The Appeal of Mrs Toogood

Last time out, my dad tried to say something nice about my ability to churn out blog posts when I’ve got nothing at all to write about. Well, hold onto your hat, father of mine. This one’s a doozy.

Lockdown 2.0 means that I’m not allowed to make frivolous bus trips to Ticklepenny Lock until December at the earliest. I was tempted to take a break from blogging until my next load of trees get delivered but I’m keen to maintain some sort of routine so here goes. Feel free to skip ahead two weeks. You won’t be missing anything.

Once the orchard is worthy of the name and I’m reaping apples by the barrowload, I’m hoping to use the fruits of my (family’s) labours to make cakes and/or cider. Lockdown gives me a bit of an opportunity to dive in. This week: cake making. Rein in your excitement.

My cake-plan is to find a recipe for the best ever apple cake, wander off to Tesco and then throw one together, recording my self-indulgent ponderings as I do so. It’s weak, I know. Seriously, when I said skip ahead, I meant it.

The first thing I should say is that I am officially a terrible cook. I try to learn but about every two or three weeks, when my tolerance for burnt potato curry has reached its limit, I throw away all the cooking ingredients and utensils I have amassed and commit myself wholeheartedly to ready meals. I once cooked my friend Stuart and his girlfriend of the time a Spaghetti Bolognese into which I poured, entirely ignorant of the difference, mixed herbs and mixed spices. I was genuinely shocked when they didn’t want second helpings. He still reads this blog. I can only imagine it’s because he’s still bitter and wants an apology. Let it go, dude. It was 25 years ago. Water under the bridge.

Anyway, undeterred by my overwhelming craptitude, I start asking around for potential recipes. Annoyingly, no-one I know claims to have one. I was hoping for some ancestral hocus pocus that can’t go wrong and always produces a cake that normal humans can eat and reasonably pretend to be enjoying. No dice. I resort to googling “best ever apple cake recipes” and end up on the BBC Good Food site. They’ve got a few but the one that catches my eye does so with these words: “simple-to-make.” Dorset Apple Tray Bake it is then.

I scan the list of ingredients to see if I’ve got any already. Nope. Then I check the pots and pans and such like. Nope, none of them either. List thusly sorted, I head off towards the supermarket.

There are five cooking apples left on the shelf therein. The sign says they’re Bramleys and the heckles rise on the back of my neck. Fortunately for all concerned, a calm voice deep inside my head tells me the staff don’t deserve to listen to me pointing out that the real Bramley tree is pretty much dead and these are just clones that mostly resemble Bramleys. Thanks, Jiminy Cricket.

Apple ingredients and baking trays located, I pick up a precooked pasta pot that I can eat for lunch on my way home. As soon as I’m past the tills and surgical mask free, I open up and discover that single use plastic forks have become a thing of the past. I pause briefly before launching in with my bare hands, not because I resent saving the planet for other people’s children to inherit but because Raynaud’s makes any interaction with cold things an edge of your seat race against time. I stick my hand in and start funnelling overcooked pasta into my neck before frostbite sets in. I bet none of the passers-by think I’m a tramp. Not even when they see the dollops of sauce slurping their way down my anorak.

Anyway, the rest of the journey passes without incident and Baking Sunday eventually rolls around. It was going to be Baking Saturday but I blew the first lot of eggs on a decadent breakfast.

Butter the tray, peel and core the apples, set the oven to Gas mark 4. It feels good to use the settings on my oven at last. Normally I do everything on gas mark maximum. It just saves time.

Stan leaps/blunders onto the kitchen worktops while I’m trying to smash up the refrigerated butter. I’m not totally convinced having his paws everywhere is hygienic but I guess he can’t be that grufty. He spends half his waking life licking himself clean. I only shower once every two or three days.

Everything goes in the mixing bowl until I realise my mixing bowl isn’t anything like big enough to cope. I transfer it to the massive curry pot I’ve probably cleaned well enough for the cake not to taste of onion and garlic, losing a load of mixture in the process. Next up, “mix well until smooth.” I can’t even get close. I should probably have let the lump of butter melt first. I start blasting a few blobs at a time in my food processor losing yet more mixture in the process.

The final doughy mix looks the part but there are lumps of butter throughout. I decide not to invest further effort on the basis that it’ll melt in the oven and I’m fairly certain I’ve heard them talking about lumps of butter on the Great British Bake Off. I’m almost definitely sure it will be fine.

What isn’t fine though is that I run out of mixture with about a quarter of the second cake mix layer to go. I try to cover up as best I can, pour over the rest of the apples, shrug and bang it in the oven. It’s not gone great but it’s my first time. As long as I can eat it without stomach cramps it’ll be a victory.

Forty five minutes later, I reach in with my one oven glove and manage to get it on to the cat-free kitchen unit without tipping it all over the floor. It looks great. Correction: looked great. Three seconds after emerging, the centre of the cake sags down under an invisible, but apparently enormous, weight. I try to slice it up but I’m not sure it’s completely cooked. Too late now. I think it’s more pudding than cake really, but at least it tastes alright. I am disproportionately pleased with myself and immediately decide to buy myself a cake mixer for Christmas.

Anyway, that’s cakes done. Next time, if lockdown is still preventing me from going home, I might try cider.