Cake for Breakfast

Writing is a tough way to earn a living. It isn’t particularly well-paid, and behind each paycheck is a long series of late nights and rejection letters. Thankfully, there are some upsides – one can work at home, which is particularly nice on cold, rainy days, a big part of the job involves reading, which is what most writers really want to do anyway, if successful one can attain the eternal glory of seeing one’s name in print, and my personal favorite, the taste test.

Why would a writer be doing a taste test? If a writer happens to be penning a novel that includes a character who eats something particular, and the eating is significant to the story, the answer is authenticity. For example, I am currently working on a novel in which the protagonist, an art museum librarian, stumbles onto an art history mystery. To solve the mystery, she must travel to various cities, including Amsterdam. While sitting at a coffee shop trying to figure out what to do next, she eats a piece of cake, the smell of which evokes memories of her grandmother, who used to make the cake for her when she was a child. The memories help her decide how to proceed in the investigation.

Since the smell of the cake helps drive the plot, I figured my description of it better be realistic. The protagonist’s Dutch grandmother baked something called ontbijtkoek, breakfast cake, for her when she was a child. (As an aside, bless the Dutch. I adore any culture which serves cake for breakfast.) Not being Dutch myself, I have never eaten ontbijtkoek, particularly not when it is warm out of the oven. While I could guess the smell based on the ingredients, which are common, that seemed like cheating. Not wishing to be considered a cheater, I decided on a taste test.

In spite of the name, ontbijtkoek is somewhere between a cake and a bread. It includes the spices often associated with gingerbread, namely ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. The recipe also calls for stroop (rhymes with rope). Stroop is a syrup made by boiling down fruit (often apples or pears) which looks similar to caramel and tastes (to me) like a mix of syrup and honey. The combination of the stroop, the spices, and the heat of the oven creates a delectable scent. My kitchen smelled so good my husband and children tore themselves away from a movie to come see what I was baking.

After savoring the smell for a bit, I ate ontbijtkoek the way I read the Dutch do, warm, buttered, with a cup of coffee. It tasted as good as it smelled. This is where the upside of being a writer kicked in. I used the need to experience the smell of ontbijtkoek as an excuse to sit around all afternoon eating cake and coffee. I even called it work.

Writing is a tough slog and eighty-thousand words can be daunting. A little side benefit lightens the load a bit, maybe just enough that you keep going.