Favorite Cake

[melkor]

This cake is clearly better than all others.

[SobaAddict70]

Anything that has chocolate and TONS of butter is in.

Soba

[jat]

My aunt Helen's Sherry Wine Cake. It's been in the family for over 40

years. She's passed away, and I'VE added double the sherry!

It's yours if anyone wants it. It takes 5 min. to mix and assemble. Easy. But it

tastes so rich and elegant.

[jat]

When the chocolate mood strikes, I make the chocolate cake with

slightly molten center, and serve it with a strawberry-blueberry sauce.

Again anyone who wants it, I'll post it on the recipes. This is from scratch and

you can serve it in individual portions.

[Ling]

I like heavy chocolate cakes with thick, buttery dark chocolate icing.

Also, moist carrot cake with a super-thick layer of cream-cheese icing (not too sweet, but made with lots and lots of cream cheese).

[Suzanne F]

This cake is clearly better than all others.

You know, that doesn't look half bad! I wonder how much bacon you'd need to substitute???

Mine is Blackout Cake, the way the Garden Bakery in Glen Oaks, NY, made it, oh, 45 years ago. Chocolate cake, filled and frosted with chocolate, and coated with chocolate cake crumbs.

Second fave is strawberry shortcake, even made too sweet with cheap cake and phony whipped cream, as long as the strawberries are fresh.

[Malawry]

I like buttery cakes with buttery chocolate frosting best, and I normally request them on my birthday. Butter is the most important factor in any pastry for me, with the exception of donuts which are fried instead of butter-enriched.

I recently have discovered a fervent passion for german chocolate cake among my friends that surprises me. I never much cared for german chocolate cake.

Ortanique, where I worked, had a rum cake on their dessert menu that immediately became my favorite dessert there. It was a rich, sour-creamy, buttery sort of a pound cake soaked in rum syrup. Ohmy.

[Suzanne F]

Ortanique, where I worked, had a rum cake on their dessert menu that immediately became my favorite dessert there. It was a rich, sour-creamy, buttery sort of a pound cake soaked in rum syrup. Ohmy. 

Yes, that is a yummy, yummy cake -- we split one piece three ways and still all got looped.

But it ain't chocolate.

[Malawry]

I think Ortanique's rum cake, followed by two or three boutique dark chocolates, would make an ideal dessert.

Suzanne, you're a cheap date. I ate that stuff all the time at work (more than I should probably admit publicly!) and never felt soused.

[ruthcooks]

Four favorites: all from scratch

Angel Food Cake with powdered sugar buttercream. My mother made this for every family birthday over a span of about 35 years.

Sponge Cake with whipped cream and either hot blueberry sauce or raspberries or strawberries

A yellow cake, baked with meringue and sliced almonds on top, with a pineapple-sour cream-whipped cream filling

THE moist chocolate cake with Ganache icing here

I also love all those multi-layered cakes soaked with liqueurs and iced with buttercream, but don't make them much.

[browniebaker]

Uh-oh. It's tough to choose just one. It's a toss-up between two:

a rich, heavy, dark fruitcake full of candied cherries, candied pineapple, candied citron, candied ginger, raisins, shredded coconut, and pecan halves

and

a hummingbird cake, which is a classic Southern layer-cake made with an oil-based batter containing chopped banana, crushed pineapple, and chopped pecans (texture is like that of a carrot cake), iced with a cream-cheese frosting, and sprinkled with more pecans

[melkor]

This cake is clearly better than all others.

You know, that doesn't look half bad! I wonder how much bacon you'd need to substitute???

If you substitue bacon for all of the ingredients, and you fry it instead of bake it, it would work out quite well I suspect.

[megaira]

#1 = Pineapple (or pear, but I like the tanginess of pineapple) upside down cake - the kinds with a nice sugary crispness at the edges, contrasted with the sweet, pineappley syrupy goodness.

#2 = Home made carrot cake - I'm particular to the very dense ones with plenty of nuts, some pineapple and lots of cream cheese frosting...and especially the homemade ones that are maybe iced unevenly and I can pick out the ones that look like they have more frosting... ("Meg, why are all four corners of the cake gone?") A girl who came to a message board gathering at my house brought one and it had a glaze,then the frosting... It was one of those things where everyone went home and I had another piece of cake...then a few hours later, it was dark, so I had another piece of cake. Then at 12:30, Futurama came on cartoon network and that was a good time for more cake... and certianly carrot cake is better than cheerios for breakfast? It has carrots in it -who can argue with the healthiness of vegetables for breakfast?

#3 = Chocolate torte. Nothing fancy, just lots of rich dark chocolately goodness...maybe some rasberries on top. I think I found one that worked quite well out of the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. It had a ground roasted pecan crust.

4-ish .... Youknowhobucks had a nice idea with a chocolate pound cake - the first time I tried it (talked into it while getting my coffee and my defenses were down! I was hungry. ) it was moist, dense, rich and delicious - nearly the perfect combination of cake and brownie with creamy chunks of chocolate scattered throughout. That was inspiring, so I had it again, and it *stunk*... it was a completely different beast and so dry. The first one didn't make it to the second stoplight, the second one made it home and was eventually tossed. At any rate, the idea was nice, so I've added chocolate pound cake-should-I-ever-duplicate-what-I-liked-about-it, to my list. I think if I wanted perfection, there would be crumbled up After Eight mints in it or something. Dark chocolate and mint...mrmm.

5 a. moist devils food cake with a bit of buttercream on it - not enough to smother it, not so little the cake feels naked. No doctoring or crazy stuff done to it, just plain old devil's food.

5 b. citrusy cheesecakes with lots of zest or plain cheesecake with strawberries, cherries, etc. over it. A leftover childhood craving from sneaking sara lee cherry cheesecake out of mom's freezer.

[Cusina]

jat... yes, yes, post them pretty please. They both sound delicious to me.

I love soft center chocolate cakes served warm, black forest is wonderful, and there is nothing like a good carrot cake with not too sweet cream cheese frosting. And anything drenched in liquor so it drips while emerging from the pan is almost orgasmic.

And then there is the endless variety of berry shortcakes... a whole passion unto itself. And a humble homemade apple cake says fall like nothing else and makes your house smell so good.

I was supposed to pick a favorite wasn't I? Hmmm... impossible I think. But I promise to keep up the search.

[Katherine]

No question, my favorite cake of all time was a Heath Bar chocolate mousse torte I designed for my daughter's birthday. It had coffee praline buttercream, and, of course, crushed Heath Bar chunks embedded in the ganache enrobing it. I made it a couple of years, and then one year I had a bakery make it, when I was busy travelling. I had to supply them the Heath Bars, they didn't stock those.

Yum.

[bloviatrix]

When it comes to store bought cake, my favorite is the Lemon Pound Cake from Payard Patisserie. The tastes of lemon and butter intermingled are heavenly. I savor each morsel and try to leave as few crumbs as possible.

On the homemade side, I can't narrow it down. Growing up my mom baked every week. We had poundcakes, coffee cakes, cakes with layers of baked apples, chocolate layer cakes with vanilla marshmellow icing and coconut, etc. Now, I lean towards tarts, but flourless chocolate cake is a perfect accompaniment for every occassion. Afterall, you can never go wrong with chocolate.

At times, I think back to my grandmother's lemon sponge, which was so light, it was like eating lemon flavored air and I wish she was still around to make it.

[curlywurlyfi]

how weird to find this thread, I haven't baked in months and then yesterday was feeling a little under the weather (viz, overdoing it Saturday night with a bottle of Brouilly) and decided that an old-fashioned traditional English Victoria sponge would be the road to wellness. I was not wrong. Plain light buttery vanilla crumb, with a cup of tea. A semi-Proustian moment.

the cake that I totally love, however, is my mother's Whisky + Walnut cake which she makes for church fetes or after huge curry lunch buffets at our house. Two layers of delicious sandy walnutty sponge with whisky-soaked sultanas embedded in it, with whisky + lemon buttercream icing in the middle and on top, decorated with walnut halves. it is just the old-fashioned business.

[kjente2]

my favorite is a homemade carrot cake.

one not mentioned is a princess cake (the three scandinavian princesses created it). Wuollet Bakery in Minneapolis has the prize on that one for me so far.

[KAPDADDY]

Tres Leches or a plain old yellow layer cake with vanilla buttercream icing.

[brngckn]

Unquestionably - carrot cake! Acadian Bakery here in Houston makes a fine one. I insist upon it for my birthday every year. You can't expect me to bake my own birthday cake!

[Lady T]

Gingerbread, baked the old-fashioned way as a cake. Glorious.

[Mabelline]

Lane cake and Red Velvet. Can't have very much, but cooking and frosting takes a lot of the craves away.

[TrishCT]

1. Apple Walnut Cake, won me a blue ribbon and some nice prizes at a country fair.

2. Peachtree Schnapps Cake. Lost me a ribbon in another fair when a contestant making a rum cake realized she had no rum in the house and substituted the schnapps... Voila a star was born! As consolation, at least I got her recipe.

3. Black Forest Cake from scratch with outstanding cherries and kirsch.

4. The ultra easy Pineapple Cake I submitted in another thread. The easiest from scratch cake you'll ever make.

[SobaAddict70]

Just finishing a slice of lemon pound cake that my roommate brought back from a dinner a couple of weeks ago at Bouley. They gave two of these incredibly delicious, buttery, lemony cakes as migardanises (sp?) to him afterwards.

There are bits of lemon or citron peel embedded in the cake. I can smell the butter halfway across the room. Each slice is dense, ultra-moist and oh-so-heavenly good.

Wish I could share...

Soba

[Joni]

Is Bill Yosses still the bakery chef there? If so,...try Martha Stewart website for his lemon pound cake recipe...