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Selkie's Curd Cakes

3/12/2018

Recreated from The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark

'We'd buy bread, if you have some,' he said simply. 'Milk, if you have that. Or just water.'
'Sweet water or salt?' she said in response, and laughed a harsh laugh. 'You're in luck, for I have milk, and bread, and curd cakes hot from the oven. If you've money for it.'

Food in Anna Smith Spark’s The Court of Broken Knives is an emblem of the book’s wider preoccupations; where there’s food, there’s death, disgust, desire, decadence and a modest dose of pleasure.

Food and death, it turns out, can make playful bedfellows. A bad meal – goat intestines served on porridge – makes Alxine cheerfully proclaim, ‘At least we’ve got violent death to look forward to,’ and the smell of roasting flesh in the aftermath of battle gives us, ‘whichever fucker thought roast pork was a good idea right now should be disemboweled.’ When not on the menu of battlefield banter, food (lifegiving, sustaining, nourishing food) can be subverted into something more murderous, most pointedly with the tale of an emperor’s barbed feast.

Running through the book like a good municipal sewer system, the recurrence of food-close-to-filth helps to heighten feelings of disgust: water is tainted by ‘goat shit’; stew is ‘heavily spiced to disguise the rotten meat’; and worms occupy the hard tack. I like it best, though, when the two sit side-by-side on a busy Sorlost street: ‘Shouts in every language, birdsong and music, dogs barking, bray of asses, buzz of flies, bleating of goats. Sweat and incense, spice and honey, wood smoke and rot and shit and vomit and piss.’ Were I more intrepid in the kitchen, there’d be an easy ‘Honey and Piss. Piss and Honey’ recipe in the pot.
There are two characters for whom food, desire and decadence all seem deliciously intertwined: they make love, drink honeyed wine, eat fat candied dates and dip their sticky fingers in the affairs of empire; they fill their mouths with meat while plotting (because it makes lip-reading harder); they ‘eat sweets and drink wine and plan murder in the dark’. Their extravagance is intoxicating.
Even in the depths of grimdark, there’s refuge in food as a source of pleasure amidst pain: an ensnared wife sharing milk, warm bread, yellow butter and a side of cured fish; an errant husband joining you for roasted lamb dressed with honey; an enemy offering pastries, fruit, cold meat and hot, spiced wine. Food can soften the edges of suffering – ‘the act of eating made what had gone before seem less real’ – where other indulgences fail. It can bring ‘simple pleasure’ to the damned, healing to the wounded and comfort to those with blood on their hands.

If that's not an invitation to eat cake, I don't know what is.

If I can be loose with sugar varieties, all the ingredients can be found in the book itself.

Ingredients (makes 6 tartlets but can be scaled easily to multiples of 3)
For the cakes:

butter for greasing tartlet tins
75g butter, melted and cooled
350g firm curd cheese / quark (I used twarog from the local Polish food shop)
75g golden caster sugar (regular caster or granulated sugar would also be fine)
150g ground almonds
grated lemon zest from half a lemon
2 eggs

For the drizzle:

juice of 2 lemons
2 level tbsp runny honey

For the toppings (optional):

3 tbsp flaked almonds, lightly toasted
1 tbsp icing sugar

Special equipment

six 10cm loose-bottomed tartlet tins
baking tray
sieve

Instructions

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F) fan assisted. Grease the tartlet tins with butter and set aside on a baking tray.
In a mixing bowl, add the curd cheese to the butter and mash with the back of a fork. Add the sugar, ground almonds and grated lemon zest, then mix to evenly combine all the ingredients.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then add to the rest of the ingredients in the mixing bowl. Mix to combine all the ingredients again – it will be wet but thick.
Evenly distribute the mix amongst the six tartlet tins. Keeping them on the baking tray, bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes – the cakes should be set when tested with the pointy end of a knife and the tops should be golden.
While the cakes are baking, add the lemon juice and honey to a saucepan and heat until they're fully combined.
When the cakes are baked, gently poke 6-10 holes in the top of each one (using a sharp knife or skewer) ready for the honey and lemon drizzle – it should be able to seep through the cakes without you bringing the wrath of Amrath to them. Add a tablespoon or two of drizzle to each cake. Sprinkle the almonds on top and sieve a small amount of icing sugar over each cake (both optional). Remove carefully from the tins and serve warm.

Serve with natural yoghurt to heighten the sourness; serve with vanilla ice cream to heighten the sweetness.

4 Comments

A Dip and a Dunk: Bathtime 'Butter Biscuits'

3/5/2018

7 Comments

Recreated from Shadowblack by Sebastien de Castell

Not knowing what else to do, I picked up one of the butter biscuits. I was going to put it in his paw, but he'd already stuck it back under the water, and instead opened up his fuzzy little mouth. I deposited the biscuit there and was soon treated to the sound of a squirrel cat nibbling on a butter biscuit while moaning rapturously. 'Oh yeah,' he mumbled, the words sounding garbled on account of all the chewing noises. 'This is how I want to spend my life from now on.'

Confession: this is shortbread. I can only hope said squirrel cat would eat them anyway (they are very buttery), and not my eyeballs in retribution. Unlike my butter biscuits inspired by Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch, these will withstand a thoroughly good dunking. I'd suggest tea, not bathwater.

These taste significantly better (more buttery) after an evening's rest, so make a day ahead. They'll last for up to a month in an airtight container.

Ingredients (makes 12)

180g plain flour, sifted
120g butter, softened
60g golden caster sugar
Extra flour for dusting
Extra sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Equipment: mixing bowl, wooden spoon for beating, rolling pin, biscuit cutter (appr. 6cm diameter), baking tray, fork

Instructions

Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F) fan assisted.
Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth.
Mix the flour through thoroughly to form a dough.
Dust your rolling pin and work surface with flour. Roll the dough out to 1cm thickness (I find it easier to roll smaller amounts out evenly, so I work in four batches).
Cut out the biscuit shapes with your cutter and place them on the baking tray, evenly spaced apart. Prick four times with a fork.
Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden.
Sprinkle with extra sugar if desired. Desire recommended.

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