Promiscuity

I am a promiscuous baker. I bake for everyone and I rarely discriminate. This new hobby has made me uncharacteristically attention-seeking. If you casually mention over coffee that you cannot resist palmiers, I will probably invest eight hours in the joys of laminate baking to make you your very own tin of delectable mini cinnamon palmiers. If you crave chocolate in the middle of the night, my skills allow for a comforting batch of chocolate chip cookies to keep on your night stand. And if I am hosting a party, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t seize the opportunity to bake something ‘life changing’ (in the immortal words of my friend, V. Bless him) for such a captive audience.

Last weekend, I chose a triple layered chocolate mousse cake, a triumph of my present culinary abilities. I went easy on the top layer, mindful of the fact that white chocolate isn’t popular. I compensated with a generous half kilo of high quality bittersweet dark chocolate distributed evenly between the flour-less dense cake base and the soft creamy mousse that sat on top made with the freshest cream my city can provide. Giddy at the thought of twenty five people sinking their teeth into this creation, I decorated the upper most slender white layer of mousse with gentle stripes of cocoa and expresso dust. This I did shortly before serving, wearing my apron over a black silk dress, to ensure that the final touches looked new.

I surveyed the room with pride. Most people were reduced to quiet puddles, some disbelieved that I had made it (secretly, this is the reaction I long for most. I am an unlikely looking baker. I am skinny, I roll my eyes and have been told that I lack maternal instinct) and in the corner of the room, three of my most analytical and articulate guests collected to exchange their thoughts on the subject.

A: I like eating these layers separately. My favourite is the base though.

V: I agree. I love the base the most but I’d still say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

G: How does that make sense? A complete bite captures the beauty of every layer. It all adds up.

V: Holism is the idea that all the properties of any given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone. Instead, the system as a whole determines in an important way how the parts behave. So that’s the extra feeling when you take a full bite. You cannot break it into its component parts.

A: I disagree. Mathematically, according to binomial theorem, it is possible to expand the power (x + y)ⁿ into a sum involving terms of the form ax^by^c so the sum of the parts would be exactly equal to the whole.

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. I do, however, remember walking away to pour myself a drink as I watched three hours of passionate baking degenerate into absurd academic debate, vowing to bake only for the less cerebrally endowed.