Sweet success: How a 'no dessert' childhood fueled Vancouver pastry chef Jackie Kai Ellis

Anyone whose face fell upon hearing their parents utter "it'll spoil your dinner" can surely relate to the longing for sweets that follows.

When flipping through Vancouver bakery owner Jackie Kai Ellis' moving new memoir The Measure of my Powers, we were quite surprised to learn that, despite now being best known for producing perfectly flaky croissants and having a penchant for Parisian sweets of all shapes and sizes, Kai Ellis actually grew up in a dessert-free household. While she attributes this to the fact that her mother "probably read some article about the evil effects of sugar on a child's brain development and vowed to protect [her] from all sweet dangers", Kai Ellis is quick to draw the connection from those restrictive formative years to her eventual career as a pastry chef, food writer and business owner.

In this chapter from her book, Kai Ellis outlines her path from those sad, sugar-free years to her very first bakes as a young child. Scroll down to hear her tell it in her own words, and keep reading for the infamous carrot cake recipe she shares at the end.  

From 'Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting {1985-1992}' in The Measure of my Powers: A Memoir of Food, Misery, and Paris

By Jackie Kai Ellis

When I accompanied my mother to the butcher, I would longingly fiddle with the chocolate coins displayed in baskets alongside the canned artichokes and anchovies. While she paid for our week's worth of luncheon meats, the cashier would carefully place in my hand a single candy with patterns of bright fruits printed on its wrapper. Each time, my jaw dropped and my heart pounded with the excitement and disbelief of a lottery winner, but just as I closed my fingers around it, my mother would pluck the candy from my little palm and return it to the cashier. I would be speechless.

My older sister didn't have much more luck than I did. Over dinner three decades later, we traded stories of our sugar deprivation as if piecing together a common alien abduction experience. We realized that both of us had scrounged through the pantry drinking vanilla extract in a desperate search for anything that might taste like candy.

Over time, through tortuous trial and error, we discovered two ways to get mom to let us eat sweets. The first was to ask her at a strategically timed moment. Since she worked evening shifts at the time, we noted that she was vulnerable and compliant during her afternoon nap. In a sleepy daze, she would say yes to anything, including opening the boxes of chocolates she reserved as future "regifts." She would awake with a vague recollection of having agreed to something, and being a fair mother, we would escape discipline each time.

I, thankfully, had the maturity to understand at the age of six or seven that no supportive mother could deny a child wanting to learn, so as a second ploy, I began teaching myself to bake. It was never discussed nor did I ask permission; I simply rode my little red bike to the library for cookbooks, spending hours leafing through recipes and then using my ten-dollar-a-week allowance to buy ingredients. I was like a prisoner walking out the front door, the guards helpless to stop me.

I had only watched my mother bake on a few occasions, and being a sensible child, I knew that when learning new things, one must start slowly. So I started with recipes from a coil-bound cookbook we had at home, one that my elementary school had created as a fundraising effort. I was particularly drawn to recipes marked with a little drawing of a chef's hat labeled "junior chef," tasks easy enough for someone as young as I to tackle successfully. I stood at the tall kitchen counter by myself, choosing very deliberately which recipe to begin with. The one for peanut butter drops looked simple enough. I liked peanut butter, and this recipe had just four ingredients: sugar, egg, vanilla, and peanut butter. And so I began, preheating the oven, pouring the perfect amount of sugar into a large mixing bowl. I held my breath. One egg, tapped lightly on the side of the bowl, and I managed to leave out any fragments of shell. I filled measuring cups with sticky, smooth peanut butter, and added a final slip of vanilla. With a large spoon, I mashed the ingredients until they came together into a smooth, tawny paste.

One by one, I rolled tender little balls between my palms and lined them up obediently on a buttered tray. After a few minutes in the oven, watching them grow through the hazy window in the door, I smelled them, hot, caramel, nutty, sweet, and my mouth watered.

When I was sure they were done, looking for all the signs of a cookie I wanted to eat, the golden edges especially, I carefully pulled the hot pan out of the oven and rested it on top of the stove. Once they were cool enough to touch with my fingers, I picked one up and bit into it. The sweet-scented nuttiness immediately melted on my tongue, held together by the soft fragrance of vanilla. They were good. I smiled and then proceeded to eat the better part of half of them before anyone came home.

I grew more confident over the following weeks, and moved on to "kitchen sink" cookies: a chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookie with a hint of cinnamon, shredded coconut, nuts, and even potato chips added to the batter—essentially everything. I then worked my way through the hot milk sponge cake, mouthing the recipes quietly to myself. I discovered that keeping a clean kitchen and putting things away as I went along made the process easier and that too much marshmallow in a Rice Krispie square made the Rice Krispies less crispy. Everything I made tasted delicious, and being in the kitchen felt quite natural. Without anyone's guidance, I seemed to innately know what kind of molasses to buy at the grocery store or how many chocolate chips a cookie could hold without falling apart.

It was an ideal solitary world for me to explore. I was incredibly shy outside of the home, plagued by insecurities about many things, most of which was the fear that I was stupid. Like many Asian immigrant families I've known, our family believed that being scholastically talented was of the utmost importance. It was considered the only valuable skill because they thought it was the only safe path to financial security, which in their minds meant happiness for my sister and me. But since I showed no aptitude for academics, especially compared to others in my extended family who had excelled in school, I was dismissed as "stupid" and "useless."

I felt constant guilt for being a disappointment to my family, and I felt hopeless to change my fate. So, most of the time, I thought it best not to give anyone reason to confirm my stupidity further by staying as quiet and neutral as possible, refraining from giving opinions or putting up my hand. I spent most of my energy figuring out how to be invisible at school, so I was often alone or with just one friend. Since my parents were so busy, I found that as long as I stayed out of trouble, I was free to play in the depths of my own world, exploring my imagination, drawing everything— including drawings of drawings—sewing clothes for my dolls, creating designs for dresses I longed to wear, and baking anything I wanted to eat.

II

Eventually I had a fateful brush with Blueberry muffins that left me feeling wholly disappointed in myself. I began as I usually did, reading out all the ingredients so as not to find myself stuck halfway through. I measured, poured, and mixed, verbalizing each step aloud with a maternal authority, making believe I was a cooking show host like my favorites Julia Child or Madhur Jaffrey. I carefully lined the dark metal muffin pan with pleated papers in pale tints of pink, blue, yellow, and green. I scooped an even amount of batter into each hollow and placed the tray in a 375°F preheated oven. After fifteen minutes, I retrieved them and allowed them to cool on a rack, foretasting them in my mind. When they were ready, I took one, peeled back its coat, and bit into it.

Stale-textured, mealy, and dry, like a powdery rock, my tasteless creation sucked up all the moisture in my mouth, it's only redeeming quality a hint of the vanilla I had put in. It would have been more appetizing to go back to drinking the vanilla extract itself.

Dejected, I left the muffins on the counter until my dad asked me about them. I explained sheepishly that they had come out hard. And, from a man who had never baked, or so I assumed, came the single most influential lesson on baking in my life.

"Next time, don't overmix it."

III

By the time I was about eight or nine years old, I had graduated to more complex recipes, occasionally making desserts for dinner guests. I felt as if I had finally found something I was good at. I'd get a hot rush of pride when my mom gloated in that self-deprecating, bored Chinese mom tone of voice, her eyes downcast with fake disapproval, "I don't know where she learns this, but it turns out OK. I guess I did bake a little bit a long time ago." When translated, this meant, "My daughter is the most talented baker in the entire universe. And by the way, she gets it from me."

One evening a group of family friends were joining us for dinner, so I decided to make a carrot cake. In part, I hoped to recreate this sensation of approval.

All was going perfectly, as usual. I whisked the spices into the flour, adding a slight warmth. I had chosen plump golden raisins as opposed to the dark variety to stud the cake—I liked their juicier texture and milder sweetness. As I grated the carrots into the batter, the end slipped out of my fingers and the weight I had placed on the hard carrot forced my knuckle into the grater, taking off pieces of flesh along with it.

I froze, shocked. I didn't make a sound. It happened so abruptly that it took me a few seconds to make sense of the fallen carrot and the numbness in my knuckles. I collected myself calmly, pulled apart the flesh of my hand to survey the damage, and took a few minutes to treat the wound with bandages and creams.

I walked back to my cake and was flustered to find flecks of blood on the surface of the batter where shreds of my finger had slowly sunk in.

A panicked discussion arose inside me.

I can't serve this.

But I don't have any more carrots to make another one.

So who cares if there is no dessert tonight?

I'll just pick out what I can and finish baking it.

What if they taste it? What if they can taste finger?!

And then I remembered the sage advice from the authority of all things, Julia Child: "If you're all alone in the kitchen, nobody will know."

So I left myself in the cake, put it in the oven, baked it, iced it with cream cheese frosting, and prayed no one would discover bits of a finger. I held my breath throughout the evening, playing out every horrible scenario. And as we cut into the white frosting, and our dinner guests bit into the cake… I waited.

Julia was always right.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe is written exactly as it was in the fundraising cookbook that  my elementary school, Highlands Elementary School had created, except this version omits the grated finger. The recipe was contributed by Trish McMordie, and I decided not to change any of the wording, but I've included notes at the end to make it a touch tastier and a touch better in my opinion.

I've also added a recipe for cream cheese frosting because it's so delicious with carrot cake.

Ingredients:

• ⅔ cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 beaten eggs
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup chopped nuts
• 1½ cups grated carrots

• 1 package of cream cheese, room temperature
• ¼ cup  unsalted  butter, room  temperature
• 1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
• Zest of 1 lemon

Preparation:

For carrot cake:

Preheat oven to 325°F.

"Mix together oil, sugar & eggs. Sift together flour, soda, baking powder, cinnamon + salt & slowly add to the egg mixture, stirring well. Add and blend in well the nuts & carrots. Bake into a greased and floured 8"x8" pan about 30 minutes. Cool and ice with cream cheese icing."

Yield: Makes one 9-inch round or 8x8 inch square cake

For cream cheese frosting:

Place the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer and cream them until light and airy. Slowly add the sugar and salt while mixing on low speed. Add the vanilla bean seeds and lemon zest and mix on high speed until well incorporated. Use it immediately or keep it refrigerated for up to 2 days, until you are ready to use it. If the texture is too hard, place back into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix again until the texture is spreadable.

Yield: Makes enough frosting for a one-layer cake, but can be doubled for a two-layer cake.

Notes:

• I like to use light brown sugar as opposed to dark brown, as I find the dark has a molasses flavour that is too heavy for my taste.
• Make sure the brown sugar is packed and not loose when measuring.
• I always prefer to use fine sea salt in baking recipes.
• This recipe calls for chopped nuts, and I love toasted walnuts. Toast the walnuts in a 300°F oven for 10–15 minutes or until they are lightly toasted, being sure to toss them every 5 minutes.
• I like my carrot cakes to have warm spice flavours, so I add a ¼ teaspoon of cardamom, ¼ teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, ¹/8 teaspoon of ground cloves, and ¹/8 teaspoon of ground allspice to the flour mixture.
• When adding the flour mixture to the egg mixture, I stir with a wooden spoon, a mixer, or a stand mixer until it is only just combined and there are still large streaks of flour. You will be continuing to mix after you add the nuts and carrots so this keeps you from overmixing the batter, keeping the crumb tender. Then scrape the bowl well and add the nuts and carrots.
• I like raisins in my carrot cakes and added them when I was young. If you choose to, add ½ cup plump golden raisins to the batter with the nuts.
• I like to bake mine in a 9-inch round pan. Butter the inside of the pan and then line the bottom with parchment paper. To unmold, run a thin knife or offset spatula along the sides, put a plate upside down on the top of the pan and flip the entire thing so the cake is inverted onto the plate. Peel off the parchment and ice the top.
• Every oven is different. Some ovens will take up to 45–50 minutes to bake the cake. To know when it is done, take a toothpick and insert it into the centre. The exact moment that the toothpick comes out clean with a few crumbs attached, the cake is done.
• You can double this recipe to make a two-layer carrot cake.

Excerpted from The Measure of my Powers: A Memoir of Food, Misery, and Paris by Jackie Kai Ellis. Copyright © 2017 JKE Media Inc. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.