Today being Easter sunday I decided to make a special dessert. New York has it’s Easter bonnets, why not create one of my own? I have a vague recollection of such a cake made by my grandmother when I was a child. I remember she had covered the plate with icing to resemble the rim of the hat , the cake being the crown. She had decorated it with flowers made out of glacé cherries, and pieces of marshmallows. the stems were angelica (a kind of green candied fruit or leaf or vegetable i never knew…even if i can still recall it’s smell).
Armed with these recollections I set out to first make the cake. I chose a poppy seed cake because it holds it’s shape and because I knew i could make three small cakes with one batch. The recipe called for flour, which I sifted over the mixer so it got blown all over the place. Then I had to use my hand held mixer to beat egg whites separately so I inserted each little beater being careful to fit the one with the thicker end in the proper hole. I clicked them in place and pushed the button. One beater fell off, I had to pick it off the floor, wash and dry it and insert it again. I was holding the beater close to my face to make sure I had inserted it properly and started it to check. this time it did not fall off, it flew off right onto my nose. Those mixers are lethal instruments! My old one would come unplugged while I was using it and the wire would fall into whatever I was beating (more often than not, egg whites). One time I was in a hurry, and wanted to quickly clean the plug before reinserting it in the mixer, so I stuck it in my mouth to lick the meringue off. WRONG move…it was still plugged into the wall socket!
My motto is : “Never let them see you sweat…or bleed” soooo I finished the cake…made a lemon icing and decorated it with a mauve ribbon and some sugar flowers. It was very good even if not quite an Easter bonnet look alike.
