Mixing Real Life With Writing
The other day I finally baked a chocolate cake with icing to check the recipe for the third Hazel Whitmore book “Mistaken Promises.” Strangely enough this turned into a lesson on writing.
In preparation I had taken out all of my cookbooks containing cake and icing recipes. I compared the cake recipes, debated them and rejected them. In the end I used a familiar one with a couple of improvements.
Stay with what you know. Experimentation is fine, but stay rooted as your shortcomings will come through glaringly. Research alone does not make you an expert.
The icing recipes were frightening. I hadn’t made icing since I was in high school and that was a disaster. The temptation to say, “Buy a can of frosting.” was so inviting. Hazel wouldn’t do that. She loves to cook and would consider making the icing herself a challenge.
Know your characters. Having a character do something he or she would not do without explanation disrupts your story’s world.
Most of the recipes called for boiling the icing to something called a “soft ball stage” where a drop of icing in cold water forms a ball. This, I found out, is 234° on a candy thermometer, something I do have although I have never used it.
Still, the easy, no boiling frosting was preferable. And here came problems. It called for powdered milk, something I don’t have. So I substituted milk for this and sugar in place of the honey naively thinking this would solve the moisture problem.
And had chocolate soup.
How many times do we happily type along and end up with soup? The plot falls apart. The characters become ridiculous. The whole project seems disastrous.
And we have a choice to make. We can abandon the project relegating it to a forgotten file. We can decide what went wrong and how to fix it.
I stood looking at my chocolate soup. It definitely was not icing. Why not? It was liquid. How did other recipes solve this problem?
Boiled recipes used confectioner’s or powdered sugar. There are two differences between regular sugar and confectioner’s sugar.
One is the fineness of the sugar. Since the sugar is dissolved, this does not matter.
The second is corn starch. Corn starch is an interesting substance. Added to liquid and heated to boiling, it absorbs the liquid and thickens it.
I made boiled icing adding additional sugar and corn starch. Did I reach the soft ball stage? I’m not sure. I do know the icing boiled and thickened into a creamy chocolate substance that spread onto the cake very well.
“Mistaken Promises” too has had its problems. The plot fell apart. I took the time to find the problem, decide on a solution and fix the book.
I hope the book came out as good as my icing did.
In preparation I had taken out all of my cookbooks containing cake and icing recipes. I compared the cake recipes, debated them and rejected them. In the end I used a familiar one with a couple of improvements.
Stay with what you know. Experimentation is fine, but stay rooted as your shortcomings will come through glaringly. Research alone does not make you an expert.
The icing recipes were frightening. I hadn’t made icing since I was in high school and that was a disaster. The temptation to say, “Buy a can of frosting.” was so inviting. Hazel wouldn’t do that. She loves to cook and would consider making the icing herself a challenge.
Know your characters. Having a character do something he or she would not do without explanation disrupts your story’s world.
Most of the recipes called for boiling the icing to something called a “soft ball stage” where a drop of icing in cold water forms a ball. This, I found out, is 234° on a candy thermometer, something I do have although I have never used it.
Still, the easy, no boiling frosting was preferable. And here came problems. It called for powdered milk, something I don’t have. So I substituted milk for this and sugar in place of the honey naively thinking this would solve the moisture problem.
And had chocolate soup.
How many times do we happily type along and end up with soup? The plot falls apart. The characters become ridiculous. The whole project seems disastrous.
And we have a choice to make. We can abandon the project relegating it to a forgotten file. We can decide what went wrong and how to fix it.
I stood looking at my chocolate soup. It definitely was not icing. Why not? It was liquid. How did other recipes solve this problem?
Boiled recipes used confectioner’s or powdered sugar. There are two differences between regular sugar and confectioner’s sugar.
One is the fineness of the sugar. Since the sugar is dissolved, this does not matter.
The second is corn starch. Corn starch is an interesting substance. Added to liquid and heated to boiling, it absorbs the liquid and thickens it.
I made boiled icing adding additional sugar and corn starch. Did I reach the soft ball stage? I’m not sure. I do know the icing boiled and thickened into a creamy chocolate substance that spread onto the cake very well.
“Mistaken Promises” too has had its problems. The plot fell apart. I took the time to find the problem, decide on a solution and fix the book.
I hope the book came out as good as my icing did.
No comments have been added yet.
