40

that superb musical, Shock-Headed Peter ?
    A final question: why forty, and not thirty, or fifty? The answer is the same as the answer to the questions why three wishes? Why seven dwarfs? Because more would be too many, and fewer wouldn’t be enough.
    Philip Pullman, author of The Good Man Jesus and the
Scoundrel Christ

     

A Celebratory Chocolate Cake with Forty Panels
    Decadently stacked high and panelled with forty layered pieces of chocolate – perfect for such a landmark celebration!
    For the cake
230g unsalted butter, room temperature
550g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
420g plain flour, sifted
90g cocoa powder, sifted
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
380ml natural yoghurt
250ml strong brewed coffee, cooled
* 1 batch of chocolate or vanilla buttercream
* handful redcurrants/berries
    For the chocolate shards
400g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
½ tsp unsalted butter
    * Vary the buttercream and fruits, and create your own design.
    Equipment
3 x 6” round cake tins, greased and lined
Baking sheet and baking paper
    Preparation time : 25 minutes
Cooking time : 35 minutes
Serves : 10-12
    Preheat the oven to 180˚C fan assisted/gas mark 6.
Place a baking sheet in the freezer.
Cream together the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy (approx 4 mins). Add the eggs and vanilla and beat on a slow speed, gradually increasing until just evenly incorporated.
Whisk together all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add half to the batter, add the natural yoghurt and then the remaining dry ingredients, keeping beating to a minimum.
Once you have a smooth, even batter, slowly add the coffee. (The mixture will be very wet so be careful.)
Divide the mixture between the three prepared cake tins and level out to the edges. Bake for 20–25
minutes, or until a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before
turning out on to a wire rack to cool completely.
Spread the buttercream between each of the layers, sprinkle with redcurrants/berries, then repeat.
Prepare your chocolate shards before icing the outside of the cake.
To make the chocolate shards, melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler over a medium heat. Remove from the heat when about two-thirds melted, and stir to melt the remaining chocolate.
Remove the baking sheet from the freezer. Using
a palette knife, spread the chocolate over a piece of baking paper on top of the really cold sheet until it forms a thin coating (but not so thin you can see through it). Return to the freezer to set completely.
Once set, cut carefully into forty even or rough pieces, depending on the effect you want to create. Once the chocolate is cut up, ice the outside of the cake starting from the centre of the top layer, spreading the buttercream out, then down and around the side. Press some of the shards around the bottom layer, then build up around the top and finally into the centre. Use lustre dusts or edible spray paint to colour some of the chocolate if desired.
    Lily Vanilli, author of Sweet Tooth

Portrait of Stephanie Wolfe Murray

    Alasdair Gray, author of Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray



Why Forty?
    People sometimes ask me why my book SUM: Tales from the Afterlives was composed of forty stories. Was that a purposeful choice, biblical in its implications?
    Yes.
    But maybe not for the reasons that one thinks.
    Some biblical readers see forty as a number that promises fulfilment, deliverance after running a gauntlet (think days and nights of rain, or years of desert-wandering). Throughout the Bible, forty represents preparation, testing, and judgment from on high. What number could be better for a book about lives and afterlives? What number could better capture the texture of this uncertain, challenging epoch called your lifetime?
    But there’s another interpretation, perhaps more compelling. Many biblical commentators speculate that forty is employed to represent any arbitrarily large number: anything so incalculable or immeasurable that it is best summarised in a not-meant-to-be-specific number. No religion gains adherents by writing that it ‘rained for loads of days and nights’; instead, employing the number forty casts a large shadow without the encumbrance of precision. (In this sense, I find it delightful that the Roman numeral version of forty is XL, which I cannot help but read as ‘extra large’.)
    If one is going to write