Carpe diem

With the amount of baking I do, there is always something sweet around the apartment. Between trials of new cakes and left-overs from orders (I always bake extra in case of a kitchen mishap - the good ol' Baker's Dozen), if I ate everything from the cake box I'd be the size of a house. There is such a thing as (never thought I'd say this) too much cake. Even as I write that I'm cringing. It feels blasphemous, like a betrayal of all the cakes I've lovingly made.

So what's a girl to do? I certainly can't eat it all and I wouldn't countenance throwing it in the bin. It's beautiful cake, not rubbish! Besides, my inner Thrifty Queen is very disapproving of waste. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to my freezer: champion of the cake and saviour of my waistline. When I have doled out samples and left-overs to my willing guinea pigs (thank you family), anything remaining goes straight into the freezer. Happily, there are very few cakes that don't like freezing. Simply defrost those with icing or filling until they come to room temperature, then eat. For scones, muffins, pastries and the like, defrost then refresh for about 5 minutes in a hot oven (the microwave will make them unpleasantly rubbery). Hey presto, freshly baked yumminess with no effort! Not that most people need this little nugget of wisdom. I once told one of my regular customers that if her family didn't get through the whole chocolate fudge cake, she could freeze the rest. She just looked at me, completely bemused - why wouldn't they get through the whole cake?

All this talk of freezing cake was by way of introduction to my lovely afternoon with a chocolate fudge cupcake, a cup of coffee and the Sunday papers yesterday. I overdosed on cake around Easter and haven't been eating (or dreaming about it) quite as much as usual lately. Then my sister told me she'd just had one of my chocolate cupcakes that were stored in her freezer (I'm not the only one, see! Must be a family thing), which reminded me that I had some in my freezer too. I was a little late in taking it out to defrost (countdown: approximately two hours till coffee time), which caused a little pang of disappointment; now that I'd embraced the notion of cake and coffee, I was loath to give it up. At approximately one hour till coffee time the cake was almost there; it felt slightly soft, though still cold and undoubtedly a touch solid in the centre. As it had a buttercream icing, it couldn't go in the oven to speed up the process, so I tried a different approach (desperate times). I stood the cake on a plate, which was in turn balanced on a bowl of hot water (not as precarious as it sounds).

Success! The cake sponge was still moist, perfectly soft and warmed through, and the fudgy icing was just squidgy enough. Even better, it was exactly what I wanted at that particular moment. I'm a planner (OK, control freak) and normally, I would decide the day before to have some cake, remember to take it out first thing in the morning and allow plenty of time for it to defrost and come to temperature. (I confess, this sometimes results in a lovely defrosted piece of cake that I no longer want.) Yesterday's burst of spontaneity culminated in the perfect cake moment, with a delicious cupcake and a nicely brewed cup of coffee, both served on pretty china that I normally save for a 'special' occasion. I learned a very valuable lesson years ago when my brother died of cancer aged only 18. He was someone who squeezed every last drop of joy out of life and I swore I would always try to do the same. Life, or rather, the daily routines of life, too often distract and make me forget my promise to myself. So this perfect cake moment was my reminder, straight from the Book of Cake Revelations - seize the day!