Now, we had to target the rest of the cakes keeping in mind JOY’s newly founded ethical reason… “no food colouring or artificial flavours.” She made an amazing red pigment from the extractions of beetroot, cherries, blackcurrant, and hibiscus flowers. My friend and pastry chef extraordinaire Naomi, who taught me everything pastry and whom I highly respect, stepped in to save the day or should I say many months. The red velvets were not complying to taste very good. Between our full-time jobs and making countless versions of natural red velvets, the trialling became irksome and impatient. We decided to find an alternate method of making the red velvet with beetroot and anything we could extract a red pigment from to see what happens. ‘Why were we so easily and readily feeding these types of food to children’ was a daily questioning brainstorm in the test kitchen. The ‘natural’ red colour available at the time was derived from the cochineal beetle, often mixed with aluminium. We learnt that food colouring was derived from coal and petroleum. We kept questioning ourselves, “What was JOY ultimately about.” We were starting to unravel six months of pain-staking work and the pressure to find solutions were intense. The Joy brand was to be filled with all-natural cakes that were to be subtle tones of pastels. We had undergone a long six months of trialing different cake recipes and finalising the end products, but these cakes contained food colouring. “Could we really be a cake shop that didn’t use any food colouring?” And so started our fervent research to the history of the red velvet and subsequently to the harmful effects of food colouring. This was certainly an eye-opener. She argued that it was extravagant when it didn’t offer an ounce of flavour, only to provide a slight toxic aftertaste. My sister Jini, whose food ethics are based on flavour over visuals, questioned the excessive amount of red food colouring that was asked for in these recipes. Referencing recipes from various nostalgic baking books stained with oils and dusted with remnants of flour, we quickly noticed that each recipe with slightly differing nuances, all stayed true to the exorbitant use of red food colouring. Having tried it, we understood that the lightness of the cake was its other redeeming quality. In all honesty, we had never made this infamous red velvet cake before we started experimenting. This cake carried the stigma of “redder the cake, the better”. It was a bright red cocoa buttermilk cake with cream cheese frosting. It was made popular in the US and soon after around the world. “Back in the day”, red velvet was the most popular cupcake flavour. This simplicity and enjoyment of one’s passion for baking was threatened and challenged by the ever-so-popular red velvet. With small adaptations of a number of various different recipes, most of the cakes very quickly fell into the solid ethics we were striving to achieve – balanced, moorish, simple and definitely not too sweet. There were trials filled with tears, errors, frustration yet elements of success and joy. JOY was only a thought when all the creative experimental excitement started.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |