We've had a good number of cakes recently due to Easter and birthdays — including a lavish trifle, flourless chocolate cake, a Victoria sponge, one other one that I'm not remembering, a sophisticated and lemony one from Dorie Greenspan's Baking book, (affiliate link) and then for Deirdre's birthday, the requested Birthday Cake for All Occasions.
I was also making the birthday supper, going to the endodontist, taking my mom for a test at the hospital (how busy we are in this shut-down!) — so I didn't get any truly stellar pictures. We just sang Happy Birthday and dove in!
How about a few mediocre ones (edited to say that I made this again and updated this post with that first photo, redeeming myself somewhat!) …
I want to tell you a variation from my tried-and-true “Sacher-torte” treatment (apricot jam in the middle, simple ganache glaze on top — so quick, so elegant).
The cake is really just so nice — I don't know if I can adequately convey the serious moistness of it, the lovely crumb, the satisfying chocolate-y-ness…
I will say that it's best made with (peanut) oil. I know I said in that post that I don't use vegetable oils, but I make an exception for peanut oil in certain things, and this is one of them. (The recipe is here.)
My new variation is to make the whipped ganache from the Gateau Paris-Brest, a dessert I used to make for Easter but the truth is that there are so many wonderful cakes and desserts and so many bakers around here that these old standards don't get much of a work-out anymore.
Anyway, that ganache is also much more bang for your dessert buck — simply just bring to the boil 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream, take off the heat, and add 8 oz. of high-quality chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli 60%), whisking until melted.
Let the mixture cool — but don't let it get cold. I had made it the night before and stuck it in the fridge, and then it was too cold, so then I had to warm it up over a bowl of warm water, and then it was too warm, and so on… it needs to be just… cool.
At that point it will whip up in your mixer to be a kind of delectable chocolate whipped cream. If it's not too cold (sigh) you can spread it on your layers and it's just… perfect.
bits & pieces
- By now I'm sure you've seen this stunningly ignorant, chillingly aggressive piece on “a presumptive ban on homeschooling” from Harvard Magazine, leading up to a “homeschooling summit.” The thinking it represents is a threat to families everywhere, not only to homeschoolers.
Lots of good responses all over — here (“I was 5 years old, and we lived in a trailer park in rural Central Florida”), here (five key points that challenge the article’s primary claim that the alleged “risks for children—and society—in homeschooling” necessitate a “presumptive ban on the practice”), and here (“Strangely enough, the article left out the fact that nearly two-thirds of US students aren’t proficient in reading”), just for starters.
Yesterday there was a conference hosted by Cevin Solig of the The Disinformation Campaign Against Homeschooling. I think that link will work, that provided a lot of information to refute the article and what it stands for.
My husband's initiative, the Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture, is hosting what promises to be an important conference on May 13 to address the question “Who Owns Your Children?: Home Education in an Authoritarian Age”
This conference is not only to oppose the Harvard Law School one, “Homeschooling Summit: Problems, Politics, and Prospects for Reform,” (which has actually been canceled!) — but to provide positive understanding going forward. Please sign up to receive mailings and to be sure you can register to hear Robert George, Douglas Farrow, Andrew Beckwith, Kerry McDonald, Frank Edelblut (NH Commissioner of Education — himself a homeschooler!), Jamie Gass, and others.
They will expose the elites at Harvard Law and elsewhere who want to regulate homeschooling out of existence — but they will also provide the religious understanding, Constitutional framework, and natural law arguments for the primacy of the family and the role of the state in education.
This conference will go far beyond simply rebutting Elizabeth Bartholet's groundless assertions. Please share the information with your fellow homeschoolers and groups. The Harvard conference may have been canceled, but the urge to control parents and usurp their rights over their children is going forward.
- This video is hilarious (you kind of have to know how demanding being an altar server for the Traditional Latin Mass is, but once you know that, a quarantine workout makes sense!):
- Witty upending of the logical consequences of slavish acceptance of policy: When a Bishop Mandates ‘Social Distancing' for Brides and Grooms
- Surrogacy and IVF are wrong. Whenever I see news of some gay celebrity “having a baby” my heart breaks for the child, deprived for good of his mother, whose identity is erased. Michael Brendan Dougherty reminded me of this excellent article he wrote some time ago, that poignantly reveals how our laws change our view of the child from person to commodity. (By the way, this relates to the usurpation of parental rights in the area of education as well, see links above.)
“And rather than the state “recognizing” an antecedent and natural institution of the family whose claims trump those of the state, it will have to take the new commercial understanding of parentage into its hand as it usurps the power to assign legal parentage regardless of biology. The intent of the contracting parties now trumps nature.”
- One of the best essays I have read on how the state should respond to lockdown policies. “My protest does not concern the medical assessment of the COVID-19 virus and its propagation. It concerns the public policies designed to confront this problem.”
from the archives
- The Bossiness Cure — and really, do check out all the discipline posts. Just remember that discipline is something learned over their whole childhood. It doesn't have to be perfect today (and it won't be). Aim high, but don't worry about shortfalls.
- Seems timely: To Be Happy at Home
liturgical year
The feast of the great St. Athanasius, bishop and doctor
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Logan says
Virginia folks pay attention to the government overreach, it’s happening.
https://parentalrights.org/hot-button-issues/#.XqwjAqHnLSJ.mailto
Amy says
My heart also breaks for children conceived by donors, surrogacy, etc. But what I wish more Catholics and Christians understood is that many, many current adoption practices do the same thing. They erase the child’s true identity. They commodify the child. They deprive the child of of his/her mother. I know adoption is necessary in some circumstances, but be aware of what you are celebrating when you celebrate adoption. (Not you specifically, Leila, just “you” in general.)
On a different note I’m glad Harvard’s anti-homeschooling conference was cancelled, for now. What a myopic mess that would have been.
Leila says
Amy, I agree about adoption. There are so many unintended consequences of trying to do good. We have to be careful and prudent. The more something involves children, the more prudence we need.
Jamie says
What bothers me most about surrogacy, and sperm /egg donation is that there is no acknowledgement of loss. Society and the child is supposed to act as though that biological parent never existed in the first place. WIth adoption, divorce, or death, there is societal acknowledgment of the loss of the original family. I think that makes a big difference.
Sarah says
That is a good distinction, Jamie, thank you.
Whitney Callaway says
Part of Harvard’s argument is that homeschooling is associated with child abuse. It is true that abused children are often kept at home under the guise of “homeschooling” but it is not true that homeschooled children are abused.
As an abuse victim myself and now a victim advocate, this is a frustratingly common outlook.
The fact of the matter is that abusers hide behind good things. “Christian” domestic abusers hide behind Ephesians 5:22. Abusive parents hide behind the commandment for children to obey their parents. Employers hide behind the law. Abusive priests hide behind the sacrament of reconciliation.
Choosing to get rid of the good things abusers hide by is not winning, it’s losing. It’s displacing responsibility from the evil, and placing it on the good. It’s giving the evil a “get out of jail free” card, while admonishing good things.
The most painful example of this is in the domestic violence and sexual assault victims I work with. And I was one of them. Abusers find any reason to hit you, like poorly done chores. “If I just was better about washing the dishes every morning and evening — if I was just better about getting the water marks off the glasses — what is wrong with me that I can’t sweep and mop every day” It’s way to, as the victim, pretend that you have some sort of control over the situation. There is no control. Even if you’re an incredibly lazy partner who does no chores, no one should beat you. It’s always the abusers fault. And, as a victim, the realization that nothing you do can stop him is terrifying.
My theory as to why this thought pattern happens on a larger, society level is because they’re afraid to look evil in the face. It’s so awful and so uncontrollable. Then, in a bid for control, they ban an activity they have control over. We’ve tried to make abuse illegal and it’s worked spectacularly poorly (because, shockingly, evil doesn’t obey the law). But we can ban good, which typically obeys the law much better.
Then someone can pat themselves on the back and say they did a good job fighting abuse.
In the meantime, parental abuse will still happen. The parents will just find other ways to abuse their children that are not as visible to the teachers their children now have to meet.
It’s cowardice — not facing the abusive actions head on and, instead, creating fake victories over things tangential to abuse but do not cause abuse.
Emily says
The part about “making abuse illegal” is so true. We make laws that the *good* will follow, and *criminals* will not–because they do not care! Evil does not care about the law. We see this with firearms legislation (and I’m fairly ambivalent about guns, myself, so take that into consideration): yes, OK, we can have laws. But if someone is bent on evil and destruction, he will do it with whatever–a knife, a van (as we’ve seen in European terrorist attacks), etc. You cannot ban evil. You can, however, make it very hard to be good!
Caitlin says
Whitney, this was stunningly lucid and well-put. Thank you.
Whitney, this point you make is essential reading. Abusus Non Tollit Usum “misuse of the good does not argue against its use.” It seems that when the ruling class chooses to do away with the good like this, they show their collective hand as, in some way, abusers themselves. I wonder if you could share some helps for us on how to recognize their MO and protect our minds against such persons, (in the state, the media, academia, and the church,) who use the same sort of techniques as abusers to manipulate, shame, blame, project, gaslight, and turn us, the victims, on each other for not being compliant or obedient to their (illegitimate or unjust) authority.
I am compelled to say a good word about Tolstoy’s stories for children. When I was in 4th grade, my teacher lent me a translation of the readers Tolstoy wrote for his farmers’ children. While I don’t remember the specific content, and it may well be that what I read was a carefully edited version that left out what was unsuitable, my fond memory is of beautiful fables and moving folktales. I have been a fan of folktales ever since, both from the West and from the East.
I tried for a long time to find an English edition for my children, and wasn’t very lucky, having no idea what title they could even have been given in the US. Then some time ago I found a used book called “Russian Stories and Legends”, by Tolstoy, published by Pantheon Books. Thinking that finally I may have found at least some of Tolstoy’s stories from my childhood, I bought it for my kids. Curiously enough, I have never read it… until your link made me go fetch it, and read the first one. Oh my, quick everyone, try to see if you can find anywhere “What Men Live By”, because it’s one of the most wonderful stories you’ll ever read! Like the shoemaker Simon and his mysterious guest, you will learn three truths about man… and about God.
My point is that maybe some of his stories for children were not good, I don’t know, but many of them are true gems, and it would be a shame if they were forgotten.
I realize now my beginning is a bit confusing if one doesn’t know I didn’t grow up in the US, so the version I read was not in English.
I heard that the conference was not cancelled, but rescheduled for next year.
The “Knight Acolyte” video was amazing!
I nearly spit out my coffee reading the review of Tolstoy’s children’s stories. Quite funny.
Hello,
First of all that chocolate cake is KILLING ME!!!!! Just when I think I’m going to back off a bit on the baking, and bread eating, you post a picture like that!!!!!! lol Well, after all it is still Easter! I’ll just have to give it a try next week, for Mother’s Day!! Even though I’m not a mum, I’ll eat in in honour of our Blesses Mother ; )
Also, I wanted to know what time zone the conference is in on the 13th? I live in eastern time zone.
Thanks so much.
Lisa
Oh my, I thought the title of the Tolstoy article was tongue-in-cheek! yikes! Good to know; I may have picked up one of those at some point in our schooling… will be sure to glance carefully over any Tolstoy stories that may come our way ><
We also have a chocolate cake for every birthday. It has been served at almost every birthday in our extended family for at least thirty years: Black Magic cake, which my mom found in a Hershey’s cookbook. It is a one-bowl cake that has all the elements of yours, but with the addition of a cup of black coffee. Let me tell you, it is sensational. Never dry, dark and ultra chocolatey. The 8-year-old can make it. You slap some buttercream frosting on there — it just screams Happy Birthday to me. (BTW, you can’t taste the coffee. The coffee just enhances the cocoa powder’s flavor.)