Kaffe und Kuchen
Bee Sting Cake – Bienenstich – Hilde’s Recipe
Kaffee und Kuchen – very much a German tradition. A chance for women of like minds and interests to get together. Bee Sting Cake (Bienenstich) perfect for one of these gatherings. Nothing quite like it in British baking. The cake is made from a sweet yeast dough, rather like a Sally Lunn. 1lb flour, 1 egg, 3oz sugar, 3oz butter, half pt. milk, 1oz yeast. Follow as for Sally Lunn p.135. Leave dough to rise for at least 8 minutes, bake regulo 6 for 20–30 minutes. The cake is topped with honey, butter, sugar and almonds, giving the finished cake a crisp, caramelized coating. When completely cold, the cake is split and filled with a pastry custard flavoured with Kirsch or vanilla.
She left him sleeping. There was no one about as she slipped out of his room and tiptoed down the corridor. She walked home under the frosty stars, already missing him. Two weeks seemed a very long time. She walked on, hardly noticing the biting cold. Her mind was back in the quiet of his room: the yellowy light from the desk lamp on his face, accentuating the hollow of his cheek, picking up the glitter in his eyes, illuminating the changing lines of pain as he told his story. That sob wrenched from somewhere deep inside him; the way he held his hands, like a cage to hold his tears, had moved her to a place where words ceased to hold meaning. The sex that had followed, his aching tenderness made her tingle still. She’d had a vertiginous sense of actually falling. She’d had that feeling before.
Some animal instinct broke through her reverie, a noise behind, a pricking of the spine.
She turned into a dazzle of headlights. The motorbike was coming right at her. She stumbled in a slipping scramble, pain arrowing as she turned her ankle on the kerb. She landed in a heap of frozen, dirty snow, helpless as the bike bore down on her with a growling roar. She could smell the reek of petrol, oil, exhaust fumes as the bike slewed, the wheels so close she could feel the heat from the burning rubber. The rider swerved at the very last second, laughing as he rode away.
Edith lay where she was, the initial danger over, but the pain in her ankle increased with searing intensity as soon as she tried to put weight on it. There was no one about in this quiet road. No lights in the houses, no traffic. It was easily ten degrees below. It was snowing big, feathery flakes and they were falling faster. Without help, she would freeze to death. The tears from the pain were already ice on her face.
Suddenly, footsteps running, a voice shouting:
‘Frau Graham, are you all right?’
Luka held out a hand to her. For his size, the boy was surprisingly strong.
‘I fell. A motorbike. Only just missed me.’ Edith hobbled painfully, leaning on his shoulder.
He let out a stream of invective in three different languages. ‘No-good DP. I told you.’
‘How do you know?’
‘He ride R51 BMW. I see him at end of road. Don’t know which one he is but I find out, don’t worry. I fix him good. But first lean on Luka. I get you home.’
‘We look like we’re in a three-legged race,’ Edith laughed as they hobbled along.
‘What is that?’ Luka asked. He frowned as she described it. ‘Tie legs together to do racing? Why they do that?’
Trying to explain took up the rest of the way.
‘You all right now?’ he asked when they finally reached the billet.
‘Yes, thank you, Luka—’
‘I come to tell you.’ He leaned closer. ‘I have news, about that lady. I know more tomorrow.’
He was off before she could ask more, running through the snow and ice as sure footed as a mountain hare.
Edith let herself into the darkened house, trying not to make any noise but as soon as she put any weight on her ankle, she went crashing into the hallstand.
‘Is anybody there?’ Ginny’s voice, nervous at the top of the stairs.
‘It’s only me,’ Edith held onto the edge of the stand, wincing against the shooting pain. ‘I’ve ricked my ankle …’
‘Oh, you poor thing!’
Ginny ran down the stairs and helped her into the sitting room.
‘How did it happen?’ she asked as she settled Edith on the settee.
Then the others appeared, curious to know what was going on. Edith’s pleas not to make a fuss were ignored. Ginny went to get Frau Schmidt while Lorna, who claimed First Aid experience, knelt down to examine her. Angie and Franny went off for basins of hot and cold water. Frau Schmidt came offering bandages and advice to Lorna. At this point, the front door opened and Molly came in.
‘What’s going on here?’ She stood, arms folded as she listened to what had happened. ‘That’ll teach you to stay out late in this kind of weather!’ She gave her sharp, high-pitched laugh. ‘I’m off to bed.’
Frau Schmidt ordered hot-water bottles to be made up, aspirins to be found. On the surface, the German woman couldn’t do enough for Edith but did she detect a look passing between Molly and Frau Schmidt? Was there a glimmer of disappointment, just an initial hint of surprise that Edith was there at all?
The next day, the swelling had gone down but Edith still couldn’t put weight on her ankle. She would have to spend the day resting in the sitting room with her foot up on a stool. She sent word to Roz. She would catch up on her letters home and it would be a chance to observe what went on when the British were out of the way.
She kept her letters anodyne: the weather, requests for things hard to get. Anything else would be misinterpreted, warped and twisted by Mother’s continuing resentment over her absence and Louisa’s bitterness at having to take her place. The row hadn’t died down. Often, to fill the page, she’d describe a meal she’d had, a recipe she’d found. Louisa had started the sending of recipes and menu cards from Ted’s war postings. It was an interest shared, safe ground. Food and cooking was the one thing that they had in common. The only place they got on was in the kitchen. They had been like this since they were quite little girls when Mother had let them help her. Simple things: mixing, measuring, jam tarts and scones. Louisa had followed Edith’s lead. Quiet, solemn, listening to her older sister’s instructions, copying everything she did. Precise and careful, she never made a mess. She’d worshipped Edith then. How things change.
Edith looked over Louisa’s last missive. Minor High Street triumphs. The ration ruled their lives. Louisa was good at getting ‘that bit extra’ using her good looks and charm. Other than that, Mother’s rheumatism was bad. Louisa had to do everything. Rory was off school with his chest again. Ted was no help. She hardly ever saw him. His new school took up all his time. When he wasn’t there, he was at the RAFA or the Legion, or down the allotment, or fishing.
Like many men back from the Forces, Ted was finding the domestic world stifling, preferring his own company or the company of his kind. Edith was beginning to understand. Louisa’s letters pressed heavily on the worn levers of guilt but they didn’t make her want to return. Just the opposite.
Edith was composing her reply, when the doorbell rang. Frau Schmidt hardly ever answered the door yet that was her overloud, peeling laughter. Effusive greetings subsided to animated chatter that faded down the basement stairs.
Hilde brought coffee and cake. Bienenstich. Bee Sting Cake. Quite a treat.
‘What’s going on?’ Edith asked.
‘Kaffee and Kuchen. Friends of Frau Schmidt.’
‘Does she often do this? Frau Schmidt?’ Edith asked. ‘Have friends in?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Hilde nodded. ‘Very often. When the British ladies have gone to work.’
‘Neighbours?’ Edith enquired. ‘Frau Kaufmann?’
‘Yes, she is usually here and some other ladies from other places, I don’t know.’
What ladies? Edith wanted to ask but the girl’s brow was beginning to pucker. Edith changed the subject.
‘This is very good cake, Hilde, did you make it?’
‘Yes.’ The girl’s face cleared.
‘My compliments. You must give me the recipe.’ Edith smiled encouragingly. All women who like cooking, like to have that cooking appreciated. What better way than to ask for the recipe?
‘My uncle keeps beehives, so we have honey. I bring some to Frau Schmidt. And aunt has almond trees in the garden. Also cherries for Gugelhopf.’
‘Gugelhopf! That’s one of my favourites!’
‘Mine, too.’ Hilde smiled. ‘It is my mother’s recipe, my grandmother’s before that …’
Gugelhopf was a rich, yeast-based cake made in a bundt tin with the addition of fruit, raisins or in this case cherries, but Edith had never made it.
‘Tell me the recipe.’
Edith was genuinely interested and it would help fill her letter to Louisa. She made notes as Hilde described what to do, remembering her home, her family, her mother and grandmother’s kitchen. A whole world came spilling out with the sifting and stirring of each ingredient. Hilde and her brother trying to sneak the schnapps-soaked sour cherries before he joined the Luftwaffe and was lost to the waters of the grey North Sea. The copper bundt tin was Hilde’s grandmother’s. She would beat and beat with her wooden spoon, Hilde demonstrated, until the dough was elastic and silky smooth. Grandmother, bundt tin, everything, gone in the raid on Hanover that had sent Hilde north to find refuge with her aunt.
‘And your aunt sends cherries as a gift to Frau Schmidt? That’s very generous.’
‘It’s expected.’ Hilde shrugged. ‘We all give something. This is a good job. It is one reason why Frau Schmidt didn’t like Seraphina.’ She shrugged again. ‘Nothing to give. Now, I must go.’ Her eyes flickered to the door. ‘Frau Schmidt and her friends …’
‘Of course.’
So much to be learnt in a thoroughly domestic conversation. To be Beziehungen, connected, was highly sought after. It gave Frau Schmidt considerable power. So she was hosting regular meetings of women – Edith surmised that they would be coming from near and far and were likely to share Frau Schmidt’s political sympathies and were therefore very probably giving aid and succour to Nazis on the run. Such groups would be made up of women, their men dead, missing or in hiding. Leo’s words: find the frau …
In the hall, Frau Schmidt trilled farewells as they all trooped off down the path. Edith thought of them as the Schwestern – the sisterhood. Hunched in their black coats like a witches’ cabal.
The front door slammed. Frau Schmidt’s heavy step outside, galoshes crunching through the snow.
A knock on the door. Hilde again. Would she like more cake? She certainly would. It was delicious. Was that Frau Schmidt going out? Yes, indeed. Where was she going? To market? A shake of the head. She went out often and not to market. The girl’s bottom lip stuck out in a resentful pout. Hilde would have to go herself, later on, to get heavy vegetables after all the housework was done.
‘Frau Schmidt has many friends. She goes to see them.’ Hilde glanced to the window as if someone out there could see her.
‘Who are they? These friends?’
Hilde’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘It is dangerous to speak about them. It is best to be careful. Your foot. Your accident—’
‘You mean it wasn’t?’
Hilde shook her head slowly. The sharp rap at the window made them both start.
‘There is a boy.’
It was Luka.
‘Let him in, Hilde. And bring another slice of cake and more coffee.’
‘I wait until Nazi bitch go out.’ Luka unfolded a clasp knife, its blade honed to stiletto thinness, and cut into his cake. ‘I have something to tell.’ He ate with the slow, delicate care of someone to whom food like this meant a great deal, whose diet had been both monotonous and sparse. ‘Yesterday, I go to railway yards. Many kids there from all over. Some from Prussia.’ It was where they went to steal coal. There was a pause while he addressed another piece of cake, nibbling off the honey-coated almond flakes, turning the slice around in his hand, licking the cream like a cat. ‘I ask. Any from around Elbing? “Sure,” they say. I go over, make acquaintance. Tommies chase us, I show where to hide. Share a ciggie. Ask, where you from? Place in Prussia. Oh, yes? I say. Which place? Like I don’t know. Not far from Elbing, they say, eager to talk. I share another ciggie, say, do you know this lady? Maybe, they say, but I know they do. I say meet me today and I show best place for coal. We collect a big sack. I help them carry it back. They trust me now. They take me to a big house. Some of them live there. Nice lady give me bread and jam. Her name Elisabeth. I think she the lady you look for.’ He took out a scrap of paper. A corner torn from the Lübecker. ‘She live here. You want cake?’
‘What?’ Edith looked up from the scrawled address. ‘No, you have it. And here,’ she reached in her bag and took out a packet of Players. ‘Thank you Luka, you’ve been a great help.’
Luka went to the window. ‘Fräulein Roz coming. I open door.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ Roz looked out at Luka running down the path. ‘That boy gets everywhere. It’s horrible out.’ She shook her coat. ‘Wet snow. Even worse than dry. You’re better off in here.’
‘Would you like coffee? There’s cake.’
‘I won’t, thanks. Just came to see how you were. How is it?’
‘Much better.’
‘Good. We need you back. I’ve found somewhere we might use for a Teachers’ Centre – just needs furnishing, of course. And there was a message from that Captain Adams. Wants to meet you at the Mess.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight at eight.’ Roz gave a helpless shrug. ‘I explained you were hors de combat but he didn’t seem to hear.’