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| Narcissus, John William Waterhouse (1912) |
Another lovely cake by Ruth Wakefield Graves is named after daffodil, a white and/or yellow flower. Daffodil is the anglicized equivalent of the Greek word ασφόδελος while the Latin name of the flower is narcissus. There is a Greek myth behind the Latin name of the flower that you may or may not know so here it goes: Νάρκισσος/Narcissus was a handsome youth, who spent all day admiring his reflection on the water of a lake until he fell in. (That's why self-loving personalities are labelled narcissistic.) All that was left from the body of Narcissus was a flower and this flower took his name. That's why in Antiquity, narcissus symbolized death. It was planted near tombs and painted in the background of mythical themes from the Underworld. A native of Mediterranean landscapes, the plant was transported as far as Britain and the Netherlands, where it became a favorite with gardeners and poets, including Shakespeare. Its popularity during the nineteenth century was nearly as great as that of the rose and the lily and I wandered lonely as a cloud by William Wordsworth (1804) is maybe the loveliest example of romantic poetry that was inspired by the daffodil.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Daffodil is the national flower of Wales and universally loved in Asia. Within Christian tradition, it symbolizes not only death but also resurrection. This and its blooming in the month of April are probably why daffodil cake is thought of as Easter food. It's basically a white-and-yellow version of the marble cake, using two well-known recipes: angel food cake that's made with egg whites and golden cake that's made with the yolks. Ruth Wakefield's Toll House tried and true recipes (1936) featured this lovely version:
- For the angel's cake: 1 cup of egg whites=6 egg whites
- My version of daffodil cake is (almost) exactly the same as Ruth Wakefield's but I enchanced the yellow colour by adding powdered saffron to the batter.
- The finished cake was super light and prompted me to glaze it. The glazing that I used was Ruth Wakefield's Orange Frosting, again from the Toll House collection: "Grate rind of 1 orange, and add 1/2tsp. lemon juice. Either strain out orange rind after mixture stands 15 minutes or mix immediately with 1 egg yolk, slightly beaten. Stir in confectioner's sugar until the right consistency to spread."
- To pasteurize eggs for the glazing: stir with the rest of the ingredients at 90oC, using a double-boiler.
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