Has the chocolate ripple cake supplanted the chocolate crackle as the birthday party essential? Made one on request the other day. Everyone cried hooray as they pounced on the plate and covered their whiskers in whipped cream. But it’s a tickly question, I grant you, particularly now kiddies’ birthday parties, once loyal home to the crackle, have become about as threatened as deb balls and cribbage tournaments.
By birthday parties I mean parties in the old-fashioned sense of the word – little girls coming to your house, lots of cordy, sausage rolls, fairy bread, ice creams and crackles and everyone going home with a balloon and lollies in a box. Much squealing and running around and hundreds and thousands trodden into the shag pile. Perhaps at some stage someone saying to someone else that they weren’t their best friend anymore followed by crying and general shouting. Yes I know, you’ve seen it all.
Letter to the Editor
Back when we bothered to construct a batch of jelly cakes and slap together a tray of cheese toasties, the burning question was, do we crown the feast with a chocolate crackle or a big fat slice of chocolate ripple. They couldn’t have both. This was one scenario when too much chocolate was absolutely enough. A scan of the party menu backlog indicates crackles were the big winner.
But lately the trend has been towards the ripple log, especially among grown-ups who don’t mind add-ons such as macerated strawberries or brandied orange. They can pretend they’re kids again and the add-ons give a posh facelift to a cake so simple your budgie could crank it out.
Where crackles hold the fort is at themed children’s parties. The premise is that a parent forks out a fist-full of dollars and in return a number of small children get to engage in more entertainment activities than are on an Olympic Games schedule. The only other requirement on the part of the parent is a ripple log birthday cake or a tray of crackles. Job done. Happy birthday to little Belinda, and instead of rushing around a party room full of over-excited girls, mum’s hand-passed the fuss and bother over to the professionals.
You will note I have applied the afore-mentioned to small girl parties. Boys were never any sweat. Half the time they didn’t want a party but if they did you could assemble them all in the back yard with a football, put on a large pot of franks, open the red sauce bottle, lay out the thin white bread and be queen of the sub-teen party circuit.
The North Coast Post: BSB 633 000 · Account number: 2366 8 9535
Which leaves the question of which chocolatey goodness is preferable. My money is on the ripple log. It might be despised by food snobs, who regard any cooking less than Heston Blumenthal standard almost unfit for human consumption, but by golly people don’t half go for it. As a ubiquitous staple you could put it in the same league as the pumpkin soup and the french onion dip. A culinary ripple effect if ever there was.
