The Fifth Beautiful Art: Cherry Cream Cakes

Recreated from The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

​   The banquet tables, fifty feet from end to end, (or perhaps these were merely the appetiser tables; the light afternoon refreshments at a feast like this could rival the main courses from any lesser occasion) were laid with silver-trimmed linen cloths. Guild chefs, the Masters of the Eight Beautiful Arts ... stood at attention in their cream-yellow ceremonial robes and black scholars' caps with hanging gold cords behind their ears. Each chef, male or female, had intricate black tattoos on each of the four fingers of each hand, every design representing mastery of one of the Eight Gourmet Forms. 
   At one end of the banquet table were desserts (the Fifth Beautiful Art) – cherry cream cakes encased in shells of gold leaf that were intended to be eaten; cinnamon tarts painstakingly assembled with honey paste glue into the shape of sailing vessels, a whole fleet of little ships with white marzipan sails and raisins for crewmen ...

​There's enough tempting food in The Gentleman Bastard Sequence to fill an entire cookery book, so this will no doubt be the first of several Scott Lynch entries. 

For now, I've turned to some treats on one of his dessert tables. I can vouch for their deliciousness despite not being qualified for a single finger tattoo yet. I ate as many as the fingers on one hand though.

Guinness doesn't sound like a particularly delicious way to start cakes but rather than being there for flavour, it gives them, in Nigella Lawson's words, a "dark majesty"; they do look especially striking against the white and red of the cream and cherries. This colour combination is a very popular choice in Fantasy cover art so I'll claim a connection there too.

For the cake (makes 8 muffin-sized cakes)

• 125ml Guinness
• 125g butter, plus a little extra for greasing the tin
• 40g cocoa powder
• 200g caster sugar
• 75ml sour cream
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 140g plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• A large handful of pitted cherries, quartered

For the filling

• Jar of cherry jam
• 125ml whipping cream

To serve

• Cherries (as many as you would like)
• Gold leaf (I used four 5cm x 5cm sheets)

 

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (400°F) fan and grease 8 holes of a 12-hole muffin tin with butter. 
2. In a bowl, whisk together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract. Set aside for later. 
3. Heat the Guinness and butter together in a large saucepan until the butter has melted. 
4. Add the cocoa powder and caster sugar to the saucepan and whisk to combine. 
5. Add the sour cream mix from step 2 to the saucepan and whisk to combine. 
6. Add the flour, bicarbonate of soda and quartered cherries to the saucepan and whisk to combine. 
7. Pour the batter into the 8 prepared holes of your muffin tin, making sure each one is no more than ¾ full.
8. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool down to room temperature.
9. When the cakes are fully cooled, slice each one in half horizontally. I kept a thinner top so there wasn't too much weight pressing down on the soft filling. 
10. Whip the whipping cream (use an electric whisk to save time and effort) and when it's able to hold soft peaks, spread on the bottom halves of your sliced cakes. 
11. On each cake, add a heaped teaspoonful of jam on top of the whipped cream. Then pop the top halves back on.
12. Add gold leaf to the tops of your completed cakes and serve with fresh cherries. 

​Based on Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake.  

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