour or cornmeal. Or wood shavings. And that for those who don't live in Co-Op group housing situations, a full recipe can easily be divided and shaped into two or three smaller loaves, left to rise and cooked one after another in the same dutch oven and style you've been using for the larger loaves*. You can have a loaf during dinner for two, another for breakfast the next morning, and one for the neighbors.

Or the feral night animals, who prowl your land and make the children huddle together underneath Nana's quilts, wishing for the Old Country.