Katalin Tóth works at home as a confectioner, a work she does out of passion since the pay is low and she has to work long hours. Alternatively, she could work for someone else at an even lower salary. In fact, Ms. Tóth is part of a huge cottage industry of people who create their own jobs in a country with low wages and high unemployment. She receives orders for cakes and sweets for birthdays, weddings, religious feasts, etc.
She works alone in a tiny kitchen where she’s using her grandmother’s recipes which she knows by heart and she doesn’t need to measure or weigh the ingredients. Upon our arrival, she had already made various cakes which were freely available, and it was only the thought of gaining weight because of eating too much sweet stuff which made me limit myself.
She had already prepared and baked the dough, which would form the base of the cake she was preparing during our visit. She separated yolk and egg white deftly, mixing the yolk with vegetable oil and stirring the mixture. Having finished stirring, she poured the mixture over the base of the cake. Then, she mixed the egg white with flour and chocolate and used a mix-master to make the mixture uniform. Afterwards, she applied this mixture to another piece of dough which had already been baked. Finally, she would bake both of the cakes in a gas-fired oven. Since we had more visits to do, we didn’t wait for the cakes to be ready.
