it's the simple things

In talking to Cat last night, we were discussing cake, and the craving thereof. (Cat, if you didn't know, is an amazing cook and baker, and her cakes are widely requested by anyone who's been lucky enough to enjoy a bite of one.) We talked about how even though we love the most fancy and deliciously concocted cakes (or any pastries, really), sometimes, the simplest desserts are the only thing that will satiate that craving.

She mentioned yellow cake with chocolate frosting and I might have pierced her ear drum when I squealed into the phone, "OMGMETOOTHATISMYFAVORITECOMBINATION". Seriously. when my birthday rolled around every year and I got to pick what cake I wanted for my day, it was always a yellow cake with a chocolate frosting that my mom made on the stove -- she poured it on while still kind of warm so it was almost like a glaze, and then when it cooled, it had a kind of hard shell.

And so now I've had that damn cake in my brain all day and am going to have to make it this weekend. This is not the biggest tragedy ever.

lunch, deli club:

• wraps -- cream cheese, herb roasted turkey breast, and pickle in a sun dried tomato tortilla
• molded egg with peas as gap fillers
• unpeeled satsuma with yogurt covered raisins as gap fillers

Comments

[Anne Hawley]

I am similarly cuckoo for plain pound cake, though in my birthday-celebrating youth I LOVED white cake with chocolate frosting--that pure white cake that must have been made with eggwhites only, and almost certainly shortening instead of butter, because how else did you get it so lily-white?

Where cakes and pies are concerned, by and large, simple is best.

[Bitty]

Oh man, pound cake. Truly a dessert of the gods. I remember following your pound cake recipe quest awhile back (I forget...were you trying to de-gluten-ify it?) and thinking it really wasn't a good idea for me to be reading those posts because I always came away craving pound cake.

White cake and chocolate frosting, another perfect combo. I still have a preference for the yellow -- I think my mom didn't make white cake (mix) often, so the main memory I have of white cake is the dried out grocery story cake kind -- but a good white cake and a simple chocolate frosting? Awww, yeah.