We found this clever stadium-shaped Nordic Ware Bundt Pan at one of our favorite shopping spots, Kitchen Art, where you can find everything from Le Creuset to tea cosies to novelty potato scrubbers.
My older son bought the stadium pan as a birthday present for my younger son; and, of course, part of the present was actually baking him a chocolate stadium birthday cakes, complete with hand-made goal post candles:
P.S. Also works well as a Jello mold!
As the holidays approach, you will no doubt see plenty of festive Yule Log Cakes pictured in the holiday magazines and gourmet catalogues. The seasonal cake you see here is my new autumnal variation on the time-honored wintry presentations. I am calling it The Hallow Log (as in All Hallows) and, much better than a hollow log, this one is filled with cream cheese icing. Yum!
Interestingly enough, these miniature cakes are now better known than either the gigantic originals that they represent or the historical tradition of Bringing in the Yule Log. In her fascinating study of the miniature and the gigantic, folklore scholar Susan Stewart has written of the human impulse to transform nature and quaint rural customs into art. The resulting souvenirs and miniatures become the objects of our desire for "an elusive and purer, yet diminished, past."
I can't help thinking of the old - time Yule Logs (meant for burning on the hearth) and the contemporary Yule Log Cake or Buche de Noel (intended for eating) when Stewart says that the antiquarian's "search is primarily an aesthetic one, an attempt to erase the actual past in order to create an imagined past which is available for consumption" (emphasis added, 143; On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, by Susan Stewart).
In this case, not just metaphorical consumption! But actual consumption, as in "Hey, who's ready for a piece of cake?"
If you'd like to make one of these Pumpkin Cake Rolls for yourself, check out the recipe below (in "Comments") from my sister Peg's friend Beth.
If you enjoy food blogs, check out bEATS by my friend Beatrice and see some absolutely luscious photographs.
And, finally, if you'd like to read more about the "Miniature & the Gigantic," see my previous post on this blog: September 9, 2010
and my book: Created in Our Image:
The Miniature Body of the Doll as Subject and Object
thank you!
ReplyDeleteand that pumpkin roll looks delicious!
Two of my favorite flavors are pumpkin and cream cheese frosting!
ReplyDeleteBeth Farmer’s Pumpkin Cake Roll
ReplyDeleteBeat 3 eggs on high speed of mixer for 5 minutes; gradually beat in 1 cup granulated sugar. Stir in ⅔ cup pumpkin and 1 tsp. lemon juice. Stir together ¾ cup flour, 1 tsp. ginger, ½ tsp. nutmeg, 1 tsp. baking powder, 2 tsp. cinnamon, and ½ tsp. salt. Fold into pumpkin mixture. Spread on greased and floured 15x11x1” pan. Top with 1 cup chopped walnuts. Bake at 375o for 15 minutes. Turn out on paper towels sprinkled with powdered sugar. Starting at long end, roll towel and cake together, cool, unroll, and fill.
Filling: Combine 1 cup powdered sugar, 2-3oz. pkgs. Cream cheese, 4 Tbs. butter or margarine. Spread over cake and roll back up. Chill or freeze. Cut while very chilled.