Vesna McMaster - Raise

Due to no particular choice of my own, my carbohydrate intake has been pretty limited for the last few years. Carbohydrate is quite the addiction-magnet but like anything else, you get used to its absence. However, Easter is a challenge. The lure of spiced buns beats the song of sirens any day, in fact I frequently wish someone would tie me to a mast when I walk past the bun aisle in the supermarket to save me the energy on self-control.  Who ever thought of letting dough get all yeasty before cooking it? It must have been one of those accidents like Bob forgot the flour mix in the pot and now it looks all weird and squishy, never mind I’ll cook it anyway and hopefully no-one will notice and BOOM tasty leavened bread. Hey Bob how d’you come up with that idea? Oh, months of planning and research, you know me, meticulous. What’s the recipe? (Bob looks shifty) It’s a secret.

Doughy, yeasty glory is so much more addictive than a flat slice of cake. Baking powder is not a great taste, whereas yeast…mmm. Know what they used to use as cake raising agent? Stag’s horn. Does it work particularly well? No. Is it tasty? Again, emphatic nope. Bob wasn’t on form that day. Hey what shall I do with this cast off antler, I know I’ll put it in the cake for Shirley, because that’ll let her know I’m ‘horny’ and ‘risen’. A ha, a ha, ha, slow clap. And now I’m (Me, not Bob) on Internet Archive and reading The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography (1964) when it really is none of my business, so you see? What a well-risen bun can reduce you to.