To my beloved Paul Klees, on his birthday
Jacques Demy and Catherine Deneuve on the set of Peau d’Âne, 1970
Cake d’Amour
Serves one, love-sick prince
Ingredients:
Four heavy hands of flour
• Three eggs laid this very morning, plus one that has been sitting around for 20 days.
• An entire bowl of milk, very creamy
• Some sugar
• A breath of yeast
• A handful of butter
• A drop of honey
• A suspicion/pair of pliers/pinch of salt
Préparez votre pâte dans une jatte plate
Et sans plus de discours allumez votre four
Prenez de la farine, versez dans la terrine
Quatre mains bien pesées autour d’un puits creusé
Choisissez quatre oeufs frais car à plus de vingt jours
Un poussin sort toujours
Un bol de lait entier, bien crémeux s’il-vous-plaît
De sucre parsemez et vous amalgamez
Une main de beurre fin, un souffle de levain
Une larme de miel et un soupçon de sel.
Il est temps à présent tandis que vous brassez
De glisser un présent pour votre fiancé.
Un souhait d’amour s’impose
Tandis que la pâte repose
Lissez le plat de beurre
Et laissez cuire une heure.
Prepare your dough in a flat, shallow bowl.
Without any talking, light your oven.
Take the flour and lapse into the bowl four big handfuls of flour. Dig a well into the flour.
Choose three eggs which have been laid this morning and one which has been left around for 20 days.*
Add a bowlful of creamy milk to your flour and eggs, sprinkle in sugar, and combine with a wooden spoon.
Next add a hand of fine butter, your breath of yeast, a teardrop of honey, and a suspicion of salt.
Knead well, allowing your sleeves to rub against the dough.
Slip a present for your fiancé into the dough along with a wish for love as the dough rests.
Smooth your baking dish with butter [place dough into baking dish] and bake for one hour.
*Editor’s note: use unfertilized eggs. If a chick hatches from the fourth egg, set it free and do not include in cake