I want to be the girl with the most cake

In the 2000 teen romantic comedy Down to You (which my friends and I watched at my 17th birthday party) Julia Stiles' character at one point exclaimed: "cake is my world." (Truth be told I was considering naming this blog post that. But I love the line from the Hole song so much I had to go with that. I’ve always loved it. Ever since I first heard it when I was 16.) It was undeniably a kind of odd thing to say, but I also got it. Cake really is so good and so delicious and so satisfying. I like to ask people if they prefer cake or ice cream. When I asked E. she said neither, and that her favourite was pie. I guess on one level I get that some people prefer pie - different tastes and everything - but on another level I just don't get it at all. Cake is so much better! It’s so moist and sweet and icing is such a great (and necessary) addition that pie does not have. Pies also do not have layers, and layers separated by the same icing you put on the top of the cake are crucial. Yes, for icing and layers and more, pie doesn’t even come close.

Back when I was a kid and all through high school and actually through university too, I was the cake mix queen. My favourite was Duncan Hines Fudge Marble and I acted like I had this special talent for baking that cake when really anyone who followed the instructions on the back of the box, who added the oil, water and eggs, would come out with the same tasting cake. It wasn’t until the winter I was 25 that I finally started baking cakes (well really cupcakes, but those deserve and will be the topic of a future blog post all on their own) from scratch. I am proud to say I’ve left my cake mix days behind me, and now love trying out new recipes. I love looking for recipes online but I also got this amazing and huge baking cookbook called Baking by Dorie Greenspan (see picture below). It is so massive that at times it seems almost a bit intimidating. There are so many recipes to try! Some are annoyingly and unnecessarily complicated like baking cheesecake over a pot of boiling water; but there are tons I still haven’t tried but am very eager to.

The best recipe I have made out of it is for a classic coffee cake. (It’s funny because while I do love icing, I also adore this coffee cake. Just goes to show there’s a time and a place for everything. This coffee cake is great in the morning, for snacks, and pretty much anytime you want it. Whereas I think I would always feel guilty eating (and therefore never do eat) a big piece of icing laden cake in the morning.) Dorie writes that the coffee cake never goes out of fashion. She said she first made it in the 1960s and that it has been consistently good since then. While I obviously wasn’t around (let alone eating coffee cake in the 1960s) I agree that it will likely always be a fashionable cake. I think the key to its long lasting popularity lies in two of its ingredients: cinnamon and sour cream. Both have such unique tastes in baking (sour cream is my favourite condiment for nachos and so good in baking too) and really make the cake an absolute delight to eat.

While not my favourite place in the world, I was consistently able to eat great cakes in Austin. The Whole Foods in Austin is the original first ever Whole Foods in the world. It has an amazing cake selection. My absolute favourite was the tres leches cake. It’s hard to describe it - it’s name in English means three milks. It was a white cake base covered in a delicious creamy icing and also soaked in this milky syrup. I’m not doing that great a job describing it but I can assure you the taste was just unbelievably delicious. I used to go get it maybe once a month? I could have eaten a piece of it few times a week though. I also once bought a lemon blackberry cake there which had real blackberries and just the right amount of lemons. Sadly, over the two years I was in Austin I only saw (and bought) that cake once. It left a strong (and good) impression though. My other favourite place to get cake was at the Mexicana bakery in south Austin. I first found out this bakery existed when Leah gave me one of their wall calendars (which you can get for free) for 2006, back when we were both still at Berkeley. I was so excited to finally go there (and get calendars – which I did for 2008 and 2009) when I moved to Austin. The bakery is open 24 hours a day (although the latest I went there was probably 11 and the earlier 8 am?) and they had this really simple (no layers, just a sheet cake) white/vanilla cake with pink icing called pink cake. It was so good and so cheap. I still miss it!

A decent enough substitute but not up to the same standards as the cakes at Whole Foods is this little Italian (sort of? The people who own it/work there are definitely not Italian but it has an Italian name and lots of Italian food on the menu) restaurant D. and I like to get take out from. I think there was a stretch in February where we went and picked up food there 3 Fridays in a row. Anyway, they also have this glass case with lots of big cakes that ooze (in a good way…) icing. We’ve tried red velvet (really good), carrot (also delicious) and a bunch of different chocolate ones, some better than others. We actually haven’t had any cake from there in a while and I’m suddenly craving some. I’ll have to get some soon.

To close out this post, I am glad to say that when it comes to baking cakes, I make a fabulous cheesecake (whose recipe does not require a hot water bath but does include sour cream! Yeah!); and Dorie’s coffee cake. My mom makes this really great vanilla cake with chocolate icing (with a layer!) which I have made a few times, and while it was good, it wasn’t as good as when my mom makes it so I’d like to master that. And, ever since my time in Austin, I have wanted to make my own version of Whole Foods’ lemon blackberry cake. Mine will consist of: a basic white/vanilla cake with a layer of lemon buttercream icing and fresh blackberries in the middle and then more lemon buttercream icing and blackberries on top. What am I waiting for? I need to make this soon!