Every time
I tell my mum I have baked something sweet, she says the same thing: be
careful. It's not really a surprise as this is my mum's response to many of the
things I tell her. On holiday? Be careful. Long drive in the car? Be careful.
Got a cold? Be careful. After years of the same spiel, I know the code behind
the much used phrase. In the case of baking she means: you'd better watch your
weight. Baking means eating, and who else but me and my man would be eating up all
this cake?
Looking at
the pictures of Leila Lindholm in her second baking book, One more slice,
I have a suspicion that her mum worries about other things. Leila looks like lately, she's been baking her cake and eating it, too. Dressed in floaty clothes and padding
on Birkenstocks, she's a down to earth version of the equally curvy Nigella
Lawson. An earth mother of sorts, and one that - according to the foreword - is
trying to bridge the gap between cultures and generations by baking goodies.
The recipes are international enough and range from Italian semifreddo to
American brownies and from French pain au levain to Russian blinis.
The book is
dotted with a number of basic recipes and Leila elaborates on them by giving a
handful of variations for each one. It's a brilliant concept: once you master
the basic skills for, say, a French stick, you can keep on using them without
having to eat the same thing over and over. The recipes are fun and quirky:
the After Eight brownies can only be a winner, the pumpkin cheesecake begs to
be tried and as for the pear and Stilton pizza... Why did I not think that one
up myself?
In my
everlasting quest for the ultimate lemon tart, I choose to make the key lime pies. (Also because I can halve the recipe
and make just two little tarts. My mum's advice is ringing in my ears.) I start
at the beginning, making the cookie crumble base, which isn't really sticky
enough to create the sides Leila is talking about. Then I set about making the
lime filling. Suddenly it says: leave to steep for 30-60 minutes. Oh. Here I
am, oven on full blast, bases ready, and now I have to wait an hour? OK, OK, so
I should have read the whole recipe first. But wouldn't it make much more sense
to make the filling, then prepare and prebake the tart bases while it is
steeping away?
The (Dutch version of the) recipe
doesn't specify whether the condensed milk should be sweetened or not. Mine is
sweetened and I guess it would need to be; there's no other sugar in the recipe
and surely all that lime zest and juice needs a sweet component to balance
things out. The next step (sieving the filling to get rid of the zesty bits) I
omit. The filling is quite thick and I reckon it's going to take ages for it to
drip through a fine sieve. I am getting impatient now.
It's all
downhill from there. The baking time's too short to set the filling and the
base is still too crumbly coming out of the oven. There were no instructions to
grease or line the tart tins, nor to use a spring form. I am not all that
surprised to find there is no way to prise the tarts out of the baking dishes without
ruining their looks completely. I mean, look at their sad, sad state...
 |
| My version in front of Leila's version |
 |
| The pie after turning it out onto a plate |
No matter
how pretty it all looks in the book - the beautiful picknick spots, the cute
kiddies, the picture perfect pies, it's all a carefully crafted illusion.
Again. The flavours are there though, they definitely are. Buttery cookie
crumble and a zingy lime curd. All I have to do is tweak the components until
it actually gels into a half decent pie. Or serve them deconstructed.
One more slice by Leila Lindholm is available in English (New Holland, £19.99)
and in Dutch (Becht, €19.95) and in many other languages I'm sure. Find out
more about Donna here.
You'll find a short version
of this review (in Dutch) on jamiemagazine.nl.
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