This cake showed me how far I've come since I started baking Heavenly Cakes. Although this cake has five different elements, a name that I didn't know how to pronounce six months ago (biscuit = bees-KWEE, not biskut), a filling I've never heard of (lekvar), another trip to the liquor store to buy yet another bottle of some expensive alcoholic liquid), and the jelly-roll technique I've done only one other time in my life, I was not even daunted when I looked at the recipe. My only thought was, "This is not on the Quick-and-Easy list." (It's not, in case you're wondering). I've learned that it's possible to get yourself in a zen-like state where you are methodically measuring, boiling, adding, pouring, and so forth, without even worrying about whether it's going to turn out all right. I've also learned that it takes way more than four hours to make this cake from start to finish.
I got home from having lunch with friends around 2:00 on Saturday. I had to leave by 6:00 to have a pre-play dinner with other friends, and I thought it would be nice to invite them back to our house after the play for cake, so at 2:15, I started to get into cake gear.
First, the apricot ganache filling, which is just Rose's tried-and-true food processor method of making ganache. The only difference is that it's flavored with a bit of apricot brandy.
Now I take a deep breath and go on to the
lekvar. To my dismay, I see that I've ignored the fact that the first thing you have to do is soak dried apricots in water for two hours. A little doubt about being able to finish this cake by 6:00 began to creep into my consciousness, but I tried to ignore it.
I put both the apricots and the doubts aside, and went on to the sponge roll, AKA the biscuit roulade.
This is another one of those cakes that undergoes some miraculous chemical transformation--from the rich golden yellow of egg yolks to a thick, pale yellow batter. All it takes is five minutes of mixing on high speed.
After the flour is added in, you carefully fold in the egg whites, which you've beaten in another bowl. Actually the cake comes together pretty easily, and then it just has to be smoothed into a jelly roll pan and baked for 13 minutes.
Now I'm thinking maybe it's possible to make my 6:00 deadline after all. I transferred the cake to a towel without any problem, peeled off the parchment paper, and sprinkled on some sugar.
I wrapped it cozily in a tea towel, and checked the progress of the apricots, but they clearly weren't ready.
It was the lekvar that stopped my progress dead in its tracks. If you're short of time, you should definitely take Rose's suggested shortcut, which is dispensing with the homemade lekvar, and just using apricot filling or preserves. The lekvar recipe may not be 100% authentic anyway, because traditional lekvar is made from fresh fruit at the end of summer (or so my Google sources tell me), instead of reconstituting dried apricots. On the other hand, the lekvar has a very intense taste, so I'm not sorry that I made it--just sorry that I didn't read the recipe more carefully and start soaking the apricots before I went out for lunch. If I'd done that, I might have had a cake to come home to at midnight. Meanwhile, I made the apricot syrup, a process that Jim apparently didn't memorialize. Well, not too exciting: mix sugar, water, and a soupcon of apricot brandy. Boil. Remove from heat.
I decided that I might as well wash my hair while I was waiting for the apricots to soften. If I couldn't give June and David some chocolate apricot cake, I could at least be well-groomed. With clean and shiny hair, I checked the apricots. They were at last ready to be transformed into lekvar (which is, by the way, just the Hungarian word for jam).
It was 5:30 by this time, and I barely had time to change into non-floured and non-lekvared clothing. Dave and June picked us up to go to
Bryant-Lake Bowl for dinner. I challenge readers to tell me about another bowling alley that serves an entree like I had for dinner: chickpea pilaf over a bed of steamed mustard greens. I was very apologetic about the lack of cake for late-night dessert, especially since I had spent the entire afternoon working on the dang cake.
The next morning, I unwrapped the cake. I foresaw a bad end result. It did not want to unroll, parts of the cake stuck to the dishtowel, and one end felt hard and stale.
I lost the zen sense I'd had the day before and became pouty and resentful. Why had I spent the entire day trying to bake a cake that had way too many steps and wasn't even going to taste good anyway? And why did I still have to try to put it together and make a glaze as well? My mood wasn't enhanced when I took the lekvar out of the refrigerator and found that it resembled apricot-flavored concrete. It needed a machete, not a spatula. And the ganache, which had been so smooth and creamy yesterday, was today just a hard mass of chocolate.
I added water to the concrete, and was able to drop globs of it onto the cake, and take a stab at spreading it.
And the ganache got to spreading consistency with just a few quick zaps in the microwave.
But see how the cake now has all those odd little fingers sticking up on the side?
It wasn't hard to roll up again because it had permanently adjusted to its rolled-up position, and had no desire to become flat again.
Only one thing left to make: the lacquer glaze. This is the glaze that's on the cover of
Heavenly Cakes and that people have been buzzing about. It's not at all hard to make, but it does require sieving--a step I'm always tempted to eliminate. But here's proof that I didn't.
Pouring it over the cake is not a neat and tidy procedure. You lose a lot of glaze, as it falls off the cake and drips from the rack. You can rescue some of it, but not without getting chocolate all over your hands. Then I went shopping, leaving Jim detailed instructions about how he could give it away to anyone who happened by. He had to cut off the end slice and then he had to apologize for the cake, explaining that it was probably not up to my usual standard because of a series of events, which he was not to go in to because it would be too boring. (And yet the fear of being boring has not stopped me from telling you, has it?)
I served more cake when I got back from shopping. To my surprise, it was actually good. Not just "good considering that it was stale and misshapen," but actually
good. The apricot-chocolate combination was dynamite, and the total of 3 teaspoons of apricot brandy really perked up the taste of everything. It wasn't stale at all--the cake was tender and flavorful. The only problem was that I couldn't feel aggrieved any more. And here is the lesson I learned: even though these recipes are detailed and specific, there's actually quite a lot of wiggle room. It's not impossible to ruin one of these cakes, but it's harder than you might think.
TASTING PANELMary: "The cake is very good, but it looks like it was a lot of work."
Karen: "It presents very well on the plate. It has the flavor of something made by a really fine pastry chef."
Jim: "I like the taste of the apricot--it's distinct, but subtle. The layering brings out the combination of flavors nicely."
Sarah: "The chocolate filling is amazing. The apricot is delicious."
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