The Four Winds and coffee tres leches cake

The book: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

Genre: Fiction

Publication date:

The bake: Coffee tres leches cake with dalgona cream

What’s the story?

This book really touched my heart – I can’t remember ever crying so much about fictional characters! The story starts in the early 1930s in the Great Plains, Texas. The protagonist is Elsa Wolcott, a very plain young woman who lives an unhappy life in her family home, where she is all but ignored by her parents. She’s also treated as an invalid after a childhood illness.

Her life changes when she meets Italian Rafe Martinelli and starts a life with him and his parents on their wheat farm. Unfortunately, they are in the midst of the Great Depression, and the Great Plains soon turn into the Dust Bowl where just surviving is a daily struggle. The unspeakableness of years of drought, of seeing beloved animals suffer and the whole area slowly dying under a hot sun, is so vividly described by Hannah that it will stay with me for a long time.

Elsa and her family face the impossible choice of trying to wait for better times on the farm, or seeking a new life in a different state, like California. However, is the grass really greener elsewhere? Or will they become a part of the crowds of poor and destitute people just looking to make a living and care for their families? The second part of the novel focuses on this choice and its consequences for the Martinellis.

Why read it?

There are so many reasons. This book is beautifully written and evocative of a time I didn’t know a lot about. Currently, in Johannesburg, we haven’t had rain for months. We are waiting for the first summer rain, so I could identify to a tiny degree with Elsa about the horrors of dust and the longing for rain.

This is a book about family, about female strength and endurance, and about finding love when you least expected it. Most importantly, it’s about the relationship between mothers and daughters. Parts of the book are told from Elsa’s perspective, and others from her teenage daughter Loreda’s. As a daughter and mother myself, I could also relate to the complexity of these relationships.

The Four Winds is, at times, really hard to read, but it is so rewarding. I found the author’s descriptions of the dust storms and the poverty of migrant workers especially captivating. The social issues of the early 1930s are not so different from the issues of today. People are still trying to survive in difficult economic times, and sometimes looking for greener pastures elsewhere. I loved Hannah’s book The Nightingale, but The Four Winds is even better, and I feel I cannot recommend it enough!

Pair it with: Coffee tres leches cake with dalgona cream

This recipe and its ingredients crossed my path at exactly the right moment. Jacobs coffee sent me the ingredients for an amazing cake, coffee tres leches with dalgona cream, and after making it, I realized it’s the perfect match for The Four Winds. The wonderfully creative Sam Linsell from Drizzle and Dip created the recipe. I must say, her instructions were clear, and my cake pretty much matched hers in look!

This recipe is the perfect fit for this book because, after the incredible hardship and deprivation I read about, I needed something truly decadent. This cake is absolutely that – sponge soaked in three different kinds of milk (that is what ‘tres leches’ means) and finished with caramel, more cream and dalgona (an easy coffee ‘mousse’ which is quite bitter on its own but is exactly the finishing touch this cake needs). The Martinellis in the book are Italian, and my first bite of this cake reminded me of that great Italian dessert, tiramisu. If you like coffee, cream and cake, this is the recipe for you. Eating this while reading The Four Winds makes the suffering in the book almost bearable!

Because this recipe was created by Sam Linsell, you can view it here: The best coffee tres leches cake with dalgona cream.