Sandra Lee Cake Disaster

[Kim Shook]

Let me just say it:  I adore Sandra Lee.  I find her particular brand of craziness hilarious.  To me, she’s like a low-rent Martha – finding nothing odd about doing over-the-top preparations.  Except where Martha would have us sourcing crazy expensive ingredients for our ‘authentic’ chili, Sandy says it’s fine to use Hormel as long as the table is decorated within an inch of its life.  I loved her old show and wish that Food Network would put it back in rotation.  I loved howling with laughter and shouting at the tv when her inanities got to be too much for me.  I sometimes buy her magazine to get some craziness and the epitome of crazy Sandy-ness is the Fall/Halloween issue, which is out now. 

 

I admit that I sometimes find a recipe or presentation that I actually like or that I can use as a starting point.  What I want to draw your attention to, though, is this cake in the Halloween issue:

http://ideas.evite.com/food-and-drinks/sandra-lee-fudge-glazed-icebox-cake/

 

Please note the beads of moisture all over the sides of the cake.  Can you imagine any professional baker or food stylist putting a cake that looks like that out there?  I know how it happened.  I’ve had it happen to me when I’ve frozen an iced cake and thawed it.  It is extremely frustrating, but I wouldn’t have taken it to my clients like that!  

[Lisa Shock]

What always kills me is that she keeps saying 'your friends will never know the difference' as she proceeds to make 'truffles' where the centers are canned chocolate frosting. My friends would certainly know the difference!

 

Have you seen her episode of Chefography? She quit, walked out of class, attending the LCB school in Canada because she didn't see the point in making biscuits from scratch when "everything you need is in a box of Bisquick." I sympathize that she had a rough childhood and had to cook and learn to budget from an early age, but, food from mixes isn't cheaper than scratch and certainly, most times, is not on par flavor-wise. And, the LCB teaches a really delicious biscuit recipe; if Sandra hadn't walked out of class that day, taken the time to recognize that she does NOT know everything about cooking, and had actually tasted the biscuits, things might have turned out very differently.

 

I see her show as the ultimate conquest of the American home kitchen by the packaged food industry. She's always got a positive recommendation for packaged products and a negative attitude about classic techniques and fresh food. Basically, she's trying to undo Julia Child's work.

[Fernwood]

Well, I can imagine that the photographer may have thought it looked neat--I rather like the look on purely aesthetic grounds.  Not that I would serve it that way.  

But as I contemplate it longer, I find a certain nostalgic appeal as it reminds me of a (frozen) Sara Lee cake that was an occasional childhood treat.  

[Dave W]

 

 

Please note the beads of moisture all over the sides of the cake.  Can you imagine any professional baker or food stylist putting a cake that looks like that out there?  I know how it happened.  I’ve had it happen to me when I’ve frozen an iced cake and thawed it.  It is extremely frustrating, but I wouldn’t have taken it to my clients like that!  

 

 

Seems appropriate for an "icebox cake" to me. I don't think Sandra Lee has any designs on being considered a professional baker or food stylist. In fact she's perfectly shameless about the provenance of some of the baked goods she creates.

[Deryn]

a) I don't even see, from reading the recipe, why it is called an 'icebox cake'. It doesn't sound as though it spent more than a few minutes in an icebox, if that. Maybe they intended to make it look that way just to match their recipe title but it isn't attractive to me either.

b) That said, although the recipe doesn't call for 'texturing' the sides as far as I could tell, I am not totally sure that that is condensation (though yes, it looks to be at first glance). Perhaps, for a Halloween party, it might be made to look vaguely like a spider web or crocodile skin?

c) Sandra Lee is NY Governor Andrew Cuomo live in paramour and has been for years. I highly doubt she entertains with these 'out of the box' recipes in that capacity.

d) She is currently undergoing cancer treatment - perhaps she didn't even have the time or strength to proof this latest issue of her mag?

Edited October 6, 2015 by Deryn (log)

[btbyrd]

I was sure this thread would be about the Kwanzaa cake.

[huiray]

I was sure this thread would be about the Kwanzaa cake.

 

Hahaha!! I thought that exact same thing too, before I actually opened the thread and read Kim Shook's post. 

[Smokeydoke]

Her green lagoon cocktail poured with a liter of vodka.