Birthday Cake and Pizza

Well, not really.

But yes, it is my birthday, and I decided to celebrate it by another stab at reviving the venerable tradition of illusion foods. This had been in the works since the burgers we made in February, and now the time had come. Once again, my mother was the blind tester.

The cake, obviously, is not a cake. It is a two-tiered meat loaf with the first layer consisting of ground beef and egg seasoned with fried onions, mustard, cumin, pepper, and garlic, the second of veal with tomato concentrate, raw onion, oregano, and pepper. I cooked both at a low temperature in a small steel pizza pan and cut them to size, smoothing out the top, like cakes.

Ketchup was put between the layers both to add variety to the flavour and to imitate the stratum of jam or jelly typically found there, and now I wonder if it would be possible to add enough gelatin and mild cheese to this to imitate the remarkably stable foamy cream many commercially made German cakes have there. The meat loaf layers are quite heavy, so probably not, but it will be worth trying.

The frosting to this type of cake is typically made with stiff mashed potatoes and cheese. Unfortunately, my son loathes potatoes in almost all forms, so I experimented with rice as a base instead. I cooked round-grain rice in vegetable broth until it was soft, then processed it to a paste. I made the mistake of adding cheese, which improved stability, but caused it to become stringy, difficult to smooth, and impossible to pipe. I suspect a plain rice mash would have behaved better. To cover a cake of about 750g of meat, the size of a small springform pan, 125g of rice was enough. I made double that amount, but it was not necessary. The tomatoes just add a little style to the whole thing.

Meanwhile, the pizza was cooked in a medium-sized pizza pan. Its base was a shortcrust of 250g of flour, 75g of sugar, 125g of butter and one egg leavened generously with baking powder. I blind-baked it for 20 minutes, then dried over the centre for another five and let it cool before unmoulding it. After removing the parchment paper, I returned it to the pan for optics.

The pizza received a strawberry-redcurrant jelly for sauce. I think a proper rosehip jam would have been even better for colour, but I did not make any last year. On top of it went slices of strawberries for peperoni sausage, sliced dried dates for olive rings, and mushrooms carved from marshmallows. The latter became remarkably convincing once flamed over with a kitchen torch. The cheese is grated white chocolate.

Both tasted pretty good, though I would cut down on the sweetness in the pizza next time. And it really needed to be served with a cucumber salad (out of sight for being no illusion food). Happy birthday to me – we will be returning to historical content shortly.