Easy cakes and bakes for summer, including an elevated fondant fancy

Telegraph

2 days ago

My head is full of flowers and fruit. Every year they come in much the same order: blood oranges, rhubarb, blueberries, gooseberries and strawberries. The stone fruit arrives later, but I can wait (that's part of the pleasure, though I've seen the first apricots from France and Italy and I'm itching to put them in a tart – the edges of the slices becoming caramelised – or in an upside-down cake, the fruit softening to glowing circles that you can glaze with honey). Flowers have an order too. There are primroses – they were out a long time ago in my street – then daffodils, tulips, bluebells and freesias (that scent).
It might be because we had a proper spring this year, one with mostly warm weather, that I'm using flowers in baking and desserts much more than usual, and I'm obsessed with colour. Using flowers in baking is not new to me – I've been cooking with rose and orange flower waters and lavender for years – and I don't see it as cloying or 'cute'; it's just a way of making dishes taste and look even more beautiful than they might. My walks right now take me past smells I love even though I rarely know what the plants are (except for the obvious ones). My garden is full of dandelions – it goes a bit meadow-like at this time of year – and tulips. I don't grow anything neatly. It's haphazard and I like it that way.
The flower and fruit obsession means I have to restrict my time on Instagram or I can spend hours looking at what bakers and gardeners are creating. There are those who make tarts and cakes of almost mathematical precision – look at what is happening at Lannan Bakery in Edinburgh, with its rhubarb and custard tart of pure clean lines (the poached rhubarb is set in rhubarb jelly).
Then look at From Lucie in the East Village in NYC. Lucie Franc de Ferriere, the baker and owner, has a totally different approach. There are few straight lines here; there is abundance, cascades. Discovering her work made me want to go wild. She doesn't, of course, throw flowers at her cakes, but it feels that way. She doesn't care whether the flowers used are edible or not, but I'm not sure, as long as you tell eaters, that this matters.
I like delicate things too. The single viola on mauve icing. Every so often I buy fondant fancies. They're beautiful to look at but disappoint when you eat them. You think they'll feel and taste like velvet, but they just taste like sugar. There's no scent and no contrast. The floral iced squares here were my attempt to make fondant fancies, but better. These are lemon-scented and taste like a child's birthday cake, with a smooth buttercream between the sponge layers. Have a look too at the cakes made by Blushing Cook in London, decorated with pressed edible flowers.
Going down an internet rabbit hole, I stumbled across a photographer who lives in Maine. Her name is Cig Harvey and she loves cake, flowers and colour. A documentary was made of her work – you can watch it online – called Eat Flowers. One of Harvey's closest friends had leukaemia and was required to isolate. Harvey created a series of photographs for her, using flowers and focusing on colour. Life looked saturated. It was, she said, about finding beauty in unexpected places.
She then started photographing cakes and fruit too. There's a dark chocolate cake studded with blackberries, a cherry cake half hidden in a pewter tin, a whole table of fruit and cake, partly demolished and staining the white cloth on which they're spread. This could appear messy but in fact makes you yearn to have arrived in time for the party. She wants us to spend more time looking.
Cakes, tarts and desserts aren't necessary. We don't have to eat them. At their best they make you look again, and taste again. They're about beauty and joy.