In fiction, food has power. It can beguile or disgust, it can inspire, can sweep us away to exotic places or bleak lands. It can pull us back through time, recapture lost memories of childhood, or bring alive the far distant past.
I’ve always found food evocative. Thinking back to my early reading, what the characters ate stands out with peculiar clarity. The feasts, candied nuts and “vittles’” of Brian Jacques’ Redwall series; the shrimp paste and peppermint creams of The Naughtiest Girl in the School were -– to my young mind – magical substances that gave the books their vibrancy, their authenticity.
Would Hogwarts be as rich, without pumpkin juice and chocolate frogs, foaming Butterbeer and every-flavour beans? And take Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s a book where that most intoxicating of foods, chocolate, becomes a metaphor for our desires, our shortcomings and wildest dreams. In contemporary adult fiction, you only need look as far as Joanne Harris’s much-loved novel Chocolat to encounter the idea that food can be imbued with power, to become a transformative, transporting substance.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where my own fascination with food began. It must stem partly from the time I spent with my grandma in the kitchen, sitting on the sideboard, watching her peel apples for a pie or a crumble. Her best recipes were always baked, tarts and pies, scones and meringues. Even then, I was fascinated by the alchemical nature of baking: base elements, combined together to create something new and different. It’s easy to see the broad similarities to writing.
In fact, when I was at university, I wrote a dissertation – probably ill advised – on the idea of “confection” and how it relates to the act of creation. There’s an inherent tension in the word, between truth and counterfeit. As someone who spends my days making things up for a living, that struck a chord.
The creations of an artisan, say a patissier, represent years of practice and passion. Likewise, a finished novel – regardless of how long it took to write – encapsulates years of the author’s life, of trial and error, preoccupation and inspiration. Both can be savoured and lingered over or devoured whole.
Of course, there’s a difference in the process from a practical standpoint. Writing is an odd, ephemeral game. For a long time, it’s just you and a document on a word processor. The transition from manuscript to physical object is actually the very last stage; in between there’s a much lengthier process of redrafting, editing, copy-editing and proofing.
Baking provides a contrast to that. For me, it’s simultaneously relaxing, exciting and satisfying to be able to create something temporary in the physical world, not least something that can be shared and enjoyed.
Of course, I still have a lot to learn as both a writer and a baker, but in both cases, the only way to improve at something is to practice, as much as possible. The Confectioner’s Tale is my debut novel from a publishing standpoint, but it’s not actually the first one I wrote. I started my first novel when I was 19. It took a couple of years to write, and turned out to be an anarchic adventure story steeped in the strange power of food. It was never published, thankfully, but it taught me the basics of writing.
Likewise, baking was a passion before it ever became anything official. It was only once I landed the role as resident cake columnist for Domestic Sluttery that I began to improve exponentially. Like writing, the more I did it, the more natural it became. Every week I had to create, test, write, bake and photograph a new cake recipe. It taught me to be adventurous to say the least.
I often find inspiration in flavours and flavour theory (Niki Segnit’s The Flavour Thesaurus is a great introduction to this). A research trip to Paris and a visit to Pierre Hermé filled my imagination with perfumed scents: rose, violet, aniseed, cardamom, elderflower.
They filtered first into The Confectioner’s Tale and into the creations of my young chef, Guillaume, and next into my recipes. I made rose and almond cheesecakes, orange blossom and polenta cakes, honey and sesame, vanilla and lavender... At the moment, I’m working up a recipe for a blood orange and Aperol cake, because it reminds me of a glorious springtime trip I took to visit a friend in Rome.
Once they’re done, I suppose I have a similar reaction to my books and my cakes: I’m proud of the undertaking, and I hope that they’re good, but I’m constantly looking for ways to make them better.
Laura Madeleine is the author of The Confectioner’s Tale (Black Swan, £6.99)
St Germain Cake
This recipe combines all of my favourite things: raspberries, almonds, cake (obviously) and a more than generous helping of St Germain: a beautiful elderflower liqueur made from elderflower blossom hand-picked in the Alps. Named after the area on the Parisian Left Bank that – in its heyday – harboured artists, philosophers, bakers, jazz musicians, writers and the oldest food market in the city, it hopefully conjures up just a little of heady sweetness and decadence that were to be found there.
You will need:
For the cake:
200g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
3 free-range eggs
200g self-raising flour
25g ground almonds
3 tbsp St Germain (elderflower liqueur: you can use cordial if you prefer)
zest of ½ a lemon
100g fresh raspberries
1 tbsp flour
For the elderflower syrup:
2 tbsp caster sugar
50ml St Germain
Zest and juice of ½ a lemon
Handful of flaked almonds
Icing sugar and lemon zest, to decorate
Allons-y!
The cake:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 23cm, 9 inch deep cake tin.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
4. Add a quarter of the eggs, along with a tablespoon of the flour and beat well. Repeat with rest of the eggs, beating well in between.
5. Add the rest of the flour in thirds, folding in lightly in between until it is just incorporated and no streaks are showing.
6. Gently stir in the St Germain and lemon zest.
7. Lightly toss the raspberries in flour (this’ll stop them all sinking to the bottom) and carefully stir them into the mixture. Add a splash of milk if the mixture needs loosening.
8. Dollop into the tin, smooth over the top and bake for around 40-45 minutes, or until it’s golden and risen, and a skewer inserted (and held there for a few seconds) comes out clean. Leave to cool slightly in its tin on a wire rack.
The syrup:
1. Place the sugar, St Germain, lemon juice and zest in a small saucepan.
2. Bring to a simmer and reduce over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes until the consistency thickens. Be careful of the hot sugar…
3. When the cake is out of the oven, prick holes all over the surface with a skewer and spoon over the syrup so that it soaks in.
4. Lightly toast the flaked almonds in a dry frying pan for 2-3 minutes. Keep your eye on them, because they’ll catch quickly.
5. Decorate with the almonds, a dusting of icing sugar, lemon zest and eat warm, with a cup of tea, a tiny coffee or a glass of pastis...
