The Lemon Cakes

I am a good cook. In fact, my friends would tell you that I am a darn good one. Not much eludes me in a kitchen. I can pretty much cook anything. Alas… I can’t bake. If my life depended on it, I could not bake a cake. I have tried though. I have tried every weekend for months now. I am hopeless.

I have tried dozens of recipes from the simplest to the most elaborated. Sometimes, the same one several times during the course of a single weekend in the hope of figuring out what I’m missing. I have tried American recipes, French ones, metric, imperial; I even tried Martha Stewarts’ own recipes, to no avail. I simply do not appear to have a pastry thumb. How is it even remotely possible?

The concoction of the batter is usually easy enough. Every ingredients is measured, weighted, whipped just enough, the ingredients are fresh, of good quality, the pans brand new and my oven’s heat is accurate. Most of the times the cakes are cook through. But they absolutely refuse to rise. They remain as flat as they were when they got into the oven. The inevitable result: a dense lemon brick.

Lately, finding tasters has become a tough job. For lack of volunteers, most cakes finish cooling down in the garbage container out in the lane.

The other day I was shopping for groceries with Marco. Lemon cakes were on sales. I bought one just for analysis. Once we got back to my place, we cut it in half to see what the inside looked like. Well, it turned out that it looked exactly like all the ones I made…