Obsession

Perhaps it's wrong to call this a gateau. It's only got two layers for a start. Anyway, it's my attempt at the chinese-ified gateau's that you get in Chinatown, without the faux cream because I still don't want to try the lard concoction. This is the sky-high vanilla buttermilk cake (rather than chiffon) and covered with whipped cream and fruit. The intention was to wrap the cake in mango like they do in the shops, but I realised that a) my mangos were overripe and slightly squishy, b) I'm a bad slicer, c) the mango is not very "tall" compared to my cake (even though there are just two rather than the three that the sky-high recipe makes - that other layer was eaten hot.) Anyway, just a picture then.Nom.

After obsessing about the Sky High baking group pics from several years ago, and buying the Sky High book, I've funnily only ever made one recipe - the buttermilk cake recipe, that is *drumroll* up till now!! It was my brother's birthday and ... I realised that in our family we don't have any "favourite" cakes. My sister doesn't do raisins, my parents don't like cinnamon or anything other than vanilla sponge with whipped cream, but we have NO FAVOURITE CAKES. Which, can be quite handy. So today I made Banana and chocolate chip cake from the book. Shockingly easy, but also in the american way of baking, not so great on the results. Let me explain, if you gave me a list of ingredients I am almost always going to go butter, sugar, eggs, flour - in that order. This cake is almost muffin-like in it's creation. Dry meets wet, meets some more wet. I think the texture suffered as a result and it didn't have the lushness of banana bread. A bit more cream...