MY CAKE RANT: WHAT HAPPENED TO GOOD OLD-FASHIONED SIMPLICITY?
Why is it impossible to find a cake that’s simple, fresh, and delicious?
This goes for grocery stores, restaurants, and even bakeries.
Growing up, I always loved simplicity — coconut cake, chocolate cake, Boston cream pie, lemon pound cake, and simple sheet cakes that weren’t anything fancy, but were always tasty. These cakes were easy to make. Everybody loved those simple cakes.
Now, every cake I see, and every dessert I order LOOKS awesome. But they all TASTE LIKE SHIT!
EVERYWHERE!
Yesterday, I bought a “fresh cake” from a casino bakery (I had comp points to use). See the photo. Every cake at the display was gorgeous. But I also knew they were loaded with cheap frosting, preservatives, and stabilizers, and would end up getting tossed straight to the pigeons or at the bottom of the trash can. And yes — that’s exactly what happened. I bought this cake, took it home, had maybe three bites, and plop! Into the garbage bag it went.
Why is every cake at least *half* frosting? Screw that old saying, “where’s the beef?” Where the hell is the CAKE? Why does every giant clump of frosting (or dessert) look tempting enough to be on the cover of Gourmet magazine, but then is either so sweet or so repulsive it can’t be consumed? Have popular TV shows like Cake Wars and Cupcake Kitchen (or whatever those shows are called) polluted our senses? Does everything need to look like a sculpture to sell nowadays? And besides, since when did COOKING become a COMPETITION? Is that what we’ve become? Humiliating the loser who doesn’t cook as nice a cake? WTF?
LISTEN UP: I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT THE CAKE LOOKS LIKE, SO LONG AS IT’S REASONABLY FRESH LOOKING AND PRESENTABLE. I DON’T WANT GLOBS OF FAKE FROSTING AND ARTIFICIAL FOOD COLORING FUCKING UP MY CAKE! GIVE ME A GODDAMNED SIMPLE COCONUT CAKE! GOT IT?
Fuck this. I want to have my cake and eat it too.
Rant over.
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Addendum: Here’s a comment from Al Mancini (neonvegas.com), the former restaurant critic at the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Facebook in response to this post:
It goes beyond cakes. Chefs and bakers are under pressure to make food that looks amazing on TikTok and Instagram, and nobody cares if the food suffers. When creating social media, people rarely even mention taste. Pastry chefs seem to be u see the most pressure, and I’ve seen some of my favorite desserts ruined when the chefs were ordered to make them more visually appealing. Another downside of social media.