Professor Butter Beard and the Sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun
“Tutankhamun Speaks:
Inside my mask of gold, lapis,
turquoise and amber,
my naked body breaks its bondage
and soars like an eagle towards
the golden Sun of rejuvenation”
- Ramon Ravenswood, Author and Psychic Medium, from “Icons Speak”
King Tutankhamun’s tomb reminds me of a version of Russian Nestling Dolls that amazed me as a doll-crazy youngster. Mine was more Easter orientated, being constructed as a large bow-tied bunny; the centerpiece of the basket overflowing with white chocolate eggs and bright pink marshmallow peeps. That gentleman jack rabbit would split in half revealing at least six smaller versions, all leading towards the prize of one cherry jellybean. Mysteriously, the stacking rabbits would suddenly disappear a week later only to magically reappear the next Easter morning with a fresh jellybean prize. Ah, the wonders of childhood…..
Based on that early understanding of construction, I easily morphed my stacking doll fascination into a more mature fascination with everything Tut. I “danced like an Egyptian” through my father’s Egyptian history lessons, repeated Saturday afternoon viewings of Lon Chaney Jr. stumbling through doors looking for his bride, and escaping during my grade school field trips to the Cleveland Museum of Art to run and find their mummy collection.
According to art historians, approximately 3,336 years ago, Tutankhamun, a minor king in a major Egyptian dynasty breathed his last. He was in his late teens, and he had reigned since he was nine years old. David Kamp writes that “After a brief mourning period, the pharaoh’s acolytes swung into action, mounting an epic of funerary ceremony worthy of Cecil B. DeMille.” First came embalming. Tutankhamun’s heart was left intact, but other vital internal organs—his liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines—were removed, preserved, wrapped in cloth, and placed in four mini-coffins, each about a foot and a quarter long and made of gold inlaid with carnelian stone and colored glass.
Following the ancient tradition, the pharaoh’s body was washed, anointed with herbs and ointments, adorned with more than a hundred amulets, rings, and bangles, and then carefully wrapped in strips of linen. The mummy was then laid in a coffin of solid gold, the elegant face on its lid fashioned in Tutankhamun’s image and framed by the customary “pharaonic nemes,” or striped headdress. Before the lid went on, the pharaoh’s undertakers gently placed over his head a magnificent 22-pound portrait mask in burnished gold.
In Kamp’s article for Vanity Fair, he further reports that the gold coffin was placed inside a larger coffin of gilded wood, which was housed, in a nesting-doll-style, inside a still-larger coffin, also of gilded wood. The nested coffins were then lowered into a heavy, rectangular sarcophagus of yellow quartzite, its sides etched with hieroglyphs, its corners featuring relief carvings of the protective goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Selket, and Neith. For good measure, the sarcophagus was itself nested in four ornately decorated chests known as shrines, each bigger than the last. The outermost shrine, made of gilded cedar, was 16 1/2 feet long and 9 feet high.
The English archaeologist Howard Carter, who led the expedition that discovered the tomb in 1922, wrote in his diary when the innermost coffin was finally opened revealing the golden mask: “The pins removed, the lid was raised. The penultimate scene was disclosed – a very neatly wrapped mummy of the young king, with golden mask of sad but tranquil expression, symbolizing Osiris … the mask bears that god's attributes, but the likeness is that of Tut.Ankh.Amen – placid and beautiful, with the same features as we find upon his statues and coffins. The mask has fallen slightly back, thus its gaze is straight up to the heavens.”
Without fail, my dreams and memories of childhood fascinations find their way into my baking. This week, I nested a delightfully ripe strawberry, sitting on a pecan sandie throne, wrapped and baked in a roasted banana cake batter and finally topped with a magnificent crown of lavender honey buttercream. This interpretation may not last for centuries to be rediscovered by a 24th century recipe archeologist, but it sure as heck makes me “dance like an Egyptian” with every bite!
Strawberry “King Tuts”
Two dozen cupcakes
For the cakes:
2 dozen Pecan Sandies (or your favorite cookie – Gingersnaps, Oreos, etc.)
2 dozen ripe strawberries, smaller berries preferred
3 ripe bananas, roasted and cooled
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg (or cinnamon)
4 ounces unsalted butter (one stick), room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
½ cup sour cream or plain Greek yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla paste
For the buttercream:
3 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar
12 ounces unsalted butter (three sticks), room temperature
¼ cup lavender honey
1) Place the bananas on a parchment-lined sheet pan, and roast in a 400-degree oven for fifteen minutes. Cool on a wire rack and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
2) Line your cupcake pans with paper liners and then place a cookie in the bottom of each liner.
3) Whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Grate in the nutmeg and whisk to combine.
4) Separate the eggs – the yolks into a small bowl and the whites into the bowl of a standing mixer. Beat the whites with the whisk attachment until soft peaks and then use a spatula to gently remove them to another large bowl.
5) Return the bowl to the standing mixer and cream together the four ounces of butter and the sugar. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, and then the peeled roasted bananas. Add the vanilla and mix to combine. Alternate adding the following: 1/3 of the dry mix, half the sour cream, 1/3 of the dry mix, remaining sour cream and finally the remaining dry mix.
6) Remove the bowl from the standing mixer and gently fold in the egg whites with a spatula until the batter is just combined.
7) Remove the tops of the strawberries and place each on to of a cookie, point side up. Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe around the strawberry until the batter reaches the top of the paper liner and just the tip of the berry is still showing. Bake the cupcakes until firm and just starting to brown – about twenty minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely in the pans on a wire rack.
8) While the cupcakes cool, make the buttercream. In a standing mixer, beat all three of the ingredients until smooth. Place the buttercream in piping bag and create a swirl on top of the cooled cupcakes (or just spread on with a knife).
