Baking a cake

For anything to be satisfying, one has to either enjoy the process or the result and it need not have to be a life turning event to be heart warming.

Baking a cake is one such heart warming thing, of course the end result warms some other part of the body, or should I be saying 'parts of the body':-)

From the abstract things of making up of the mind to bake a cake to imagining what it needs to look like to the actual getting down to doing the work of getting all ingredients together to cooking it, it has a very 'calming on the mind' effect, true, there are those nerve wreaking moments as well which shatters the peace of the moment and makes one to give up a few well earned points from above.

The mixing of all ingredients and the sheen the batter takes on as one relentlessly continues to stir the batter is to say the least, beautiful. It shines like every particle in it has a halo. The batter poured to the baking dish falls with such grace it could put any princess of yester era or any finishing school trained lady of present to shame.

Layer the cake with berries, nuts and the like-the imagination is the limit-and the cross section cut of the cake could look like its been dressed in finery.

The baking process and the change the batter undergoes could be discussed under a wide variety of subjects-the batter rising to 3 times its height and the physical transformation is one for the philosophers. The texture of the cake surface with the troughs and mountains would take geographers back to some other time and place they had been to. Mathematicians, Chemists and Physicists probably would be interested in the ratio of increase, the compounds and catalyst that facilitate the increase and series of reactions that lead to the increase respectively. The economists for sure wonder if they could draw up a diminishing marginal utility curve and predict exactly when the cooking stops and over cooking starts or once the cake is ready what the optimum eating quantity should be in order to maximise the consumer surplus.

No matter what the result of baking process does to various people - the end result can be very gratifying. But if the cake refuses to let go of the mould that's the beginning of the stuff nightmares are made of. Then one after another boxing, fencing, wrestling and judo have to be resorted to hoping for maximum dislodge minimum damage.

Then there is the matter of icing where commonsense gives way to whims and caprice. The layer of icing could cover an ugly looking cake and make it look divine or make a lovely looking, 'no frills needed' cake look nonsensical. But that's just for the moment, put it in the month and the mist is cleared and truth is revealed or realised depending on who has the honour or charge of tasting it.

Ofcourse I havent really dealt with either the aromas and the odours of baking.I will leave that to your imagination. Neither have I discussed the onlooker watching the play of emotions and passions on the baker's face. I will just mention 'Nigella' for that. It would be easier to watch her bake and understand what I mean else for me to explain would require another post altogether.