Tales of the Domestically Challenged: Clementine Cake

Like the pumpkin pies that preceded this cake this was another one of those recipes: "Oh it looks easy enough! It has very few ingredients and everyone is raving about it in the comments."

Clementine cake crossed my radar via Treehugger's Weekday Vegetarian feature but it's the creation of Nigella Lawson who says she cooks "for her own pleasure, for enjoyment." Nigella "finds cooking therapeutic." She wrote a book called How to be a Domestic Goddess. The cover has a feminine, pinkish-white, rosette-topped cupcake on the cover and here is a description from Amazon:

"The trouble with much modern cooking is not that the food it produces isn't good, but that the mood it induces in the cook is one of skin-of-the-teeth efficiency, all briskness and little pleasure. Sometimes that's the best we can manage, but at other times we don't want to feel like a postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched woman but, rather, like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake . . ."

Now had I shuffled over to her Wikipedia page and then to Amazon I would have seen all of that and probably abandoned the recipe because those aren't the reasons I cook and I have no desire to be a domestic goddess. The only reason I cook is because I am not wealthy and can neither afford to employ a personal chef nor to eat out everyday.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the reason a lot of women are "postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched" and all at the same time is because were are trying too hard to be "rather, like a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes?" I contentedly (more or less) operate in a kitchen of brisk efficiency thank you very much. Don't get me started on trailing fumes that aren't sprayed from an atomizer.

Back to the cake: The only ingredient I had to acquire were almonds. I briefly wondered if I could substitute almond extract but some quick poking around on the Internet told me I couldn't because the ground almonds act like flour. I bought slivered almonds and decided our fancy blender with it's multiple settings would be sufficient in grinding them the way a food processor would and adding an unspecified amount of sugar was recommended to ease this step.

The recipe said to simmer the clementines to soften them up because they too would be going into the blender: pith (the white stuff under the skin) and peel included. The simmering clementines smelled great. Seriously, I would boil a bunch of citrus just to get that aroma.

Despite having to work in small batches everything ground, pureed, and mixed nicely. Color, consistency, and smell all looked good to go so into the springform pan it went.

I pulled it from the oven still smelling and looking edible. After it cooled I nervously offered a slice to David he took one bite and flinched. I could feel my body tense because despite all my big talk about hating the kitchen I don't like to fail part of being efficient is consistent success. I snatched the plate from him and took a bite: it was bitter. Too bitter even for David who isn't a big fan of sweets.

He asked if I had used the pith and I said:"Yeah! That's what the recipe said to do. I know the pith is normally frowned upon for being inedible but..."then I tipped the cake into the trash.

This is another instance where I don't know what I did wrong. Could the clementines have been languishing for too long in our fruit bowl? After I added the sugar to aid in grinding should I have added more sugar to the batter? I've picked over the comments here and here trying to see if anyone else has had these problems and the closest solution I have found is omitting some of the clementine peels (But how many though?) or adding some vanilla extract.  The people whose cakes came out bitter and didn't pass muster at their tables threw the recipe out.

I've got five clementines glaring at me again and I just might be stubborn enough to try this recipe one more time before throwing in the towel.

Tales of the Domestically Challenged: Pumpkin Pie

This is not my pie. My pie looked similar but that's about it.

There are at least two pie queens in my family: one I am related to by blood (a pumpkin pie queen to be specific) and the other (her children ask for birthday pies instead of cake) through marriage. These two women are so exceptionally gifted at the art of the dessert pie that I have not truly forayed into pie making.

It's not that I'm intimidated (okay maybe a little) but the whole construction of most pies makes me want to claw my eyes out. The rolling of dough, the pinching, cutting, and latticework that tops a lot of pies looks to me like torture. That scene from Disney's Snow White pops into my head with Snow's smug little face and voice while the precious woodland creatures help her efficiently create a perfect pie. No wonder the Queen wanted Snow White dead, no one could live up to that caliber of domesticity. I bet the Queen was sick of her husband crowing around the castle about how Snow's baking was sooooo exceptional she just wanted to shut the both of them up for good.

I haven't even made sugar cookies in over a year because about halfway through the seemingly endless creation I get restless and chuck the dough into the trash rather than suffer through another dozen little cats or whatever. So why with that sort of bad attitude, and that special blend of mediocrity and impatience only I can bring to the kitchen, did I get it into my head to try baking pumpkin pies? It's not something I fully understand but can perhaps explain.

The pressure to be less wasteful with the food we buy has to be a part of it because the very first pumpkin pie I made was with a Halloween jack o' lantern. The other part must have been how easy the pie seemed to me: roast the hell out of a smashed up pumpkin, pull off rind, dump in spices, puree it, dump in crust, and bake. Note: I did not make my own crust I bought one because I figured if I was going through the trouble to divert a pumpkin from a landfill we could indulge in some partially hydrogenated crust. Now that first pie I baked was perfect: everything about it hummed with sheer awesome I bet you that mothereffer came out of the oven bathed in a golden light. The consistency, sweetness, and color of the pumpkin goop was as delectable if not better than what you can buy at the store.

Every pumpkin pie I have made (about six) since that inaugural one has failed miserably, the goop was grainy and bitter, and I don't know what I'm doing wrong or what I did right that first time. Even the roasting process has been taxing. The only thing that has changed is the pumpkins I have purchased. Upon the urging of the Internet in general I started buying smaller pie specific pumpkins because jack o' lantern pumpkins are supposedly bland and grown to astronomical sizes strictly for carving purposes.

Are the pumpkins past their prime? Did I need to adjust the ratio of seasonings to goop? Can the squirrels or perhaps the creature David found in our attic that he originally thought was a mole but was actually a shrew help me with the next pie I bake? And if they are so damn good at baking they can do it all by themselves for all I care.