Pleasure Notes

I lived in Brazil when I was eighteen, as an exchange student. I spent many hours in the kitchen with the mother in my host family my Brazilian mom. I learned to speak Portuguese in that kitchen. I learned about the family. I learned about Brazilian culture. I shared hopes, fears and dreams with this amazing, tiny, feisty woman who had welcomed me into her home for a year. I watched as, every day, she cooked amazing mid-day and evening meals from scratch – no boxed mixes or frozen dinners or prepped salad fixings. When I had to return to the United States, I left a piece of my heart in that kitchen. And I took with me a book I’d started, of my favorite recipes.

the recipe book

I’ve kept this recipe book for 22 years, but I’ve never used it.

Until yesterday.

I have no idea why I was suddenly struck with the impulse to open it up and make my favorite Brazilian dessert.

Partly, I think it was because I have a book club meeting this afternoon and needed to bring a dish. I don’t normally make anything; I rely on Trader Joe’s to see me through the potluck experience while others in the group out-do themselves with culinary masterpieces. I’m getting a little irritated with my own status-quo, however. I no longer get any pleasure from the “non-cook” moniker. In fact, I secretly resent it now. Also, after not eating chocolate for three years, I’m letting it court me again. Then there’s the little issue of not having read the book we’re supposed to discuss today. Is it wrong to try to distract everyone from that tidbit of news with a coma-inducing sweet?

Or did I do it because I’m feeling nostalgic about my care-free, travel-heavy, debt-free youth?

I have been making an attempt to act on my impulsive, fleeting thoughts. Perhaps that is why I opened up the book – the idea entered my head. Could it really be as simple as that?

Regardless, I DID pull out the receitas and found the recipe I wanted:

YUM!

BRIGADEIRO. Little balls of sin.

(does ANYONE still not get the correlation between chocolate and sex?)

The recipe is written in Portuguese because that was the only language I was speaking by the end of my stay in Brazil. My handwriting reflects the exaggerated bubble print many teen girls adopted in the ’80s. The cooking instructions fail to mention the temperature at which everything should be cooked or the best way to create the finished product. The quantity of each ingredient is vague because my Brazilian mom didn’t measure anything.

Of course, you already know this is going to be a disaster, right?

the recipe

This is my translation of the recipe:

BRIGADEIRO

Ingredients: 3 soup spoons of chocolate powder, 2 soup spoons of butter, 1 can condensed milk.

Instructions: Put everything in a pan and mix it with a wooden spoon until you can see the bottom of the pan. Let cool. Roll it and pass it in granulated chocolate.

Um… Okay…

I have a pan. I have a wooden spoon. I have all the ingredients.

Except I think I put only two spoonfuls of chocolate powder in the pan instead of three, but I made them heaping because I wasn’t sure whether they were supposed to be measured or not and I’m not sure my soup spoons are the same size as the ones we used in that Brazilian kitchen 22 years ago.

I mix constantly but I can see the bottom of the pan from the very beginning so I have no idea when I’m supposed to stop stirring. I put it on medium heat because, well, it’s medium. I know I’m going to have to roll the stuff into little balls after it cools and I know what the finished product is supposed to look like but the chocolate liquid starts to boil and OH MY GOD CAN CHOCOLATE BURN?

I make a completely uneducated guess as to when to stop. I take the pot off the stove, even though the recipe doesn’t say that, because I’m thinking there’s a better chance it will cool that way and the recipe says to let it cool.

I wait half an hour.

I stick a spoon in the mixture to retrieve enough to roll into a ball and WOW IT’S STICKY. I realize the bottom of the pan is still hot. I stick it in the refrigerator. It then occurs to me that condensation might form which would make it MORE liquidy rather than less so. I pull it back out of the frig and stick it back on the counter.

I wait another hour.

I try to make a ball again from the mixture. I ignore the fact the it is the same consistency that it was an hour previously. I refuse to be defeated by the fact that the stuff seems to prefer to remain on my fingers than form a ball. I begin dumping blobs of it into a bowl of chocolate sprinkles.

Blobs are similar to balls, right? (do not even THINK about making a correlation between that question and how long it’s been since I’ve had sex!)

I use up FOUR BOTTLES of chocolate sprinkles in a vain attempt to give the substance some structure.

I end up with monstrosities.

shabby brigadeiro

And I suddenly remember the hostess of this month’s book club only eats a macrobiotic diet.

I eat one of my brigadeiros in despair.

Revelation! Ugly is GOOD.

Excuse me as I slip blissfully into sugar shock…

One would think that my cupcake fiasco of a few days ago would compel me to avoid any reference to the little sugary devils for at least a month or two but, alas, I seem currently to be obsessed. I am in the throes of a mid-life crisis, and compulsively enjoying anything and everything that makes me feel like a kid again. Cupcakes do that for me. They remind me to be spontaneous, uninhibited and bold. Or, perhaps it’s just the sugar talking.

By Sally Mann

Cupcakes make me want to go find a hula hoop, put my hair in pigtails, and not worry about calorie counts or bank accounts. They make me want to try cooking again. They make me think everyone should really do the Zoom arm trick more often.

Yes, I’ve anthropomorphized cupcakes. But I am not the only one!

I recently, with the help of KCRW’s Good Food, stumbled across artist and writer Jessie Oleson. She makes her living by channeling the power of cupcakes.

By Jessie Oleson

I had no idea that she was just the tip of the iceberg. There are a crazy number of websites dedicated solely to the idolatry of cupcakes. Cupcakes serve as muses for painters, sculptors, designers… the list goes on. I couldn’t resist spotlighting a few creations I find most pleasurable.

Cupcake Belt Buckle: Just in case you didn’t already have enough cupcake keeping your jeans tight around your waist.

Available at everafterstore.com

Cupcake End Table: Perfect for your first mod apartment, or a very cool dentist’s office.

By Jellio

Cupcake Cat Toy: Okay, it’s not actually a cat toy, but you better believe that if I brought a knit cupcake into my house, it would become one.

By Brenda aka Loomlady

Cupcake Couture: Bet you thought this one was about you, but no. Even cupcakes deserve their finery. Just imagine, however, what kind of spluge effect I might accidentally create if using these wrappers. Sorta makes me want to find out.

By Cupcakesavvy.com.au

Cupcake with Mice: For no other reason than I think this art work is rad and I hope the children’s story it illustrates gets published.

By Paola Jofre

Clearly, people invest a lot of time, energy and emotion in their relationship with cupcakes. I am not quite ready for this kind of commitment. I may crack, and go purchase a muffin tin in which to bake another batch, but that is it.

In other words, you will not see my feet looking like this:

Art by Amanda Cancilla. Foot by Cupcake Butt / Flickr

At least, not anytime soon. Nice pedicure, though.

I am not a domestic diva. My idea of cooking is toaster-broiling a deboned, skinned chicken wedge or opening up a bag of pre-washed salad fixings. If I can eat a meal without dirtying a single pan, I am a happy camper. But every once in a while, usually after a particularly bumpy ride on the roller coaster of life, I get an itch to do some baking, to mush up sugar with butter and to decorate stuff with nonpareils. Actually, it’s ALL about the nonpareils or, as I like to call them, those little-pretty-colored-candy-ball-thingies. Sometimes, I just really want to shake those little suckers and see them bounce. Last week, that urge turned into a full-on proverbial rash. So, I made cupcakes.

My Cupcake

Clearly I will never get a job at Sprinkles. I used Betty Crocker’s lemon cake mix, Betty Crocker’s pre-made vanilla icing and Betty Crocker nonpariels. I followed the directions. I even remembered to turn off the mixer before pulling it from the bowl.

But Betty forgot to emphasize that batter behaves like The Blob as it cooks. She failed to mention that paper cupcake holders do not retain their form if placed on a cookie sheet instead of in a muffin tin. She neglected to insist that people like me only be allowed in the kitchen with supervision.

My cupcakes baked into pancakes.

Cupcake in Profile

What does one do with 24 very tasty, but deformed, lemon cupcakes covered in thick icing and generously decorated with nonpariels – particularly since, once I’d done my sprinkle-shaking, my enthusiasm for the entire venture morphed into mild shame at the visual outcome?

I couldn’t let these poor step-children suffer the ridicule of my co-workers, knowing their complete lack of aesthetic appeal. I couldn’t keep them in the house, knowing they might all disappear within the generous space of three meals. I couldn’t relegate them to the dumpster, knowing I’d only be enabling the local raccoons’ sugar addictions. So, instead, I hid them under tin foil and gave them to my next door neighbors of 2 years, whose names I do not know.

Lo and behold, my neighbors loved my dear, misshapen cupcakes. Now, they think I’m the best neighbor, ever. They’ve even made a point of seeking me out with offers to eat more of my cupcakes whenever I choose to make them again.

This whole experience has taught me a few things. First, 24 cupcakes translates into a LOT of cupcakes. Also, there’s some truth to that old adage about finding pleasure in the simple things, and joy in the kitchen. Lastly, people are surprisingly jovial after you unexpectedly feed them dessert.

Now, if only I could remember my neighbors’ names…