Encountering the Monster in the Cake

Strange creatures are popping up everywhere. Late October might be the season when half-human forms with abnormally shaped body parts enjoy their haunting hour, but monsters tend to flock around me throughout the year. No matter what I happen to be reading, writing, or studying, they come in ungainly flocks and droves. And I don't mean the students, or even the professors, but bona fide monsters.

This semester, I've set aside the medieval monsters that populate my dissertation for their better known ancestors of Classical Mythology: There's the Minotaur devouring Athenian youths, the Sphinx riddling Oedipus, and the Cyclops, blind and hurling stones at Odysseus as he sails away. Briareus, Scylla, Charybdis, the Centaurs and Satyrs, Medusa ... it's a wonder I can sleep at night.

The monster has been defined variously in antiquity and more recently as an affront to ontological categories, an aberration of the natural order, a portent, and a marvel. Decked out with extra limbs, double faces, and hybrid silhouettes, monsters exasperate and intimidate, but they also attract.

In other words, encountering the monstrous is no cake-walk, but the monstrous just might be encountered through a cake. Or, so I began to think when I recently found myself elbow-deep in lemon curd, crafting my own edible boundary violation -- a cake whose parts I cobbled together from multiple recipes, hoping that the sum of its fragments would be more marvel than aberration of nature.

The shortbread crust and egg-white mousse I borrowed from epicurious.com. I chose the lemon curd formula from a long list of curd recipes on Martha Stewart's site. The glaze I pillaged from a blood-orange cheesecake recipe in Ms. Stewart's Desserts. I switched the juice flavor from orange to cranberry and doubled the quantity.

Not only was this cake a monstrous jumble of parts, it was a monster to make. As it emerged from pools of egg yolks, lemon juice, and cream, it left a trail of dirty bowls in its wake. Its birth was indeed exasperating, but -- as befits a monster -- strangely attractive.


This cake's cobbled-together parts were, in the end, a marvel: buttery shortbread feet; fluffy lemon mousse belly; mirror-slick cranberry head; nasturtium hair.

Monsters are, according to the Latin, "things that show" (monstra). They're able to show, I think, because they attract our gaze. When we look at their strange shapes, we sometimes see reflections of ourselves. This, at least, I learned as I peered into the shiny surface of this monster cake.


Lemon Mousse Cake with Cranberry Glaze
Makes 10-12 servings.


For Curd (makes about 3 cups):
12 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces

For Crust:
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
2 cups shortbread cookie crumbs (about 7 1/2 ounces)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For Mousse:
5 tablespoons water
4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
6 large egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups chilled heavy whipping cream

For Cranberry Glaze:
12 tablespoons cranberry juice
2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon corn starch

1. Make curd: In a heavy saucepan, combine yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice, and sugar. Whisk to combine. Set over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or heat-safe rubber spatula. Make sure to stir all the sides and edges of the saucepan to keep curd from sticking. Cook until mixture is thick enough to coat a wooden spoon, about 20 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and add the butter, a few pieces at a time, stirring into the smooth mixture. Transfer curd to a medium bowl. Lay plastic wrap directly onto surface of curd to prevent a skin from forming. Chill until firm, at least 1 hour.

2. Make crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray bottom of an 8-inch-diameter springform pan with nonstick spray. Stir together cookie crumbs and butter is a small bowl. Press onto bottom of pan. Bake until golden, about 12 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. Make mousse. Pour 5 tablespoons water into a small saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin evenly over, and let stand until it softens, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, place 2 cups of lemon curd in a large bowl. Stir remaining 1 cup curd in another small saucepan over medium-low heat until very warm.

Stir gelatin mixture over medium-low heat until dissolved and liquid is clear (do not boil). Whisk warm gelatin mixture into 1 cup warm curd. Gradually whisk gelatin-curd mixture into the 2 cups curd in large bowl.

Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating until whites are think and glossy, about 5 minutes. Fold whites into curd mixture in 3 additions. Rinse medium bowl and beaters. Beat cream in rinsed bowl until peaks form. Fold into egg white-curd mixture in 3 additions. Pour mousse over cooled crust to fill pan almost completely. Cover and chill mousse-cake overnight.

4. Make cranberry glaze: Place 4 tablespoons cranberry juice in bowl. Sprinkle gelatin over top. Let stand until soft, about 10 minutes.

Combine the sugar and 6 tablespoons cranberry juice in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Combine the remaining 2 tablespoons cranberry juice and cornstarch in small bowl. Stir until dissolved, and then whisk into boiling cranberry juice. Remove from heat. Stir in softened gelatin-mixture. Cool glaze until lukewarm. Then, pour glaze over top of chilled mousse cake, tipping cake pan to cover completely. Chill until glaze has set, about 1 hour. Note: if the top of mousse-cake is not level, prop up the "low" side with a folded piece of paper as the glaze sets in the fridge.