Crush Cakes: Jessica Chastain

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Jessica Chastain? More like Jessica Chast-babe, (Babe-stain was not going to do any of us any favours.) She's so damn luminous that if you zoomed in on the millions of luminous spheres promised by anti-wrinkle creams, each sphere would be—psych—a picture of her distinctly non-spherical face. Her cheekbones are like waterslides, her eyes are like puddles that petrol has spilled into. Also, she’s a fantastic actor; and while she didn’t win that last Oscar she has the air of someone who’s going to be in a critically acclaimed movie every single month for the rest of her life.

I like her so much that I definitely nearly bought that YSL perfume that she’s in the campaign for—until I was reminded how expensive perfume is. But I did stare at the bottle of perfume in the shop for a really, really long time in the hopes that someone would take pity on me and buy it. Which never worked back when I used to ask the person behind the counter how much Spice Girls polaroid cameras cost, and then sigh heavily and say “well, okay”, and walk away really slowly. Frankly I don’t know why I thought it would work now.

Jessica Chastain was probably the only reason I watched Zero Dark Thirty, well, that and the fact that I’m trying to actively watch more films directed by women. Ugh, she was so incandescent (trying not to rely too heavily on “luminous”). I even sat through all of Tree of Life because she was in it. So brave. She was also great in this one episode of Veronica Mars.

From devastating to goofily adorable: such range.

According to her Wikipedia page Jessica Chastain is a vegan because, “I don't want to torture anything. It's about trying to live a life where I'm not contributing to the cruelty in the world.” She has adopted a three-legged dog called Chaplin. I don’t know why but I nearly cried when I read that because, shallow though it sounds (because it is), there’s something about really beautiful people that you have a crush on doing something nice like adopting three-legged dogs that seems so much more important than if anyone else did it. Also I didn’t sleep too well last night, it could be that.

My crush cake for Jessica Chastain is a vegan lemon coconut bundt cake. Bundt cake is just a regular cake presented in a complicated manner, and Jessica Chastain plays lots of complicated film roles; okay there really is very little connection here, I just thought a big bundt cake covered in sprinkles could look kinda great. OMG Jessica Chastain, I have so many vegan recipes. If you ever run out of vegan food… in New York City… where you live… call me!

Vegan Lemon Coconut Cake

Mix together 1 tin of coconut milk (or coconut cream), 1 ½ cups sugar, 2/3 cup plain oil (like rice bran or sunflower or whatever), ¼ cup lemon juice, 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1 teaspoon salt till very thick and smooth. The easiest way to make it as smooth and lump-free as possible is to start with the dry ingredients, mix them really well, then slowly mix in the liquids. Tip it into a greased and floured bundt cake and bake at 180 C/350 F for about 50 minutes, or until firm on top. I then mixed together a ton of icing sugar and some more coconut milk, plus some raspberry flavoured essence for that small-town-bakery scent (also for no reason other than I like it). Spread that thickly over the cooled cake, before plastering it with a jam jar full of sprinkles.

Note: I must’ve made this cake a squillion times in the last couple of years. It works in any cake tin and lasts for days. It’s great if you’re making a birthday cake for your vegan best friend, or indeed, your vegan best self. Also because there’s just some stirring involved, it’s easy to make when hallucinating-levels of tiredness take over. As always though, sift that baking soda. Baking soda lumps are really hard for both the ego and the tastebuds to bounce back from, trust me.

Follow Laura on Twitter: @HungryandFrozen

Previously:

Crush Cakes: Richard Hell

Crush Cakes: Idris Elba