Blog 6! - Nothing like the smell of Grandmas chocolate cake!

There is nothing like being in a kitchen a midst pots, and dishes, muffin trays and your senses being set alight. Although my baking sessions in my grandmother’s kitchen are less frequent now I am older. The smell of freshly baked goodies is like an imprinted smell, absorbed into the walls, excreted just enough to keep the room smelling so sweet and decadent. My favourite thing to bake as a child was chocolate cake, because you got to lick two chocolaty bowls- the cake and the icing, but still to this day, no one can make a chocolate cake like my grandma can.


Out at Raglan during my week of tech, my family and I spent the day lapping up the sea air and enjoying some vitamin D. We had sat down at the table, and were enjoying some fresh fish for lunch. Out of her bag grandma pulled a thermos for coffees and teas and then a white container. Of came the lid and there it was a delicious, lip licking chocolate cake, no fancy packaging just cake, icing and sprinkles on top. It’s an instant reaction to just lick your lips as your eyes widen. Your taste buds begin to tingle like their jumping for joy, my weakness is sweet treats that’s for sure!


The only way to eat it however, to really savour the taste is to break the cake of the icing and eat that first, saving the sweetest bit – the icing until last, a childhood habit I have never been able to break.


“Baking is about memories: recipes handed down from generation to generation and tastes that conjure childhood—think your mom’s chocolate cake. Sweets are often bound up in our emotional life as adults, too: they’re how we reward ourselves or our children, how we celebrate holidays, birthdays, and special occasions, and how we honour guests” (Rosen, 2004)

Rosen, M. J. (2004). Baking from the Heart. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from Google Books: http://books.google.co.nz