A Humane Turtle

T. Colin Campbell in The China Study:

I talked to so many people who say, “I may not live as long as you health nuts, but I sure am going to enjoy the time I have by eating steaks whenever I want, smoking if I so choose and doing anything else that I want.” I grew up with these people, went to school with these people and made great friends with these people. Not long ago, one of my best friends suffered a difficult surgery for cancer and spent his last years paralyzed in a nursing home. During the many visits I made to the nursing home, I never failed to come away with a deep appreciation for the health I still possess in my old age. It was not uncommon for me to go to the nursing home to visit my friend and hear that one of the new patients in the home was someone whom my friend and I knew from our earlier days. Too often, they had Alzheimer’s and were housed in a special section of the facility.

The enjoyment of life, especially the second half of life, is greatly compromised if we can’t see, if we can’t think, if our kidneys don’t work or if our bones are broken or fragile. I, for one, hope that I am able to fully enjoy not only the time in the present, but also the time in the future, with good health and independence.

…

So, what is my prescription for good health? In short, it is about the multiple health benefits of consuming plant-based foods, and the largely unappreciated health dangers of consuming animal-based foods, including all types of meat, dairy and eggs. I did not begin with preconceived ideas, philosophical or otherwise, to prove the worthiness of plant-based diets. I started at the opposite end of the spectrum: as a meat-loving dairy farmer in my personal life and an “establishment” scientist in my professional life. I even used to lament the views of vegetarians as I taught nutritional biochemistry to pre-med students.

My only interest now is to explain the scientific basis for my views in the clearest way possible. Changing dietary practices will only occur and be maintained when people believe the evidence and experience the benefits. People decide what to eat for a number of reasons, health considerations being only one. My task is only to present the scientific evidence in a form that can be understood. The rest is up to you.

Beauty is what makes me smile
The ordinary with a twist
Like Lithic Lady, for a while
With her avine accompanist

Both look out onto the sea
Away from crowded cobble lanes
While volatile it is to be
A photo memory remains

One Saturday in August, a friend took me on a walk around Lutvann, a beautiful quiet lake in Østmarka, the woods east of Oslo. It was a nice and sunny day in between a bunch of rainy days, so it wasn’t too warm out. It was warm enough for a little swim in the lake though! I enjoyed it a lot. Also, it was most likely the last outdoor swimming opportunity of the year – in case I don’t try ice swimming later in the year…

I was super excited when I first saw this post about a Rubik’s cube version of a Battenberg cake. I had never even heard of a Battenberg cake before, but immediately loved the concept of a check-patterned cake. Also, as a long-term Rubik’s cube lover (mostly, admittedly, in inactive admiration), it just felt like the perfect project that combined my love for food with the right amount of geekiness. But most importantly, I knew just the right people to share my enthusiasm with and to make the cake for!

So, with a few months delay, I made my own rendition of a Rubik’s cake.

As with most of my little projects, I don’t plan all too much, but take it as I go. I didn’t even use a real cake recipe to start with. I made it “überhaps“, as we say in Austrian dialect: following experience and intuition, with a vague recipe in mind. While the original Rubik’s cake used food coloring for the different sections and only added some hints of varying flavor, I decided to go wild and do the coloring and flavoring with whatever I had at home. The blog post had mentioned that people would eat the cake cube-wise, so I thought opposing flavors wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

And so I started.

I knew I needed six different batters, but I didn’t want to bake six times, so I made made little dividers out of cardboard and wrapped them in aluminum foil. Then I coated both the baking tray and the divider sections in margarine and flour.

Then I went on to find ingredients for the different flavors. I chose:

• White: coconut flakes
• Yellow: mashed peaches & rum aroma
• Orange: Haselnuts, carrots, and saffron
• Red: raspberries
• Blue: blueberries
• Green: broccoli (!!) and a little bit of green food color

Next step: the batter. I chose to use six bowls for the dry and special ingredients of the different sections. I used about 100g of flour, a tablespoon of maize flour, a tea spoon of baking powder, and a little salt per bowl.

Then I had one extra bowl for the fat & sugar & egg replacer. I used around 200g of sugar, 100g of vegetable margarine, one mashed banana, and maybe a tablespoon of vinegar. Now it was time to mix it all! I distributed the fat/sugar mix over the six bowls, added the special ingredients to the bowls, and started mixing. For each bowl, I also added enough soy milk until the consistency of the batter felt right. Then I put the mixes onto the baking tray, and off it went into the oven! It baked for about half an hour at 190-ish degrees.

Looking at the finished sections, I tried to figure out the best way to use the amount of building material to create a cube. Now, the sections didn’t turn out to be super high, so I decided to make a 5×5 cube instead of the original 3×3 one. I used the height of the least risen section, and cut a piece of cardboard that was that high. Using that piece of cardboard, I cut the sections into strips that wide, and cut off any excess height using the same cardboard strip.

Now I had my cube sections ready!

To make sure that I get different cube patterns every time I cut a slice off the cake, I cut the blocks at different length. So I just did that: I cut a piece randomly, and added another piece to add up to the length of 5 cubes.

I did that over and over again, and put five layers of that on top of each other.

Now it was time to prepare the marzipan icing. I had never worked with marzipan before, so rolling out the store-bought marzipan was a challenge! But I managed eventually. I ended up with two layers, one of which would cover three sides of the cube.

Then I put the cake layers next to each other on the table – they would have to be jam-coated individually, both to help the cake keep its shape, and to make it look more like a Rubik’s cube with its black dividing lines. I warmed up a big glass of blueberry jam and pureed it with a hand blender. Then I put one layer of marzipan on the plate, put some of the jam on, and started adding the cake sections. I coated all sections with jam before adding them to the final structure.

When I was done, I made sure all sides were coated with jam, and wrapped the marzipan around the cake. Then I wrapped the second layer of marzipan around the three uncovered sides of the cube. I rolled some more marzipan to make the edges look nicer, and as extra decoration. And there it was: my own Rubik’s cake!

All in all, I was satisfied with the outcome of the cake. Not all sections turned out equally fluffy, and the colors didn’t turn out to be anywhere near the original. When it comes to flavors, I think most of them worked reasonably well. The broccoli didn’t really work though

This was definitely the funnest, messiest, and geekiest baking project I have ever attempted, and it was well worth the effort!