Keys. Pants. Cake. Not your average check list but one that may be familiar to those who swim in cold water, be it lake, river, sea or outdoor pool. Finding that one of your swim party has stuffed some baked goods hurriedly into a bag is one of the joys of an outdoor swim. It certainly adds a sense of comfort to a usually cold, dark morning.
I’ve been known to take advantage of waking up early in winter, in fear of oversleeping, and baking a batch of scones to take to the ladies’ pond in Hampstead. Getting into a car full of overheating menopausal women in all manner of woolly items and hearing their exclamations of disbelief and excitement at the prospect of something delicious to eat whilst drying off, still makes me smile to this day.
Rather like the idea that food/booze doesn’t count if you’re standing up, the calories consumed while balancing on one foot, trying to wriggle out of a wetsuit (or wet bikini) and doing up a very unobliging bra is my kind of multitasking. A hot drink may heat up icy hands but soft, doughy, sweet anything is what I crave after a swim. Nothing fancy, and never ‘healthy’.
The social side of sharing food is part of it, I think. As most of you will know, there is no room for modesty when changing on a riverbank and the same applies to eating after a swim. Manners and decorum go out of the window. Someone with a free hand may wipe jam off your nose if you’re lucky, but that’s the nearest you will get to propriety. Even the three second rule applies, just make sure someone doesn’t get a face full of flesh when you bend over to pick it up.
Now let’s get down to logistics. The only time for Tupperware is if you’re driving to your swim or have managed to find a lid that fits. Otherwise any old tea towel or scrap of tin foil will do. The most important thing to remember with a post swim cake is it is all about the structural integrity of the baked goods. On that note, my favourite bakes for a post swim treat are scones, doughnuts or any traybake including brownies or flapjack. Personally, biscuits don’t hit the spot for me. Squigginess is key. Strangely all the above taste that little bit better when slightly squashed and damp.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not evangelical about homemade. Who has the time to be a domestic god(dess) these days? Sitting in a Lido café cradling a hot cuppa and talking excitedly with a mouthful of cake about water temperature, hot flushes, hotter lifeguards and who has forgotten their undies, cannot be beaten. Especially, if halfway through you have to pile more clothes onto a somewhat hypothermic mate. Croissants, pain au chocolate or a slice of Victoria sponge are perfect in that situation.
Homemade or not, cares will slip away, problems will be ignored and worries temporarily forgotten. After all, if you’re eating cake on a post-swim high, you won’t care you’ve forgotten your knickers