Cake or Pie? Take your pick

[SushiCat]

Not only do I say CAKE!

I would aslo venture to say those who are voting for pie may not have ever had a really good cake!

...that must be another thread

[Parmhero]

A nice thing about baking pies is that once you have mastered the technique for make a good crust it is easy to make a very good pie yourself. 

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Ah, but there's the rub! So many proffered pies prove paltry in the tasting. True pie mastery is such a rare gift--so much so that a mate who possesses such skill is exalted in song:

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/billyboy.htm

[nan]

I vote for CAKE. I love pie, but only if it isn't fruit, which seems to be the opposite of most posters on this thread. Strangely enough, I don't mind cakes with fruit...

[azureus]

Definitely pie-- fruit pie. And it had better have a substantial, flaky tasty crust.

April

[Toasted]

Cake.

Unlike a cakewalk, with pies they throw them for comic relief and plain meaness. The value just isn't there if they are so willing to waste them.

BTW, I recently has a lovely slice of key lime CAKE. Layers of thin white cake sandwiched with creamy key lime cream. You can have your pie and cake too.

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Totally agree! Pies are often thrown at town fairs where there are also scary clowns. Sometimes clowns throw the pies, but never a cake. Therefore cake is better and clown free. I will now rest my cake!

Sorry about that. I'm not a dessert person in general but a great chocolate cake after a wonderful meal is the best imo. Pie is an everyday type of thing- good but boring.

[bavila]

Wisdom is the cake of life.

So sit down and eat your cake!

--random high school memory

[tejon]

"Let them eat cake."

Note: there is nothing about pie in that quote

[Mayhaw Man]

Pedro, Napoleon Dynamite's chick magnet friend knows what women want:

Napoleon: (in reference to the dance) Who are you gonna ask?

Pedro: That girl over there.

Napoleon: Summer Wheatley? How the heck are you gonna do that?

Pedro: Build her a cake or something.

[LaurelH]

I would pick pie over cake any day with the exception of my grandmother's chocolate cake, which I used to ball up into dense little balls and eat with happy abandon. Here is the recipe in case you are enthusiastic enough to try baking a cake that is better than pie, it is an odd recipe but it is the most purely chocolate cake I have ever tasted. Light and fudgy at the same time. Yum!

Black Beauty Cake

2/3 cup butter

2 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate

2 ¾ cups flour

2 teaspoon baking soda

2 heaping teaspoons baking powder

1 pinch salt

Stir together the chocolate and 1 cup of boiling water, to melt. Set aside.

Cream together the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

Add the cooled chocolate mixture. Blend.

Sift together the dry ingredients. Add to the butter mixture alternately with 1 cup of hot water.

Bake in 2 9-inch round tins or one rectangular cake pan ~45 min. at 350º.

As for pie, I vote for homemade Saskatoon Berry Pie with a double crust here in

Canada or Tarte aux Myrtilles in Switzerland as the supreme pie experiences of my life (both with vanilla ice cream or lightly sweetened whipped cream depending on your mood.)

Sigh.

Edited April 28, 2006 by LaurelH (log)

[Knicke]

It breaks my heart to have to choose. But if I must choose, I choose cake...empirically, not theoretically...because the best cake I've ever had was better than the best pie I've ever had, and even the worst cake I've ever had was more palatable than the worst pie I've ever had (once I scraped off the horrible frosting).

[StephMac]

I too, stand in cake's corner, and not just because I love to decorate them. It's something about the texture, I think, the way it can mesh with so many icings and fillings and fruits and such. Now, I do love me a good pie, and a lemon tart after a meal is much appreciated, but... it's just not cake.

My dear husband, however, wouldn't even pause if asked this question. He's a pie guy: Apple, preferably made by his grandmother (how do you compete with grandma? It's no contest, no matter how good your pie). Which is why we had this at our wedding:

Yup. Wedding cake and wedding pie. I made the cake and the topmost mini pie; grandma made the middle pie, local bakery did the bottom one. It was pretty cool

[JAZ]

Besides, chocolate cake is so much better than chocolate pie.

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Oh, but if you say that, you have never had Chocolate Velvet Cream Pie, which combines the best of chocolate mousse, chocolate ice cream and chocolate cheesecake, all in a chocolate crumb crust.

Chocolate Velvet Cream Pie is the reason chocolate was invented.

[Mistinguett]

Jaz, anything with chocolate mousse is a cake in my book.

[Lilija]

I read this whole thread, and I was -almost- swayed by mention of gingerbread...Almost.

Carrot cake has me by the short hairs, too, come to think of it. Then I remembered...icing. Frosting... "buttercream"...dry birthday cakes, gussied up with tooth breaking sugary embellishments...PHLEGH. (I really dislike most icings-frostings-whatever.)

I vote pie. I could sink face first into a good pumpkin or sweet potato pie. I would sell family members into science for the perfect piece of chocolate-burbon-pecan pie. Lemon, blueberry cheesecake PIE, a GOOD cherry (not gloopy...) Strawberry rhubarb, coconut custard. Ok, I'm dying. Buttery, tender-crisp golden flaky crust...is there anything more divine than cold/melty ice cream swirling with the still-warm filling of your favorite fruit pie?

Pie doesn't have to suffer the indignities of silly decorations, or be hidden under tons of sugar-glop. Pie is pie. Pie is honest. Pie for me.

[maggiethecat]

Well, if someone's mentioned this upthread, I apolgize. I'll say it again: I've never met a man who wasn't mad aboout that misnamed cake: Boston Cream Pie.

I just had a frightening and sad thought: are our sons even aware of the existence of BCP?

Edited to add: Priscilla: Snap!

[Mayhaw Man]

Well, if someone's mentioned this upthread, I apolgize. I'll say it again: I've never met a man who wasn't mad aboout that misnamed cake: Boston Cream Pie. 

I just had a frightening and sad thought: are our sons even aware  of the existence of BCP?

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I could easily be led to the dark side by a woman appearing at my doorstep bearing a well made Boston Cream Pie.

And I'm sure that my sons would not behave much differently.

Face it, men are easily led astray. We are but simple creatures who, ultimately, are only looking for some very simple things.

[Gigi4808]

CAKE!

I love cake- almost any kind but I like lemon the best. The rub is that I really don't like frosting (I know, I know...) so if I have it out I will try the frosting but I almost always scrape mine off. If I bake at home if any one other then family will be eatting it I will make two cakes- one with and the other without frosting.

There is but one lone exception to this. Local to me there is a place called the Marrietta Diner. As one could expect from the name they are a diner and while they have the typical huge diner menu what I love them for is the desseryt's. They are known for their huge desserts and indeed on any given visit you will find dozens of mile high cakes. they have a lemon cake that is to die for. It has the perfect sweet/sour balance and rather then a frosting it has some sort of a light and fluffy whipped topping- I have a feeling it is a Jell-o foam of some sort but it is good. The only thing I would change is that they top it with white chocolate- which I scrape off because I HATE white chocolate, if it had some dark or semi-sweet chocolate on it...well it would probably be better then sex.

Pies on the other hand are just pies. If I never eat one again I could die ok with that. the exception I make to that is those god awful Hostess brand fruitie pie things. Yes, I know they are disgusting and a crime againest nature- but damnit they are goooood!

[maggiethecat]

Women like BCP too, but men are mad about it. Dead serious, Brooks is accurate:in my experience, Boston Cream Pie trumps every wile of womanhood -- Botox, garter belts, a Great Personality or cute tummybutton. Pull out your Fanny Farmer, ladies.

I am very fond of pie.

[C. sapidus]

Maggie: sorry, but I'll take womanly wiles over Boston cream pie any time. Maybe that is a separate thread: Womanly Wiles or Dessert?: Take Your Pick.

Bruce

Edited because questions deserve a question mark.

Edited April 29, 2006 by C. sapidus (log)

[*Deborah*]

Women like BCP too, but men are mad about it.  Dead serious, Brooks is accurate:in my experience, Boston Cream Pie trumps every wile of womanhood -- Botox, garter belts, a Great  Personality or cute tummybutton.  Pull out your Fanny Farmer, ladies.

I am very fond of pie.

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Note to self: Boston Cream Pie for after that sublime roasted chicken.

[LindaK]

Cake has to work too hard (and I don't mean the cook has to work too hard).

There's nothing simple about making pie since two things can go wrong...the crust and the filling.

no question. And for those reasons, I would say it's harder to make a good pie than a good cake.

Pie doesn't have to suffer the indignities of silly decorations, or be hidden under tons of sugar-glop.

Lilja said it better than I did. That is what I meant about cake having to work too hard.

As for the Boston Creme Pie, I've witnessed the gender gap response to this dessert and marveled. I used to really love it when I was a kid. Then I grew up. Maybe that explains it...

[ulterior epicure]

I say, let them eat cake. Give me my PIE!

Top 5 (in descending order of preference)

1. Pumpkin

2. Pecan

3. Key Lime

4. Cherry

5. Blueberry

ulterior epicure.

[edited to add: I also love savory pies, but I don't think that's what this thread is about.]

Edited April 29, 2006 by ulterior epicure (log)

[racheld]

I posed the question at the breakfast table, over lovely warm croissants and pineapple Danish freshmade by DD at her bakery just a couple of hours before. We all agreed:

CAKE

We discussed fillings and icings, frostings and dustings, mentioning that you can put lemon icebox pie filling as a between-the-layers goodie in a cake, but it's just THERE in a pie. Cheesecake is cake. Mousse cake is cake, as are moltens and bundts and pounds and stacks and cups and bars.

And we'd all be much the poorer without Birthday Cake.

Few pies have interesting names; with the two notable exceptions of Chess and French Silk, they're boringly named. They're mostly apple or pumpkin or cherry or chocolate (wouldn't THAT one be great as a cake filling---yum, chocolate pudding in between!), but cakes have WONDERFUL names---Hummingbird and Red Velvet and Better Than...as well as Caramelllll (Arrange your lips around that several times--just the word is delicious) and Orange Velvet and Carrot with Creamcheese and Pecan Frosting and Strawberry Mousse and Tunnel Of Fudge and Devil's Food and (equal billing) Angel Food.

I just named a few of the thousands of stacked-high, rich-flavored, melt-on-the tongue, layered, rolled, barred, tiered, velvet-crumbed, vanilla-scented, chocolate musked, sweetly-waiting bits of the baker's REAL art.

Pie: Roll out crust, pour in fruit, bake. Roll out crust, pour in custard, bake or not.

Cake: Chemistry, flavor, MAGIC.

Especially the slice of Lemon-Apricot we shared at The Red Squirrel in Cincinnati last weekend. Heaven.

We vote cake.

[Terrasanct]

Few pies have interesting names

Hmmph, I'd like to see a piece of shoo-fly cake!

[pamjsa]

Few pies have interesting names

Hmmph, I'd like to see a piece of shoo-fly cake!

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And I don't even want to think about possum cake.