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| Dramatischer Himmel und interessante Formen |
Die Zeit steht still.
Ich bin auswärts zu Besuch, wir feiern.
Das Geburtstagskind hat einiges auf dem Herzen. Meine Hingabe an den Versuch, eine Torte zu backen, hatte seine Gründe. Ich höre zu. Das war letztes Wochenende, an dem es Pleiten in Serie gab. Am Abend haben wir gemeinsam darüber lachen können.
Am Sonntagnachmittag konnte ich mit meiner Englischlehrerin Mary noch den Text verbessern. Surprise, surprise: Der Sonntagstext geriet mir auf Englisch viel lustiger.
Enjoy!
Severe kitchen trouble: I’m a conference interpreter. I work between German, French and English. Which means I spend a fair amount of time explaining that a French tarte is not a German Torte.
This distinction became painfully relevant when a friend requested a strawberry birthday Torte. (The German word Erdbeertorte sounds like whipped cream, pork gelatin, and lots of sugar. Yuck — beurk — igitt.)
The Mission was supposed to be completed by Sunday evening. First, the strawberries started to go bad on Saturday — within a day. I went out and bought more of the delicate organic fruit. Then my gas oven decided to give up the ghost right in the middle of baking the sponge cake base. What came out wasn’t a cake base, but a warm reminder that gravity exists.
Emergency measures followed. The internet suggested a no-bake solution. I crushed cookies, I crushed zwieback, and what little self-confidence I had left crumbled away on its own. The resulting base had the structural integrity of a diplomatic coalition between a dictator and a committed democrat.
At this point, I stopped making a Torte and started managing a crisis.
Agar-agar was deployed. Cheesecake cream was mobilized. Mascarpone refused to cooperate. Expensive pink strawberry powder was called in as a cosmetic consultant. The strawberries themselves delivered a performance best described as adequate, which is not what you want from a strawberry.
Eventually I embraced the situation. What had been intended as the bottom became the top. At this point I silently thanked the Tatin sisters. That was helpful.
What emerged was a distinctly pan-European compromise. The layers were reinterpreted. The French concept of a pièce montée, something that is assembled rather than baked, suddenly seemed very helpful to me.
Basil, almonds, and optimism will complete the project this evening.
Will I bring a strawberry cake? Maybe. It certainly won’t be anything you’d call a Torte. As in my professional life, I found myself adjusting the terminology. It might just be a strawberry crumble in its finest evening attire.
Please keep your fingers crossed that the final result is actually edible. It still needs a brief stay in the freezer to pull itself together. As for me, I spent several hours of a weekend meant for relaxation, culture, and other select activities, grappling with fruit, dairy products, and thermodynamics.
Would I ever attempt another Erdbeertorte? Only on one condition: That it’s entirely my own idea.
#1nt #xl8 #diplo
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Foto: C.E.
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