In Praise of Plain

Cupcakes, overdressed, over iced, over here.

There are many types of stalls at our farmers’ markets; cup cakes stalls aren’t amongst them. I banned them a few years ago and we’ve never relented. Some of our home made cake makers have them on their stalls, along with a range of other cakes. I’ll turn a blind eye to a bit of what I regard as bad taste. But it’s in context along with a range of other cakes.

When I was a child cup cakes were made by Lyons and came in boxes of six. Indifferent sponge topped with a layer of thick over sweet solid chocolate icing that crept into the crevices of the foil container. That was the best bit, extracting every nodule of sweetness from the foil. The cake itself was always disappointingly dry & uninteresting.

Fairy cakes were never shop bought. They belonged to home kitchens, to fetes and jumble sale tea rooms & school cake sales. Water icing, dribbling down the sides, with hundreds & thousands or those inedible silver balls, sugar flowers, dolly mixtures, or jelly diamonds.
Butterfly cakes had their tender little wings attached with butter icing, just enough to make them fly.

What distresses me is that even fairy cakes are being labelled cupcakes.    

I love fairy cakes & at the end of the strange idea of cupcake week it’s an opportunity to rage against the invasive cupcake and say enough. Over dressed, over iced and over here. Anything with a greater percentage of icing to cake is just wrong. I’m mystified as to why they have taken hold of the national consciousness. We eat with our eyes and with cup cakes the child in us takes hold. Isn’t it style over content? On the rare occasion I've tasted one I find myself throwing away most of the sickly sweet icing. 

I’ve heard of cupcake courses where students have been told that taste doesn’t matter, appearance is everything. That says it all for me.

 Earlier this year judging for a major food award, all of the judges on my table, myself included groaned to see a dish of cup cakes. One of us defended the icing; the rest of us agreed with me that we’ve just had enough.

 I think I've had more calls from cup cake makers than any other, & they sometimes don't understand when we tell them no, sorry. Any cake seller with us must produce a whole range of patisserie. Not just these over pampered monstrosities.  

Now, I understand that it’s only a bit of cake. It’s not a life threatening issue (unless you eat a boxful). I’m writing this mainly out of bemusement that such a product that can be celebrated to such an extent and given a week of celebration.

Sometimes I find myself yearning for a piece of Madeira cake, or a fatless sponge. Cakes whose looks belay their taste. Appearance isn’t everything where cakes are concerned. I’ve made pastries which emerge from the oven with their edges slightly scorched, pastry caramelised and crumbling. But the taste is something else. With a cup cake it’s the other way around. The wrong way around in my humble opinion. Less is more. Less cupcakes preferably.

When I was little I fell in love with a flower shaped cake in a Bristol bakery. Nose squashed against the window I had to be dragged away. Surprised at teatime with my green flower cake I found out that it was marzipan and imitation cream. Nasty. I threw most of it away.

It’s not snobbery to be sick of cupcakes. It’s yearning for something plain and simple. That got me thinking about the nature of plain.

Bill Bryson wrote that we are the only nation which stirs itself in collective appreciation for a cup of over milky tea & a plain biscuit. Is that still true?

I'm not going to jump for joy if the only biscuit left in the tin is a rich tea. No one gets overtly excited if offered one. But a piece of home made shortbread or a buttered crumpet or a scone. That's something else entirely. The British are so good at fireside teas even without the hearth these days. The toaster may have replaced the toasting fork but in our hearts we come alive on a cold rainy afternoon over the fragrant tea pot.

Plain means containing little fat as opposed to a 'rich' product high in fat (& presumably taste). Then we add the fat afterwards in the form of a layer of butter. Or cream. And home made jam please, damson for preference.

Plain has come to mean boring, without taste or zing. It’s not sexy, too worthy.

There’s plain in recipe, and plain in looks. A magnificent maderia cake is plain but rich in butter. Seed cake, old fashioned and almost non existent is a plain confectionary.

Many of the pastries in a French patisserie will look ordinary; discs of scorched puff pastry that hide their fillings of almond rich frangipane, confectioners custard, or seasonal fruits.

But does plain have to mean unappealing or homely? A scone to my mind is the pinnacle of plain. Never mind it's what we anoint it with that brings fulfilment, the fact remains, it's the scones simplicity that perfects it. I’ve made scones flavoured with lavender and rose but in the end, the ratio of fat to flour remains the same.

For a recent family celebration tea I made a range of cakes including a Genoese sponge filled with soft seasonal fruits, a Victoria sponge & orange flower water Madeleines. I made Financiers, rich with ground almonds.  

At school we made rock cakes, and my mother sandwiched Marie biscuits together with butter. Very acceptable.

No one wants to eat something that is dry & uninteresting. Moist & tender is a more attractive proposition. But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever be tempted to buy a cupcake.