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đź’ Latest update : March 9th 2021
As you may have noticed by now, I love to learn new crafts and techniques. Over the years, I've come across a few of them called "magic something". At first I didn't really pay attention, but one day it struck me: this is incredibly bad naming, and here's why.
First of all, it's an insult to the human brain. Labeling something "magic" is telling the person who is trying to learn how something works "oh don't even try on this one, it just works, but it's not really clear why". Most crafts I've tried to get better at are culturally assigned to women (cooking, fibre arts), and we already have so many confidence problems induced by education, let's not add one more. In video tutorials, some people explaining methods don't understand themselves how that works and have given up trying. They copy moves they've learnt somewhere else and say "wow it's so cool, it's magic!". You can almost see sparkling particles flying off the screen. It's not their fault, everything tells them to let it go, up to the name of the technique.
I know there are lots of tech people on the gemini space. Just for a quick comparison: could you imagine in an explanation article some "magic lines" of code, that the author doesn't really understand, and you're told to copy without further questions, because it's probably too complicated? Don't you want to understand? Isn't that incredibly frustrating both for you and when you think about the author?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everyone should make the effort to understand everything. I'm saying that anyone trying to master a technique for a particular activity they're interested in should be encouraged to understand what they're doing.
Secondly, "magic" is not describing what the technique does. What's a "magic cake" really? Can it speak and fly?
Finally, using the same adjective for everything means that some techniques for different crafts are called the same, inducing even more confusion. There are magic loops in crochet and in knitting, and it's definitely not the same thing. Some projects use both crochet and knitting, so identical names can potentially clash.
I'm going to list and explain the occurrences I've come across, in an attempt to create a better understable world. The list may grow over time.
Hint: there's a recipe for a cake at the end :p
This method is for projects that start from a centre and spread in the form of a circle (like the top of a winter hat, a doilie or a round rug). The idea is to create a loose slip knot, add some stitches in its loop, and then pull the end of the thread to tighten the stitches and form a circle with no hole at the centre. The stitches in the loop prevent the knot to untie.
It's also possible to include some part of the tail in the initial crochet stitches, so that there's a minimal amount of thread to weave in. The magic is supposed to happen, I guess, when the tail is pulled and everything comes together. It is indeed very efficient.
Here we're talking about knitting in the round, that is knitting a tube with no seams -- think of a sleeve, a sock, a hat or a sweater body for example. Traditionally, it is done with double pointed needles, which are litterally short metal sticks with two pointy ends.
The stitches are spread among two to four of these needles in a closed shape, like a triangle/rectangle. These are held one at a time in the left hand. An additional needle is used to knit the stitches, held in the right hand (knitting usually progresses from right to left).
Once all the stitches of one left needle have been transferred to the one on the right hand, the needle on the left hand with no stitches left is freed, and can hence be reused for the next part as the right needle.
Going from needle to needle creates a knitting spiral.
About a century ago (according to A History of Hand Knitting by M.Rutt, it's in 1924), another knitting tool was invented, allowing to replace the double pointed needles with one big cable bearing needles at each ends: these are called circular needles. The stitches are spread along the cable, and both extremities are used ot knit seamlessly. It's very handy, but it has one flaw: on very small circumferences like end of sleeves or socks, the stitches tend to be too stretched along the cable's length, and if the cable is shortened to avoid that problem, then it becomes impossible to get a nice angle with the needles at the end to be able to knit.
The so called magic loop answers that issue. Instead of spreading the stitches along the whole cable evenly, they are split into two parts near the needles, and a wide portion of the cable remains unused, forming a big loop at half the work. This allows to get the necessary leeway to be able to knit and sort of mimics the use of double pointed needles. Once half of the stitches on one side are knitted, the loop is pulled further on the cable, allowing to knit the other half.
This one might concern french speaking people only, but anyway... This "gâteau magique" derives from a traditional recipe originating from the south-west of France, and called millas... and many other names actually (see terms in italics in the "terminologie" paragraph):
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millas_(plat)
The original recipes used millet flour, hence the name, and then seems to have switched to corn flour when it was imported in Europe. It's not necessarily sweet, and has led to a ton of different recipes in different areas of France.
The "gâteau magique" uses standard wheat flour and is definitely a dessert.
Some of the millas recipes and the gâteau magique share a common feature: they are layered. The consistency of each layer varies from recipe to recipe, but basically the bottom is a lot thicker than the top.
On the gâteau magique, the bottom of the cake is a custard tart, the middle is a sort of creamy custard, and at the top sits a very light genoise.
The "magic" resides in the fact that before baking, the cake looks homogeneous. The layering takes shape while it's in the oven.
When the temperature rises, the flour and the eggs, which are heavier, go to the bottom of the cake, forming the custard. The milk stays in the middle, creating the custard cream, and the whipped egg whites remain at the top as the lightest of all the ingredients.
The oven has to be at relatively low temperature (150°C) and cook for 50 minutes for the effect to happen. If it's too hot or if the cooking time is too short, the ingredients don't have the time to "move" to their own layer while still raw.
It's also important that the whipped eggs whites should not mixed too much in the batter before cooking. They need to be included gently in the batter to keep their own density.
It wouldn't be nice to talk about cooking and not link to at least one way of making the cake, so here is the one I've successfully tried (very yummy):
https://www.papillesetpupilles.fr/2014/09/gateau-magique.html/
Also I guess I should translate the recipe, so here it is:
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Cut the vanilla pods in half, get the seed with a knife. Heat the milk with the pods open and the seeds, turn the heat off and let all this infuse for at least an hour. The longer the infusion, the stronger the taste.
Pre-heat the oven at 150°C. Do not use convection / fan option if your oven has one. If you cannot disable it, then reduce the temperature by 10°C.
Separate egg yolks and whites. Whip the yolks with granulated and vanilla sugar until it looks white.
Melt the butter and add it to the mix. Add the flour, the salt, and whip for a few minutes.
Remove the vanilla pods from the milk, and pour gently the milk on the rest while whipping.
In another bowl, whip the egg whites (as to make a floating island).
To incorporate them to the batter which is very liquid, it's recommended to use a whip (instead of a wooden spoon) and move the egg whites mass slowly, so that they don't dissolve in the dough: there must still be visible chunks at the end.
Pour the whole thing in the cake tin, and put it in the oven for 50 minutes.
When exiting from the oven, the cake should still be trembling a bit.
If it's not cooked enough, the cake doesn't hold. If it's over cooked, the cream custard disappears.
Leave at least 2 hours in the refrigerator. It's mandatory to let it solidify. It's even better to wait for the next day.
Serve cold :) You can add icing sugar on top if you wish.
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Side notes: