The walnut cake and the mother-in-law

Call me naive, but I had thought that baking a walnut cake, mostly for my fiancé but with a quarter going to the future in-laws, would be a nice gesture as a kind of thanks for all the Sunday lunches and mid-week dinners so far enjoyed by myself at the effort of my future mother-in-law. I was wrong.

The baking of the walnut cake was a rare time when my fiancé was not in the role of guinea pig but was in fact, the beneficiary of a successful attempt already made at this recipe back in Australia. As I’m soon to embark on my journey of an Italian married life, I have figured that I should get my culinary skills up to speed; although I should already be assured of the affections of my fiancé without having to re-conquer him via the kitchen. As it is though, we’re still not married yet and he has often been subjected to various culinary experiments resulting in various degrees of success.

There was no way, however, that I would ever consider passing on a piece of cake to the in-laws that was not already a stalwart in my paltry recipe book (which has a heavy emphasis on cakes and sweets and not much on savoury main courses. This is something to be remedied in the future). I bought an electric cake mixer on purpose for my walnut cake, being equipped with only a wooden spoon and wonky egg whisk.

The cake was a roaring success with my fiancé and over at the in-laws I only got a hint of how it was received. I understand my future sister-in-law was the first to try it, because being “so dark” in colour my mother-in-law seemed loath to jump in first. On discovering that it was, in fact, a very good cake, I’ll never know if the piece set aside for my father-in-law ever actually got to him. The reaction from the mother-in-law was a mix of surprise, suspicion, pleasure and envy and I’m not sure which won out in the end.

I will admit that the choice of the walnut cake was a calculated one. It should always prove a crowd pleaser for the Italians with nothing too Anglo to confuse them. Whether the next cake on the list – a carrot cake – will have as much success is anyone’s guess. At least I now actually have a set of scales and a cake mixer to do this, although I don’t recommend splurging before a wedding to anyone else. Use it to your advantage – we can’t because we don’t have anywhere to put the stuff from a gift register at this stage.

In the meantime, any cake offers to the mother-in-law will have to be carefully considered in the future because I’m not sure that it’s done us any favours in not inviting certain aunts to the wedding, saving on elaborate bomboniere, and getting married at the local council and not in the church. In fact, I suspect all I did was prove that I could make a cake that she can’t, although the real virtue here is not in my culinary skills, but in following a recipe (the cake mixer helps, too). Never steal a son and offer a quarter of a cake in return....