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| Mrs. Hale's Rice Cakes With Butter, from 1841. Photo: Elizabeth Urbach. |
The Challenge: #10 -- Let Them
Eat Cake! October
5 - October 18
"The
16th is the anniversary of the beheading of Marie Antoinette (zut alors!). In
honor of Madame Deficit, prepare your best cake from a historic recipe. And
then eat it, bien sur."
This
challenge came along at a good time, because my brother and I each attended a
wedding in the past fortnight, and therefore wedding cake played a small part
in our thoughts recently. My friend, the
bride at one wedding, is allergic to wheat, so she had a completely wheat-free
wedding brunch menu and had locally-made gourmet ice cream instead of wedding
cake. My brother's friend, the groom at
the other wedding, is from the U.K. and he and his bride had two receptions,
according to my brother: one with tea and cakes directly after the wedding
ceremony and church service, and a dinner later in the evening. My brother couldn't tell me what kind of
cakes there were, only that they were fairy cakes (cupcakes) and brownies. But a tea-and-cake wedding reception – how fun! I'm pretty much up for tea and cakes any
time, wedding or not.
My
friend is a "foodie" and is always looking for good recipes,
especially so now that she has been diagnosed with a wheat allergy. I made her some wheat- and gluten-free
Italian cookies for part of her wedding gift, and when I started researching
recipes for this challenge, this rice flour cake recipe caught my eye. Bonus: it doesn't contain any
"wierd" ingredients that some modern gluten-free baking recipes
have! Everything apart from the rice
flour comes from a normal pantry, and even the rice flour is relatively easy to
find in areas with large Asian communities.
