Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache
This isn’t a book review, more of an observation about a book that’s been part of my kitchen for nearly 10 years: Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood. Is it a cookery book or a cookbook or perhaps a recipe book? Like all of the books on my kitchen shelf, it is a book about food, but this one’s specifically about cake.
I very rarely follow a recipe in any book or read a cookbook page by page, but I still love books about food. Does anyone read them page by page? They’re more of a flick through and dip in, aren’t they. They provide inspiration and aspiration. We have infinite food fact finds at our fingertips on Google, but there are a handful of recipes where I rely on my little kitchen library over and over.
Even though my reliance on their reference is slim, they are still very much treasured possessions in pride of place, their edges slightly bashed, with the odd drop of chocolate or greasy smudge of butter on dog-eared or postcard-marked pages.
Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache takes its name from two of the recipes in the book. All of the cakes in there except one are created using vegetables or fruit as one of the main ingredients, making you feel a little more virtuous about indulging.
The ultimate feel-good book of natural cakes that taste naughty
Birthday cakes with courgettes, brownies made with beetroot or carrots cunningly tucked into a caramel Swiss roll swirled with Dulce de Leche and passionfruit cream. All adding extra goodness to everyday luxury with the premise that….
you can have your cake and eat it.
Harry Eastwood’s book is beautiful from cover to cover. Eight chapters divided by colour, loosely linked by seasonality or occasion. It starts with The Pale Pink Chapter and a three-layer birthday cake, through to yellow, orange, to green with its festive collection of recipes, purple, fuschia, red, then finally to the emotional weight of The Blue Chapter with its Heartache Chocolate Cake.
She has an incredible way of turning the recipes into people or moments; an impetuous child, an ex-pat, a Radio 4 listener, a blonde bombshell or sandy days on golden beaches and cold nights around bonfires. She brings the food to life from the pages of a book and takes you inside her voyage of discovery. She explains why she wrote the book and even includes her ‘cake diaries’ dotted throughout where she confesses her tasting/testing notes from along the way. And her handy ‘trust me tips’ provide hand-holding reassurance for even the most novice of bakers.
My recipe reference: Buttercream icing from ‘Birthday Cake’
Three or four times a year when there’s call for a birthday cake, her buttercream recipe never fails. The freshly squeezed lemon juice makes it sherbety rather than sugary, so it’s my go-to recipe reference when icing a cake.
“Birthday cake is so naughty, it should be illegal. She’s everything that you’re not allowed: ice cream for breakfast, jumping up and down on the bed, and hundreds and thousands sandwiches…”
Tried and tested
I’ve baked a few of the other recipes too. The cinnamon banana bread with grated courgette and rice flour – surely that’s actually good for you and at least two of your five-a-day! Also the Chocolate and Salted Caramel Squillionnaire. Trust me to find the one recipe without vegetables.
I’m just waiting for a rainy day when I’m feeling slightly sorrowful or sensitive, and then I’ll try out the Heartache Chocolate Cake. Any cake recipe that calls for tears as an interchangeable ingredient to salt, along with 300g of the best dark chocolate and brandy “for moral support” is sure to offer emotional sustenance when the need arises.
“This cake is sad. It’s dark and drizzling down the window panes. She puffs her chest in hope when she goes into the oven; she then breaks, like a chest heaving sob.”