Honeycomb Crumble

“The world moves on so fast, and we lose all chance of being the women our mothers were; we lose all understanding of what shaped them.”

― Hilary Mantel, "An Experiment in Love"

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Dear Alex,

At the kitchen last night, I could not resist a challenge: does simple mean easy in the globe of baking?

To bake is to become. The chemistry of change crystallizes before your naked eyes. You see in grams and Fahrenheit but the figures do not add up at the measuring line. A teaspoon of yeast recedes in flour to test your faith. How big of a sprinkle can you expect transformation?

If any lesson could be scooped up from bowl to bank, crayon to college, it would fail fantastically if not for common grace. My daughter is leaving home for school this weekend. I have no recipe to safeguard her presence or prospect.

She makes a list of things to take to the dormitory. Bed sheets, lockbox, laundry mesh, vaccination record - the simplest care for her life apart from mine in miles and trust, remote from any aroma of my baking for her.

The last time I ate the traditional Indonesian “ambon” or honeycomb cake, the world’s squishiest pastry, I might have been a teen lounging in the home of my mother’s childhood friend in Jakarta. There is no touch of sweetness quite like ambon. Simple food, simple form. One of the lightest pleasures, it holds deep secrets to look easy.

Yours,

Kate