Heaven: Cakes We Have Loved

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Comments

  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Good to hear about the dreaded choko; do you have your very own vine?
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Aka chayote in most of the world I think - apparently they are wildly popular in China and make a very good alternative to water chestnuts or mooli/daikon radish in stir fries.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Shipmate
    edited June 2022
    Sojourner wrote: »
    Good to hear about the dreaded choko; do you have your very own vine?

    I'm afraid so.

    For years they did not take, fortunately. One did recently and it grew over our back fence and a water tank fruiting faster than we use them. Luckily, a cow got to some of them; and now the season seems to be over.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Pomona wrote: »
    Aka chayote in most of the world I think - apparently they are wildly popular in China and make a very good alternative to water chestnuts or mooli/daikon radish in stir fries.

    A noxious weed here

  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Shipmate
    edited June 2022
    My mother used to bake a delicious light cherry and almond meal cake using glace cherries. I lost the recipe and cannot find one to replace it.
  • Yes, I forgot about that one. Slightly gritty, but nice taste.
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host
    I'm regretting not sneaking off with the slice of red velvet cake that my mother refused to eat for her lunch.
  • We made a red velvet cake for a son's birthday. I think it was a chocolate cake and to get the colour it took almost a whole bottle of red colouring, which for icing needs only a few drops. So, never again!
  • A traditional red velvet cake is chocolate, but is made with unprocessed cocoa rather than Dutch-processed cocoa, and is made without any kind of food coloring. The reddish color is result of the chemical reaction between the unprocessed cocoa, vinegar and buttermilk.

    But unprocessed cocoa can be harder to find these days; most grocery stores, at least where I live, don’t carry it, and most red velvet cake recipes seem to assume use of Dutch-processed cocoa, and therefore call for food coloring.

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I always thought red velvet cake had beetroot in it to make it red, but as I don’t like chocolate cake I’ve never tried it.
    I’m on holiday in a rather nice hotel in Italy. The range of cakes on offer at breakfast is amazing. Today there was Sacher torte , lemon cake, carrot cake and a baked cheese cake. Also croissants, doughnuts etc.
    I feel very fat!
  • Mmm, Sacher torte for breakfast. Perhaps I need to change my routine?
    Enjoy the holiday.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    We made a red velvet cake for a son's birthday. I think it was a chocolate cake and to get the colour it took almost a whole bottle of red colouring, which for icing needs only a few drops. So, never again!

    Gel or powder colouring is much stronger than liquid colouring and is quite cheap nowadays
  • MarthaMartha Shipmate
    Anything red always uses a ton of red colouring anyway - but the red velvet recipes I've seen call for a lot of it.

    Talking of red velvet reminds me of German chocolate cake, which was also popular in the southern US. It has a kind of caramel icing with pecans and coconut mixed in. I should give that another go sometime.
  • Sarasa wrote: »
    I always thought red velvet cake had beetroot in it to make it red, but as I don’t like chocolate cake I’ve never tried it.
    Yes, beetroot is a common alternative to food coloring if unprocessed cocoa isn’t used—and sometime even then as people have gotten used to a brighter red.

    I’m another who doesn’t like chocolate cake.

  • Not a fan of cake, more of a fruit pie person. I do however remember with pleasure my Southern mother's fresh coconut cake that she made for Christmas and Easter. A lot of work, husking the nut, breaking the shell, grinding the coconut meat. I do remember she put the liquid in the cake and finished it off with a cooked 7-minute icing. She put holly on the center at Christmas and made a little nest of green coconut for Easter with jelly bean eggs in the nest.
  • That sounds lovely, Graven Image.
  • @Graven Image, that’s the cake I made for my mother-in-law’s most recent birthday—fresh coconut, 7-minute icing (essentially an Italian meringue) and all. Delicious, if I do say so m’self, and definitely a Southern classic.

  • @Nick Tamen Your mother-in-law was blessed.
  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    Fairly recently got to try what I'm pretty sure was German Chocolate cake* for the first time - surprisingly as it is Not A Thing here. It was delicious, but mostly for the frosting. Also the cake itself was quite fluffy and delicate, I think American recipes often have that sort of cake. British cake tends to be a bit stodgier which makes it easier to slice.

    *for those unaware - not a chocolate cake from Germany, but an American invention using a brand called German's Chocolate
  • Pomona wrote: »
    Fairly recently got to try what I'm pretty sure was German Chocolate cake* for the first time - surprisingly as it is Not A Thing here. It was delicious, but mostly for the frosting.
    I’ve never been a big fan of German chocolate cake as such, given that chocolate cake does nothing for me, but I love the icing on a German chocolate cake. I could happily devour the icing and leave the cake.

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    That coconut cake sounds yummy @Nick Tamen . Italian meringue/seven minute icing is one of those thinks I'd like to try when I'm being a bad vegan.
  • HelixHelix Shipmate
    I think the cake I loved most recently was from my neighbours - a lemon drizzle cake. I was locked out of my flat on a hot and sticky day and a locksmith was required. Whilst waiting, I was welcomed into their home, which was airy and fresh and I sat in my grubby teeshirt and shorts and was treated to a large slice of said cake and a cuppa. They heaped further kindness by ringing round - without me asking - to find a locksmith. I was exceptionally bad company being stressed, hot and sticky and anxious about getting home for a meeting, not least about the £££ that would be emptied from my a/c.

    Cake with kindness - tastes so much better.
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