Cake Log 🎂

Because reading logs are BORING and CAKE FUCKING ROCKS. 🍰📚🍰

A baked tart, photographed from above, filled with concentric rings of thinly-sliced apple. — Tier 2.5. Who needs a mandoline, when you have a really big knife? Slightly singed.

Rose-Cut Apple tart

January 2022. This tart is now my go-to when I need someone to think I’m a competent human being; press-in crust, extra cardamom, and alternating slice colors make it look fancier than it is.

Pairs well with Don Quixote (Cervantes, not Acker), The Mystery of Edwin Drood (the musical, not the novel), and refreshing your Canvas notifications.

A dome-shaped cake that looks like a snake's eye. — Tier 1. No cracked layers or weird bits of egg white. A great eye, lidless, wreathed in whipped cream.

Swedish Princess Torte

February 2020. Made because PS Berge and I were doing a reading from our collaborative novel-in-progress, and had to supply our own refreshments. Vanilla sponge, raspberry jam, pastry cream, whipped cream, and a glowering marzipan serpent’s eye.

Pairs well with The Saga Compendium, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, glitter eyeliner, tangerine La Croix, and volcano cults.

A red circular cake with rainbow sprinkles and frosting stripes. — Tier 2. Nothing fancy. Good crumb structure, but a halfhearted piping job.

Red Velvet Bundt Cake

June 2020. I needed a bribe. Cream cheese frosting & a whole jar of red gel food coloring; actually made it twice, because the first one cracked on its way out of the pan, and so ate red velvet crumbs for nearly a week. Buttermilk and vinegar, or it’s not worth your while. And always grease the pan with melted shortening and a pastry brush.

Pairs well with Titus Alone, Maurice, Cowboy Bebop, moving day, and the feeling of wanting to peel off your whole skin.

Agatha

Since August 2017. Claims she’s not a cake.

Pairs well with The Left Hand of Darkness, The Changeling, Get In Trouble, Good Omens, This Is How You Lose the Time War, the advent of our tentacled overlords, and inbox-zero.

A round cake covered in whipped cream and cherries. — Tier 2. Messy but honest. Juicy, unbroken layers.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte

May 2020. Made because, well, it was May 2020 and I wanted a goddamn Black Forest cake. I was in an apartment that wasn’t mine; a box of Easter candy had been left behind. I misted the lizard and tried (again) to watch Twin Peaks. (I do not like Twin Peaks.) All the cherries in Tuscaloosa were frozen.

Pairs well with The Terror, Fever Dream, Radiance, Swamplandia!, The Death of Stalin, and lying to your friends about how much of their Easter candy you ate.

A brown cake in a loaf pan next to an oven mitt. — Tier 3. Ill-formed; burned edges. Dense but aromatic.

Cardamom Almond Pound Cake

April 2020. There are no good pictures of this cake. I drove it across town for D&D before it had cooled completely; it collapsed. We ate it anyway.

Pairs well with The Art of Death, Meet Me in the Future, Tooth & Claw, and vigorous swearing.