Ann's Cake Book Review: Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

This is a book that I processed at the library a few months ago. I made a note of it at the time to read later in the year, so I took it home over Christmas break. Unfortunately, it took me much longer to finish it than I had intended. This was for several reasons, not the least of which was that this book was lame. Here's the basic premise: Angel runs a cake baking business from her home in Kigali, Rwanda, a few years after the genocide there. Through her business and her involvement in the community, she meets various native Rwandans, immigrants, relief workers, and officials, and listens to their stories (and dishes out advice and inserts herself into other people's lives). As a result, the book is really just a lot of little vignettes that are kind of held together by the premise of the cake business. The problem is that Angel is portrayed as always knowing what is best for everyone (this falls apart a little at the end of the book, but holds true for the majority), which makes it difficult to like her. In one particularly annoying scene, she explains to the wife of an ambassador who denies the existence of AIDS in her homeland that if all the countries surrounding that country are afflicted with AIDS, then her country must have it too. It just got really old to always hear Angel telling people what they should do in "cute" ways. For some reason, the fact that she is going through menopause is also featured prominently. The author of the book is a former relief worker in Rwanda and specifically says that she wanted to tell the stories of the people she met there, and I don't think that it's a bad desire, but this makes the book extremely self-aware and therefore doesn't give it a lot of depth. She could easily have told the same stories with better writing and more of a real plot, but everything is done in such a superficial, obvious way, with no subtlety. I know that I'm the one person who hates feel-good things, but essentially every bit of this book is meant to be "heart-warming" and "charming", and I just found it obnoxious. And there is really very little cake in the book - it doesn't delve into her cake baking much at all, and instead focuses on the cake decorating. But even that is treated in a really superficial way - it only talks about the finished product, and the reader almost never gets to see Angel in action with her cakes. If you like cute stories that are calculated to manipulate you into feeling good and hopeful about life, you may like this book, but who am I to say? There was almost no chance from the beginning that it could have won me over, and I know I'm the aberration. So instead, don't read it because you're not going to get your cake fix from this book.

Elizabeth's May Cake - Fudge Cupcakes

I did it again.

I couldn't help myself! I thought I had learned my lesson, but I guess I didn't.

I read another Joanne Fluke book.



I know! It's ridiculous that I read it, given how much I hated the other one. But the very next one in the series had cake in the title, and I had looked at it when I picked up the Lemon Meringue Pie one, AND it involved a mystery ingredient.....so I just had to get it from the library when the year of cakes started.

Luckily, it wasn't quite as bad as the Lemon Meringue Pie book (although that's not saying much). Still, I just had to find out what the secret ingredient was in the Fudge Cupcakes, which was the title recipe). Well..... (spoiler alert!) it was Raspberry Syrup! Who knew!? Thus solving the best mystery Ms. Fluke could possibly put together, because her murder investigations are completely absurd.

Getting back to the cupcakes....

These were awful. I made them twice, because I thought I might have done something wrong, and they were just as bad the second time. I eventually searched online for reviews of the book to see what others had to say about the recipe. Turns out there was a MISPRINT in the original edition: it's not baking SODA, it's baking POWDER! Argh. This was the title recipe, and Fudge Cupcakes sounded oh-so-tasty. I'm thinking about making them again the correct way, but .... I don't have the energy for it just now. If I make them again, I'll post the results. I promise. And I promise not to read another Fluke book again. Really.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

...'Cuz I'll WANNA die if I read another one! Oh snap!! Good one, Elizabeth.


Right before melting the chocolate


Waiting for the chocolate to melt


And...the chocolate has melted.
I skipped all the steps after this, such as adding flour, etc. Boring.



The finished cupcakes. What the....?


The cupcakes after we poked at them a little bit. They didn't taste too terrible, actually, but they clearly went over the pan and didn't hold their rise. They were also too chewy-weird.

Fudge Cupcakes

(This is the correct recipe, in case you want to make them and post them or something)

Ingredients

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate squares (1 oz each)
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup raspberry flavored syrup (for pancakes- I used Knott's red raspberry)
• 1 2/3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature (one stick, 1/4 pound, I use sweet butter)
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar (you use 1 3/4 cups sugar in all)
• 3 large eggs
• 1/3 cup milk

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°F Position rack in the middle of oven.

2. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with double papers. Since this recipe makes 18 cupcakes, you can use an additional 6-cup muffin pan lined with double papers, or you can butter and flour an 8-inch square cake pan or the equivalent.

3. Microwave the chocolate, raspberry syrup and 1/4 sugar in a microwave-safe bowl on high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave again for another minute. At this point, the chocolate will be almost melted, but it will maintain its shape. Stir the mixture until smooth and let cool to lukewarm. (You can also do this in a double boiler on the stove.).

4. Measure flour, mix in baking powder and salt, and set aside.

5. In an electric mixer (or with a VERY strong arm), beat the butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. (About 3 minutes with a mixer--an additional 2 minutes if you're doing it by hand.) Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition to make sure they're thoroughly incorporated.

6. Add approximately a third of the flour mixture and a third of the milk. (You don't have to be exact--adding the flour and milk in increments makes the batter smoother.) When that's all mixed in, add another third of the flour and another third of the milk. Thwn that's incorporated, add the remainder of the flour and the remainder of the milk. Mix thoroughly.

7. Test your chocolate mixture to make sure it's cool enough to add. (You don't want to cook the eggs!) If it's fairly warm to the touch but not so hot you have to pull you hand away, you can add it at this point. Stir thoroughly and you're done.

8. Let the batter rest for five minutes. Then stir it again by hand and fill each cupcake paper three-quarters full. If you decided to use the 8-inch cake pan instead of the 6-cup muffin tin, fill it with the remining batter.

9. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes. The 8-inch cake should bake an additional 5 minutes.

Fudge Frosting - for 18 cupcake, or 12 cupcakes and 1 small cake, cooled to room temperature and ready to frost.

• 2 cups chocolate chips (12-ounce package)
• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk.

1. If you use a double-boiler for this frosting, it's foolproof. You can also make it in a heavy saucepan over low to medium heat on the stovetop, but you'll have to stir it constantly with a spatula to keep it from scorching.

2. Fill the bottom; part of the double boiler with water. Make sure it doesn't touch the underside ot the top.

3. Put the chocolate chips in the top of the double-boiler, set it over the bottom, and place the double boiler on the stovetop at medium heat. Stir occasionall ntil the chocolate chips are melted.

4. Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk and cook approximately two minutes, stirring constantly, until the frosting is shiny and of spreading consistency.

5. Spread on cupcakes, making sure to fill in the "frosting pocket.".

February Cake Book Review: Honey Cake by Joan Betty Stuchner

Honey Cake, by Joan Betty Stuchner, is geared toward preteens, but it was still a fun CAKE BOOK for February!

Copenhagen is the setting for this Holocaust-era story about a boy named David who must help his parents deliver messages for the Jewish resistance. David's father is a baker, but his mother's honey cake is said to be superb.

The cake doesn't play a large role in the book, as I thought it might. I thought the cake might trick a soldier, or the cake might hide a note, or the cake might explode, or the cake might be scalding hot in a German's tender mouth. But it wasn't to be. The cake was just a symbol for keeping their home life as normal as possible, despite the conflict and tension on the streets around them. Blah, blah, blah. The box on the front of the book is not even a cake box! What!? Talk about a deceptive title!

Still, every so often I love a book that I can read in an hour and a half, and this one fit the bill. And it was (kindof) about cake! Too bad the cake wasn't as sneaky as I was hoping.

Elizabeth's Pie Book Review - Lemon Meringue Pie Murder

It was kind of fun to read a book that featured pie.
With that said, this book was lousy.

Pros:
1. This books has 7 or so fun baking recipes, including a recipe for lemon meringue pie.
2. This book is set in a small town where the protagonist works in a bakery. I love bakeries! I love small, local businesses! If it weren't for this particular "pro," I would have put the book down after the first chapter.
3. This book was light and an easy read.
4. This book makes you want to bake and eat constantly. (...should that be a con?...)

Cons:
1. This book has awful writing, especially with its ridiculous dialogs.
2. This book is a mystery, but the ending is so obvious by Chapter Three that I kept expecting there to be a dramatic twist. There wasn't one.
3. This book requires the reader to suspend all reasonable thought in order to enjoy the story. I'm all for a light read, and I often enjoy suspending disbelief in a plot, but this book was ridiculous from start to finish. The way the protagonist conducts her murder investigation defies logic at every turn. It's excruciating.
4. In this book the protagonist calls her mom "Mother" and has the most annoying relationship with her that you can imagine. None of the characters in this book are endearing.
5. Through this book, the author tries to air her personal grammar and etiquette pet peeves. She makes the protagonist PERFECT in every way, and features situations in which someone talking to the protagonist says or does something wrong and she has to bite her lip to keep from correcting the person. No character is perfect except the protagonist. It is all very pretentious.
6. This book has sappy you-can-see-the-punchline-coming-a-mile-away kind of humor.
7. This book has a campy subplot about the protagonist's diet that made me roll my eyes dozens of times.
8. In this book, the protagonist has two boyfriends and there's even a scene where she holds hands with both of them at the same time while they watch fireworks. Ugh.

(Side annoyance that wasn't quite as important - This book mentions the protagonist's clothes many times, and the styles that are described are oh-so-ugly. I thought maybe it was written in 1989 but it was written in 2003. Before returning this book to the library, I should have copied the text of a passage or two about fashion to make Ann squirm.)

(Speaking of Ann, sometimes we like to watch a movie that we will both hate just to pause it and freak out at the stupidity of it. This book reminded me of that. Maybe during the year of cakes we'll read a cake version of this series and we can both post about it.)

FINAL ANALYSIS: Do not read this book. Unless you want to hate your life for a few hours. Then read it. But don't blame me.