Mother's Day! Tattooed Swiss Roll with Vermont Creamery Filling!

Mother's Day is tomorrow and my mother is down at my parents' vacation home in North Carolina, having offered to babysit my nephew down there. Over the last year, I have seen more of my mother than I did in the whole of years since graduation. I learned to appreciate her more, but in that balance was frustrated by her all the same. Quick witted, quick tempered, and so much like me.

I wouldn't trade her for the world, this mother of mine.  I used to resent her for all the mistakes she made when we were growing up, but that stuff doesn't matter much now. I'm learning to understand that love is hardly ever about the end result, but about the thousands of attempts we make to make another person happy. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we don't. But it's the effort that's supposed to matter, and I never realized that until I stood away from her and began to know her as a stranger would, having been gone for seven years when I moved back to Pennsylvania last January.

I will not see my mother this year to celebrate her, but I will see her in June and that is a long enough wait for me. In the meantime, I made this cake as my own attempt. As my own way of showing her my love. I have bad penmanship and even worse decorative skills, but it tastes good and you'll do fine if  you have nothing else to give her tomorrow.

Mother's Day Decorated Swiss Roll

Ingredients for Pattern Icing:

• 1 egg white
• 1/3 cup AP flour
• 2 TB sugar
• 2 TB melted butter, cooled
• 1 or 2 drops of gel coloring (best quality)

Ingredients for Swiss Roll cake:

• 3/4 cup AP flour
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar + extra for covering a tea towel
• 3 tablespoons oil
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ⅛ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup water

Ingredients for Filling:

• 6 oz strawberry jam
• 8 oz mascarpone (I am very loyal to Vermont Creamery's mascarpone--it's the best)
• 1/2 TB vanilla
• 3 TB confectioner's sugar

Directions for Pattern Icing:

1. With a fork, mix all ingredients in a bowl until you have a smooth consistency
2. Transfer into your piping bag
3. Lay out a sheet of parchment paper on an 18x13" baking sheet and free-hand write your desired pattern (I did MOM surrounded by hearts, but you can do anything!*)
4. Allow to sit in fridge for 30 minutes or so to cool and harden

Directions for Swiss Roll cake:

1. Preheat oven to 400*F
2. Take out three bowls: One medium bowl for sifting your dry ingredients, one large bowl for mixing your batter, and one bowl that fits into your stand mixer for the egg whites
3. Sift together AP flour, salt, and baking soda 
4. In your largest bowl, mix together egg yolks, white sugar, oil, vanilla, and water. Whisk this for a couple minutes until full incorporated and a very pale yellow
5. In your stand mixer, whisk egg whites on high until soft peaks form (will take a few minutes), add confectioner's sugar and mix for an additional minute or two, just to incorporate the sugar
6. Now, alternate in thirds between adding the flour mixture and the egg whites to the yolk mixture, folding gently but ensuring all batter is fully mixed properly
7. Take pan out of oven and pour batter directly on top of designs and parchment paper, flattening out to edges with a rubber spatula
8. Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until just golden and bouncy in the center
9. While this is baking, cover a tea towel with confectioner's sugar and lay flat on your work surface
10. Remove from oven and immediately flip onto the tea towel
11. Turn over, covering other side with confectioner's sugar in doing so, and position cake directly in middle of towel
12. Roll up into a tight swiss roll, with the towel being in the middle -- this will act as a sort of "muscle memory" for the cake when you roll it back out
13. Allow to rest for a half hour or until cool to add your filling

Directions for Filling:

1. Mix all ingredients together until you have a pale pink, slightly sweet creamy filling
2. You may need to adjust flavors if you so desire
3. To fill--unravel your swiss roll, removing the tea towel
4. Using a rubber spatula, spread a thin layer on the cake
5. Now, gently fold the cake as you go. While not ideal, cracks are inevitable and just take your time on these
6. Place on a tray and refrigerate for an hour or so before slicing into it
7. When ready to serve, sprinkle confectioner's sugar and enjoy!

*A couple notes - When piping, be aware that the image you want will be a mirror on the actual cake! And also, don't get too close to the edges with your design, in case you have to cut a little to even it out

Mother's Day: An Orange-Ginger Cake

Some years we sat at the boondocks of my mother’s mind, waiting for her to show the slightest attention. Some years, we were all she had. We played the part of anchors, support, canes, crutches, and the wheelbarrows of her life.  It was backbreaking work and we’d ask for raises in our allowances. Then stopped asking and took the bills from her purse. In spite of the night shifts, double shifts, graveyard shifts. Even when my father bought a portable radio on a credit card to sit in his car for 8 hours on Saturdays, working as a security guard to pay for his kids’ three cars. Some years were like that, but not always.

We’d sit in the boondocks of her mind, at the periphery of conscious effort and wait for her to say, “Good job,” on my sister’s schoolwork, my poems, my brother’s career. When it didn’t come, we wouldn’t ask. She was busy, she was tired, she was mad no one put away the dishes and did she have to do everything around here?

She was every manifestation of Shiva and every epithet of Hera. As much an orphan as she was a mother. As much a Madonna as she was child. How hard she worked until her fingers bruised and calloused. Her kisses were tender when she’d check our foreheads for fevers. She fell asleep more than once waiting for the birthday cake to finish in the oven. One year we ate at the mall food court when I turned nine.

I left home when I was seventeen. When I moved to California and I hated the first house I had with my boyfriend, I called my mother and cried on the way home from school. She said I was too much to handle now, that all I ever did was bitch and moan. I hung up and didn’t call her back for two months.

But things change, I grew up. I forgave but the dust motes of resentment still hit the sunlight sometime. I never let it settle for long. This is the first year I’m celebrating Mother’s Day with her in six years, the first time in six years I can hand her a card and hug her tight. She makes the coffee every morning and leaves me post-it notes of how she’ll miss me when she goes to work. She took me in when that same boy in California kicked me out. She took me in even after all the time passed in wasted silence. She was a tough mom, an angry mom, a sad mom. But she’s also the only other person I know who has had to reinvent themselves more than they can count. And now she sits, crocheting in her reclining chair, being the anchor to some slowly dissolving memory I have of how it was, and just how good I had it.

Happy Mother’s Day.   

Ginger-Orange Layer Cake

This cake celebrates spring and the harsh, bitter, and sweet of any relationship. Three layers, swathed in buttercream and sprinkles, with layers of a quick orange marmalade in between. Makes a three-layer cake, 6 inches in diameter

Ingredients for the Quick Orange Marmalade

• 1 large orange, washed
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 TB grated fresh ginger
• 2 TB water

Directions for Quick Orange Marmalade

1. Cut the top and bottom of the orange and then cut into 8 sections
2. In a food processor, pulse whole orange until it is finely pureed and no large chunks are visible
3. In a saucepan, add all ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes or until marmalade begins to congeal
4. Take off heat and allow to cool
5. Note: this is a quick jam just for this recipe with no proper canning technique involved

Ingredients for Cake

• 3 ½ cup AP flour
• 1 ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cup sugar
• ¼ cup honey
• ½ cup shortening
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1 ¼ cup milk
• 2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoon orange zest

Directions for Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350*F and prepare pans with butter and parchment paper
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside
3. In a measuring cup, whisk to combine milk, vanilla, and vinegar and set aside
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add honey, sugar, and fats. With the paddle attachment, beat until mixture is pale and fluffy
5. Add one egg at a time, do not add subsequent egg until first is fully incorporated
6. With mixer on low, alternate between adding the flour and the milk mixture until batter is formed
7. Stir in ginger and orange zest
8. Pour into prepare pans (or pan, if you have to reuse) and bake each layer for 40-45 minutes until a knife comes out clean
9. Allow to cool completely before assembling
10. Note: While baking, use this buttercream recipe and add 1 teaspoon of ground ginger if you so desire

Assembly: Use squares of parchment paper under the first layer of the cake to help with a clean finish on the icing. Lay one cake layer down, add your marmalade, then the second cake layer, more marmalade, then final cake layer. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Take out of the fridge and add a crumb coat, return to fridge for 30 minutes. Remove and add final layer of buttercream, using a large angled spatula knife and a bench scraper for those fine edges.  Finally, you can decorate as I did, with sprinkles by basically putting some in your hand and gently pressing into the cake. Repeat until fully covered. Removed parchment squares. Enjoy!

Mama

I used to chew my mother's hair to fall asleep.   I was in love with it, the texture soft and the smell of her sweat perfumed the pillow.  I used to be obsessed with my mother, and then went three years without talking to her.  She was every metaphor you could think of and so much more.  She was blood over cast iron bones.  She was olive-skinned and tanned with baby oil.  She never wrinkled, she cries at the thought of mousetraps and says life is unfair sometimes.  She takes long pauses and tries to get me off the phone.  She says I love you in her own way, in small ways.  She's bought me a housewarming present for all the apartments I've rented to get away from her.  She forgot my eight birthday once.  She had a migraine.  I called her selfish.  She had tumors removed from her neck that Spring.

View fullsize

My mother's name is Nancy and she is my soulmate.  I love her more than anything in the world.  I'm obsessed with her, with the idea of her.  I have her broad bones and lack of people skills.  I have her distrust for good ever coming around, surprised that life can be fortunate once in a while.  She has arthritis in her collarbone, she worked as a janitor once.  She finds symbolism in every bird that stops for a rest on the windowsill.  She never took us to church growing up.  She never says her own mother's name, she never talks about her own mother.  It's a small, secret word that's only spoken once a year.  The tetragrammaton by the high priestess Nancy, spoken once when we threw flower petals on her grave.

View fullsize

My mother is not a good woman; but she's not a bad woman either.  She lives her life in the two-story farm house the best way she knows how.  She's had a tough life, a life with not a lot to offer.  Born in Indiana, a runaway at 15.  She worked odd jobs, was held up at a video store once.  Lit her nails on fire once.  Lit her hair on fire once.  Had three children.  Wore jean shorts to her wedding.  She doesn't like music much, she says it gives her a headache.  She can sing real sweetly under her breath when she's getting ready.  I first heard her say fuck when I was six.  

View fullsize

My mother is the best woman I know.  My mother still holds my hand when we cross the street.  My mother held me for eight minutes before I moved to California and kept repeating in my chest, "Don't go don't go, don't go.".  When I left for Italy, she said she didn't care if I ever came home.  Her brother died in Afghanistan three weeks after I landed in Europe and I was the first person she called.  I slept on a pew that night, the only quiet room in the convent I was staying at.  I fell asleep with the phone in my hand, my mother didn't hang up.  

View fullsize

My mother is an orphan now.  My mother has me and eleven cats.  My mother has a permanent tan and laugh lines where you can see life wasn't all that bad for her.  My mother raised me the best way she knew how:  "be honest, don't hurt anyone, and don't fuck it up".  My mother told the truth and lied to us when she had to.  Like how she was married to someone before my father.  Like how she held me back when I could have skipped third grade.  Like how she tells my brother she loves her children equally.  Like how she says she's happy.

View fullsize

I found my mother crying once out by the grapevines that strangle themselves on our chickenwire fence.  I hated seeing her that weak and I told her it made me sick.  I was nineteen and I don't forgive myself.  I walked inside and drove away.  I left her crying in the backyard.  She had seen a baby bird fall to its death and got upset by it.  My mother, the patron saint of loss.  Her son, too selfish to ever let her be vulnerable, even for two seconds, when she was alone and surrounded by dandelions and skipping stones at the creek bed. 

View fullsize

I call my mother every day now.  She took some time off from working to enjoy summer and the last surviving dog from my childhood.  She take her coffee with cream and wants to paint the kitchen a soft yellow.  Before we hang up, I ask her if she loves me.  She always answers the same, "You're the only good thing I've done in my life.  Of course I love you."