Cake or Pie? Take your pick

[BeauNoze]

While there are cakes out there that I could eat until I'm sick ( carrot, chocolate, red velvet, hot milk ) I purely love pie. All types, except mincemeat.

[Pontormo]

Since I was born in Connecticut, today it is most fitting that I announce my conversion.

It is with deep regret given my passionate commitment to all things dark and chocolate, moist, crumby and frosted--I will always look back fondly upon our time together, I truly will.

Yet, until the day that the piles of apples outclass the peaches at the farmers market, I hereby declare my change in heart:

I like pie.

[Kent D]

Well, I don't dislike pie, I just dislike the delivery vehicle/crust. Cake has no crust, so I got to go with cake...German chocolate please. Or carrot.

[divalasvegas]

I love this topic. I had no idea that people could be so passionate (and funny) about cake vs. pie. I do love a nice slice of cake, fancy restaurant or chi chi poo poo bakery cakes, birthday cakes, even those frozen ice cream "cakes" too. But better than pie? NEVER, for the following completely objective and logical reasons:

1. Think of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter, I mean at least for me dessert means PIE: sweet potato or pecan or sweet potato/pecan or apple or pear tart or coconut custard or coconut cream or the QUEEN OF PIES: lemon meringue. Yeah right, break out that holiday cake? I don't think so. (Well there's always "fruitcake" heh heh).

2. Think of all the great pies and their not so subtle meanings: sweet and savory: sweet potato (mamma, home, church suppers), key lime (sunny florida keys, hot miami nights), apple pie, well as soon as you saw the words "apple pie" you know you also thought of baseball, hot dogs, the Flag, God, country........ okay, I'll calm down, and of course cherry pie--George Washington, Valley Forge, "I cannot tell a lie" ya know?

3. Savory pies: the Greeks (cheese and spinach pies), the French (quiche), the English (meat pies) and of course us Americans (chicken pot pie).

4. Boston cream pie is CAKE and quite tasty, but cheesecake is PIE, period, since it fulfills all the really important pie criteria: a filling baked in a crust, perhaps topped with fruit, perhaps not. End of discussion.

5. I thank you Mayhaw Man for starting this topic, but unfortunately not only are you wrong, but also baffling since you come from the land of Hubig's pies one of the great contributions to pie-dom.

However, you are redeemed by the fact that you are a great writer, a nice guy, and you love okra--the QUEEN of vegetables--which in my book makes you, of course, SWEET AS PIE!

[Pontormo]

1.  Think of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter, I mean at least for me dessert means PIE: sweet potato or pecan or sweet potato/pecan or apple or pear tart or coconut custard or coconut cream or the QUEEN OF PIES: lemon meringue.  Yeah right, break out that holiday cake?  I don't think so.  (Well there's always "fruitcake" heh heh).

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One of the reasons I had to qualify my about-face appears here. Cakes are great on special occasions and in the winter time. As for Christmas, figgy pudding is more like cake than pie and gingerbread houses sometimes take the form of shaped cakes. Christmas cakes are standard in many cultures, though cookies are far more significant than either pie or cake.

[divalasvegas]

1.  Think of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter, I mean at least for me dessert means PIE: sweet potato or pecan or sweet potato/pecan or apple or pear tart or coconut custard or coconut cream or the QUEEN OF PIES: lemon meringue.  Yeah right, break out that holiday cake?  I don't think so.  (Well there's always "fruitcake" heh heh).

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One of the reasons I had to qualify my about-face appears here. Cakes are great on special occasions and in the winter time. As for Christmas, figgy pudding is more like cake than pie and gingerbread houses sometimes take the form of shaped cakes. Christmas cakes are standard in many cultures, though cookies are far more significant than either pie or cake.

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Uh oh my fellow Washingtonian, sounds like you just might be backslidin' your way back into the arms of those cake lovin' heathens. Actually, though pie will always be number one for me especially during holidays, I've always wanted to try one of those beautiful, labor intensive English puddings with flaming, brandy soaked sugar cubes (comes from repeated viewings of "A Christmas Carol" I think). But back to your current condition. You obviously need a major intervention. May I prescribe a triple Southern remedy: one slice each of my mamma's sweet potato pie, Mississippi Mud Pie, and peach pie made from some of our local Virginia peaches. Take one every eight hours and call me in the morning.

[LindaK]

I would prefer a very good pie to a very good cake.

However, given the choice between a mediocre pie and a mediocre cake, I would choose cake.  Mediocre cake is at least edible.  I can't stand the horrible crumbly, gummy crust and brightly colored gelatinous filling that passes for 90% of the pie in the US.

agreed! but we're not talking mediocrity here. One of the beauties of pie is that a perfect pie is the essence of purity and simplicity.

Contrast with an upthread description of the art of cake-making:

I still vote cake, as do Chris and DD.  But she, who bakes, decorates, designs, stacks, architects, frosts, ganaches, buttercreams, fills, enrobes and tiers cakes, requested and got a Birthday Banana Pudding.

If I was an architect, I'd say it's the difference between the simplicity of mid-century modern and overwrought victorian frou-frou. If I had anything but a superficial knowledge of psychology, I'd be invoking Freud. Cake, what are you trying to hide under all that ganache and fondant?

[racheld]

HEY!!!

First time I've been here in a month, and I find you invoking my words to calumnize cake!!??? Fie and for shame!!

whispering now I tuned in because I wanted to mention (though it in no way diminishes the importance of CAKE) that we stumbled into a little country diner this past weekend, partook of unimportant hamburgers, and asked what kind of pie.

That's what you DO in a diner. And sometimes you order some of every kind, just to be friendly. This time the choices were apple and pecan; the hostess (and owner) tilted her head slightly toward the kitchen-cutout and said, "Let me see if the Blackberry Cobbler has come out of the oven yet."

She returned with a bowl the size of a dinnerplate, two spoons, and a quite visible trail of fragrant steam. In the bowl was a BIG river of beautiful purple, little rivulets of lavender and mauve spreading as it melted the two huge scoops of vanilla atop the sugar-crusted lattice.

It was too hot to eat at first, but we were determined to dig in before it melted the ice cream into liquid, so we did. Spoon after spoon, it was the essence and life and vitality and round dark sweetness of every blackberry that ever swelled on the bramble. It was the most delicious cobbler I've ever tasted, big ole whole blackberries with their shapes altered just enough to let free all those pent-up Summer juices. I hope we can find that little out-of-the-way place again.

It in no way abrogates or invalidates my vote for cake---no hanging chads or recounts or concessions---it's still cake for me. But that was GOOOOOD cobbler.

[kitwilliams]

forgive me if someone else within the last ten pages posted this link, but, as is the case with weebl and bob,

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Pie! Pie pie pie pie pie pie pie.

[LindaK]

HEY!!!

First time I've been here in a month, and I find you invoking my words to calumnize cake!!???  Fie and for shame!!

whispering now  I tuned in because I wanted to mention (though it in no way diminishes the importance of CAKE) that we stumbled into a little country diner this past weekend, partook of unimportant hamburgers, and asked what kind of pie.

That's what you DO in a diner.  And sometimes you order some of every kind, just to be friendly.  This time the choices were apple and pecan; the hostess (and owner) tilted her head slightly toward the kitchen-cutout and said, "Let me see if the Blackberry Cobbler has come out of the oven yet."

She returned with a bowl the size of a dinnerplate, two spoons, and a quite visible trail of fragrant steam.  In the bowl was a BIG river of beautiful purple, little rivulets of lavender and mauve spreading as it melted the two huge scoops of vanilla atop the sugar-crusted lattice. 

It was too hot to eat at first, but we were determined to dig in before it melted the ice cream into liquid, so we did.  Spoon after spoon, it was the essence and life and vitality and round dark sweetness of every blackberry that ever swelled on the bramble.  It was the most delicious cobbler I've ever tasted, big ole whole blackberries with their shapes altered just enough to let free all those pent-up Summer juices.  I hope we can find that little out-of-the-way place again.

It in no way abrogates or invalidates my vote for cake---no hanging chads or recounts or concessions---it's still cake for me.  But that was GOOOOOD cobbler.

Sorry if I used your words without your permission for my own nefarious purposes.

But, as you seem to realize, cobbler is just a freeform version of pie, and you clearly appreciate the pie aesthetic. I think we'll have you on our side yet. That was pie poetry you wrote there. MFK Fisher would have been proud.

[racheld]

Wow, what a nice thing to say!!! That's a great compliment. (Or are you trying to sucker in the LOUDEST mouth on the CAKE contingent?---that would be a coup, wouldn't it?)

I am unswayed, but very humbly appreciative of the lovely words. Ms. Fisher was a delight and a genius.

[mukki]

She returned with a bowl the size of a dinnerplate, two spoons, and a quite visible trail of fragrant steam.  In the bowl was a BIG river of beautiful purple, little rivulets of lavender and mauve spreading as it melted the two huge scoops of vanilla atop the sugar-crusted lattice. 

It was too hot to eat at first, but we were determined to dig in before it melted the ice cream into liquid, so we did.  Spoon after spoon, it was the essence and life and vitality and round dark sweetness of every blackberry that ever swelled on the bramble.  It was the most delicious cobbler I've ever tasted, big ole whole blackberries with their shapes altered just enough to let free all those pent-up Summer juices.  I hope we can find that little out-of-the-way place again.

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Nice piece of writing!

I have to go with pie. When it's great, cake just doesn't compare, although I do love a buttery yellow cake with coconut frosting. My favorite has got to be boysenberry freshly picked off the vine with a few blueberries thrown in and a splash of kirsch. You'd be surprised at how much the kirsch adds. And it must be a leaf lard pie crust... so flaky and flavorful and without all the trials of making a butter crust.

[Irishgirl]

After avoiding voting for quite a long period......I vote PIE!

(I had two pieces of the most delicious juicy peach pie for breakfast, and now my husband is following suit.)

Qualifiers:

1) More often than pie...I will make tarts, partially because I really like any tart out there, but also because I try to tell myself that they are more "healthy" than the two crusted pie.

2) Yes, there is a lot of bad pie out there, but after working in the food industry for so long and seeing what people pass as cake.....I contend that there is just as much bad cake!

3) If you haven't tried Jeffrey Steingarten's pie crust recipe at the end of "The Man Who Ate Everything"....please do. It's a winner.

4) Most "cakey" items that I do order in restaurants are of the fudgy puddingy type. Which I do not really qualify as cake.

5) I would never have two pieces of cake for breakfast.

Carry on.

[Toliver]

Those bastards at Marie Callendar's have stopped making the Boston Cream Pie. It seems they didn't get enough requests for it.

So, no more cakey-pie at Marie's.

[Priscilla]

I would like to report that Cake has righteously claimed another convert, and as we know there's none so zealous & c. Charles Perry in the LA Times testifies, and there is caramel involved.

[Kajikit]

Cake every single time! Pies are okay, but I don't really like pastry - the fat in it tends to upset my stomach.

[Domestic Goddess]

Pie for me, esp. the savory ones.

[jende]

I have an aversion to any "dessert" containing fruit (dessert isn't dessert unless there's chocolate, in my narrowly defined food world), so although I lean heavily toward cake I'd have to vote for whichever one is chocolate.

So chocolate cream pie trumps pineapple-upside-down cake, but chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and a big scoop of vanilla ice cream TRUMPS ALL!!

[Darcie B]

I posted this on my blog, but thought I would share it here, on the thread that was the inspiration for my post.

Cake vs. Pie - The Debate

On the eGullet forums several months ago a debate ensued about which was better, cake or pie. I came down firmly on the pie side, where (as usual) I was in the minority. Since we are fast approaching an election year, I thought we should let cake and pie duke it out for themselves in a debate. I will act as moderator. One note: cheesecake asked to be allowed to debate since he is neither cake nor pie, but he was deemed to not have the fundraising levels necessary to participate.

After a coin toss, Cake is allowed to go first.

M: Cake, what do you have to offer the voting public? What makes you a better choice than pie?

Cake_2 C: I am the candidate for all people. My textures range from light and airy (to fit the blue states) down to moist and dense (surely a red state pleaser). There is a texture for every palate in America.

I clearly give the people what they want. They want the icing on the cake! They want to have the cake and eat it too! I offer a plethora of delectable icings, again with a range of textures and flavors to suit every mood and need.

I say to you, what do people celebrate with on special occasions? Have you ever seen a wedding pie or even a birthday pie? No! The people demand cake and I will give it to them all.

M: Pie, it's your turn. What makes you the superior candidate?

P: Cake says he is for everyone, but in reality he is only for the privileged elite - "Let them eat cake!" Pie He claims to be all about texture, but I offer more texture than he can even comprehend. I can be firm, but loose if the situation calls for it. Cake is too stiff to be able to relate to the common man, but nothing is more homespun and American as apple pie. Does the song go "baseball, hot dogs, lemon cake and Chevrolet?" No, indeed. I offer a range of tastes for everyone, from the lowest shepherd to the elite chess player. I can contribute to more parts of the meal, too. A chicken pot pie on every plate! Cake cannot offer the substance needed for the main course, but I can be with people from the appetizer to the dessert. I believe the choice is easy.

M: Cake, there have been assertions that you are too dry. What is your response?

C: That assertion is only from those who choose to overbake me. If they would listen to my message and pull me out of the oven sooner, they wouldn't need to resort to using milk to wash me down.

P (interjects): Cut and run! Always wanting to pull out of the heat before the job is finished!

C: That's an interesting response from someone as flaky as you. You can't even make up your mind if you are dinner or dessert! Talk about waffling!

M: Let's please each take our turn. There will be time for rebuttal later. Pie, Cake brings up a point I wanted to mention. You have often been called flaky, and sometimes even downright nutty. Your response?

P: If being tender yet crisp is a crime, then I am guilty. I am a deep individual. And I believe that being nutty on occasion is just being human.

M: Cake, Pie has considers himself deep. Do you feel that you are as well?

C: Not only am I deep, but I have many layers. In fact, I have many more layers than pie, who would collapse under the pressure.

P: My layers might not be as lofty but I have hundreds of layers in my crust alone.

M: Any last comments?

C: I am the all purpose candidate. I embrace layers of diversity and I've been a sponge soaking up the knowledge needed to be an effective leader. Throughout the years I have retained the specialness that makes me desired at every important occasion. I come in all sizes to meet the needs of any situation. I feel I can best expound on the values important to the nation. Pie lacks focus - he is trying to cover too many bases.

P: I cover more bases, but this is a diverse country. I can relate to everyman, and I remain humble. I can be tarted up for a special occasion, but let's face it - the main work to be done isn't going to be fancy, it's going to be grunt work. It's not for cupcakes (and need I even mention that Cake is the Devil's food?) The country can't be trifled with - let's buckle down and cobble together the best nation we can!

C: I just want to point out that I was the angels' food first and remain so to this day.

[divalasvegas]

I posted this on my blog, but thought I would share it here, on the thread that was the inspiration for my post.

Cake vs. Pie - The Debate

On the eGullet forums several months ago a debate ensued about which was better, cake or pie. I came down firmly on the pie side, where (as usual) I was in the minority. Since we are fast approaching an election year, I thought we should let cake and pie duke it out for themselves in a debate. I will act as moderator. One note: cheesecake asked to be allowed to debate since he is neither cake nor pie, but he was deemed to not have the fundraising levels necessary to participate.

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As I said upthread, cheesecake IS PIE. If coconut custard pie is pie and a quiche is a pie, then by all rights cheesecake is definitely a pie and has been quietly suffering the indignity of being called a cake lo these many decades.

Edited to try to fix grammar.

Edited December 31, 2007 by divalasvegas (log)

[Mayhaw Man]

OK, here's the thing. I just spent two days making cakes. This cake only.

Coconut Cake

I have a party to go to tomorrow night and have to bring dessert, but I was mainly making it for some photos required by the crazy demanding Calipoutine (an unaplogetic fan of coconut cake). I'll post them shortly, as right now it would be a pain on this connection.

At any rate, if you can tell me that some pan full of goo is better than this cake, and convince me that you are right, we'll work something out for a home baked cake. I like to travel, so what the heck?

It's about 5 recipes bound into one and, well, damned tasty. Give it a try. It's not easy, takes some time and some not easy to find components, but it's worth the trouble. There is, truly, a reason my friends call it " crack cake".

And if you want to see the better photos, you can probably find them at this month's

"Southern Living" site and for sure in the magazine (I'm not really that bald-they were just trying to make us into everymen".

Pie? feh.

A good cake whomps a good pie any day of the week. Period.

[Badiane]

I made a yellow cake the other night. With broiled icing. When I opened the oven door, it was on fire. Actual flames shooting out the top of the cake. I closed the door, turned the oven off and walked away.

I will take a homemade apple pie any day.

[Lindacakes]

In this debate, we all win.

Delicious as your coconut cake may be, and it is a current crave of mine, your cake is no pie.

Here's the proof my friend: there is no pie mix.

[snowangel]

What's interesting is that when I make a cake, half of it goes begging and just might end up in the trash (unless I'm having a crowd over).

But, a pie; it's eaten -- every bit of it. Some of it might be in ones skivvies or robe in front of an open fridge door, or with ice cream (or not) the next morning for breakfast (btw, that includes all of the food groups).

[Toliver]

What's interesting is that when I make a cake, half of it goes begging and just might end up in the trash (unless I'm having a crowd over).

But, a pie; it's eaten -- every bit of it.  Some of it might be in ones skivvies or robe in front of an open fridge door, or with ice cream (or not) the next morning for breakfast (btw, that includes all of the food groups).

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Of course, there's more cake left over. You can feed more souls with a copious cake than with a puny pie.