(edge)wise

This past week heralded the 22^nd birthday of one of my friends here in York. Her party provided the perfect occasion (excuse?) to bake. For those that have followed my blog for the past two years know that I love good food—more than that, I love cooking and baking delicious things. I often tell people: In another life I would have opened my own bakery/café. I’d be like Ana from Stranger Than Fiction. Making people happy through scrumptious baked goods. Lemon mascarpone tarts. Apple turnovers with cinnamon glaze. Vegan cranberry-walnut muffins. Pumpkin spice bread. Chocolate Bourbon cake…

Living in York has effectively hindered my baking habits. For a number of reasons. My student budget (read: broke) does not allow for unnecessary grocery items. My time is consumed by research and writing my dissertation. And I do not have access to most of the equipment or ingredients needed for the recipes I want to make.

 

So a chance to bake is a proper event, and I become ridiculously giddy. For Becky’s birthday I decided to make a red velvet cake. Originally a Southern tradition, it has now inserted itself into trendy boutique cupcake shops and the not-so-trendy Starbucks all over the States. (By the perplexed responses I received at the party, it sounds like red velvet still needs to circulate around the UK a bit more.) Red velvet is not my favourite cake by any means, but the rich red colour suitably impresses people. The subtle flavours of cocoa and vanilla pleasantly contrast with the tangy cream cheese frosting, as well.

 

The following recipe is one adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery in London. If you’ve got a mixer handy, use it. I do not have one here in the UK, and mixing becomes a real chore—and probably doubles the preparation time. That being said, mixing by hand will give your arms a great workout!

 

INGREDIENTS

(For my stateside readers, apologies for the imperial measurements. You can still use the measurements easily enough if you have a cooking scale.)

 

For the cake:

 

120g butter, room temperature

300g caster sugar

2 eggs

25g cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

several tsp red food colouring*

250ml buttermilk

300g flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1Tbsp cider vinegar

 

For the cream cheese frosting:

 

400g cream cheese, room temperature

50g butter, room temperature (optional)

1tsp vanilla

350g icing sugar (give or take)

 

 

DIRECTIONS

 

1. Before mixing ingredients, grease and flour two 8-inch cake pans. Set them aside. Pre-heat oven to 170C.

 

2. Mix butter and sugar together until creamy.

 

3. Add eggs until fully incorporated.

4. Fold cocoa, vanilla and red food colouring into the batter. *In my experience, each food colouring brand has a different effect and strength. I used Silver Spoon and added nearly half the  bottle for a deep red colour. Others might take more or less—it depends on how red you want your cake.

5. Pour in a third of the buttermilk. (If you don’t have buttermilk, as I did not, you can make an emergency substitution by pouring a cup [about 240ml] of milk over 1 tsp lemon juice and let it sit for 5 minutes.) Mix well. Then add a third of the flour. Repeat this process until all the buttermilk and flour are mixed smoothly.

 

6. Add bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Fizzy bubbles! Beat together for a couple minutes.

 

7. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 30-40 minutes. (Mine took about 35, with an oven fan.) Since all ovens operate differently, check the cakes around the 25 to 30 mark. Insert a skewer or toothpick into the cake. When the skewer comes out clean, the cakes are done.

 

8. Remove from oven. Let cool slightly before removing from pans and placing onto wire racks. Cool completely.

[Note about the frosting: homemade frosting seems to be an artful science. And that’s putting it nicely. Frosting is a finicky b**** and as of yet, I have not conquered this skill on the first try. I believe no two batches of frosting are the same, so feel free to experiment. I hold this stance because I hate buttercream frosting or any other frosting recipe that calls for a pound of icing sugar. I do not like overly sweet frosting—they should compliment the cake, not overpower it. That being said, adjust the frosting ingredients as you see fit for your tastebuds.]

 

9. Whip the cream cheese and butter together. You don’t have to use butter, though it does thicken the frosting nicely.

 

10. Add vanilla and mix.

 

11. Stir in the icing sugar. You can always add more if you want thicker, sweeter frosting. But I highly recommend to use the least amount of sugar possible. The tang of the cream cheese offsets the cake flavours for a more well-balanced tasting exeperience.

 

12. REFRIDGERATE. Let the frosting sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (preferably an hour) before applying to the cake. If you end up with red cake crumbs in the frosting, do not fret. Stick the frosted cake in the fridge for another 30 minutes and add another layer of frosting. Voila, those pesky crumbs are hidden.

 

13. Go eat cake.

 

 

Having loved Richard Ayoade’s geeky exploits as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd, I was intrigued to see his directorial debut, Submarine. In fact, Ayoade was the only reason I attended the film screening last Thursday night. I knew nothing of the plot—which has not happened since my friend Jacki dragged me to the Star Trek re-boot. Even then, at least I knew of Kirk and Spock and something-or-other in deep space. With Submarine, I knew two things about the film: 1) Richard Ayoade directed it, and 2) it was an indie flick, produced by 4Film.

 

Submarine turned out to be a charming, quirky tale of fifteen-year-old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts). The story coalesces around the traditional adolescent afflictions of failed teen romance and embarrassing parents. Somewhat of an ‘inbetweener’ at school, Oliver pines after his crush, Jordana Bevan, who does not acknowledge he exists—until Oliver joins in bullying a fellow classmate in order to capture Jordana’s attention. At home, meanwhile, he observes and interacts with his painfully reserved parents much like one does with bizarre creatures at the zoo. Clearly he cannot relate to them, and his aim is to simply endure until he can move out, which is radically altered when a former flame of his mother returns to the neighbourhood and threatens to destroy his parents’ marriage. His mission thus changes to reignite his parents’ lost love for one another.

 

The film fluctuates between highly stylised sequences and cringe-worthy realism. One wonders if Ayoade has spent any time in art classes for the way in which the mise-en-scène frequently resembled framed paintings or photographs. Even the shot of the ordinary, everyday kitchen table, which occurs several times throughout the film as Oliver and his parents silently eat, includes a massive fish tank behind them, illuminating the scene with an icy, fluorescent blue light. Being an indie film, you’ve got the typical off-beat peculiarities: Jordana’s hobby of burning male leg hair with matches, Jordana and Oliver hanging out in an abandoned, broken bathtub, the hilariously kooky neighbour who gives self-help seminars on the healing power of ‘Light’. All are framed with meticulous precision and intentionality.

 

Humour is exquisitely delivered. Lloyd and Jill Tate, played excellently by Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins, deliver some of the best moments and lines. Jill brings whole new meaning to ‘buttoned-up’ with her outfits that literally button to her throat. Lloyd struggles to show emotion, though it’s apparent he feels very deeply for his wife and son, which highlights a tragic quality beneath all the awkward-fuelled humour. The scene in which father and son choose to have dinner together, rather than finding the courage to meet their significant others who are expecting them, is particularly poignant as it reveals how similar Oliver is to his father, despite his teenage wishes against it.

 

If there was one aspect of Submarine that annoyed me it was the film’s obvious attempts to be quirky, weird, and peculiar. The eccentric indie flick used to be novel. Now, with the likes of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, such oddity is commonplace. At several points throughout Submarine it felt like Ayoade was trying too hard. (Who is to say whether this had anything to do with the film’s executive producer—Ben Stiller—who has performed in films by both Anderson and Baumbach.)

 

That aside, Submarine provides an hour and a half of pleasurable entertainment. The story itself offers a reassuring, contained happiness at the end. Even when we have made mistakes and lost something we believed to be all-important, Submarine shows that life goes on, we heal our wounds, and perhaps we become a bit wiser in the process. Ayoade has proven himself to be a capable and visionary director. Several creative elements—such as Oliver’s self-reflexive voiceover and the ironically bombastic partitioning of the film into five parts—elevate Submarine into one of the best films I have seen this year. I look forward to see what Ayoade will do next.

 

4.5 stars out of 5.