My grandma was an excellent baker and my favorite cake is what she’d make for my dad’s birthday — white cake with a boiled white frosting and filling and shredded coconut in between the layers and on the top and sides.
That said, I’m not all that picky and will eat just about any cake put in front of me.
I made blueberry upside-down polenta cake today, just because y’all put “cake” into my brain!
Our wedding cake was made by a friend, and it was a carrot cake with a very light cream cheese frosting. It was decorated with real flowers, and it was both tasty and pretty.
Our daughter only wanted a cake to cut…but had a Venetian table. I think I mentioned somewhere else that a great baker friend made her wedding cake. But she had a couple of options and made 13x9x2 with frosting of both for sampling. One was a red velvet cake with a very light cream cheese frosting. The other was a dark chocolate cake with a sweeter white frosting. We chose the dark chocolate cake and the light cream cheese frosting. It was really delicious! (We got to taste the samples and choose…and on their first anniversary, they shared the top layer with us…we had it on our freezer).
I’m a fan of chocolate lava cakes and also enjoy peach bavarian cakes. I think the latter are specific to HI but so tasty! They’re very light and have to be refrigerated.
Not specific to Hawaii. All the local bakeries sell “cloud cakes” which have the sponge cake filled with a whipped cream & custard or whipped yogurt filling and topped with fruit. All the local bakeries plus several chain bakeries, including Tours le Jours (an international Korean-French bakery chain) sell them.
Yes, I’ve had lovely sponge cakes with fresh fruit and what seemed to be whipped cream frosting at several ethnic bakeries in LA.
I really like that Italian wedding cake. There is fruit between each layer of the delicious cake, and the whole thing is covered in whipped cream. Delicious! We have a “happy everything” party once a year when I visit where the rest of my family is, and this is the only cake we get!
This is the cake my grandfather used to make for me and my sister when were little. So easy and simple. Not elaborately pretty yet so tasty.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/268117/easy-condensed-milk-cake/
How about pound cakes? I adore a pound cake, sliced, as a base for a berry sauce and whipping cream. Add a little liqueur, like cointreau to the berries. The frosted lemon pound cake at Starbucks can be quite good as well.
Otherwise, carrot cake is it.
I need to experiment with flourless cakes, as I don’t tolerate gluten well, and avoid the substitutes for the most part, though am not celiac.
I grew up with Napoleans as my dad’s favorite. Where did they go? As a child they were common enough in restaurants and bakeries. If with a thin sugary icing. Well made, they are fantastic. This recipe looks doable.
The most labor intensive part of making that cake is actually making
the multiple sheets puff pastry! Frozen pastry was a godsend!
BTW, Natasha’s Kitchen has an even easier recipe for a no bake Napoleon, but it is definitely a departure from the classic!
Fun thread!
The Chantilly cakes from Whole Foods and Publix have been a birthday favorite in my family for years. We did recently learn that both contain almond extract & almond paste (my youngest has a nut allergy) so now we do a custom modified version from Publix with their vanilla cake and strawberry filling (also, I’ve learned that Publix does not make the actual cake part of their cakes in house - they have an offsite bakery that makes them and they are sent to each Publix store for construction & decorating).
I love wedding cakes - something about the sugary icing. It’s typically my favorite part of the wedding. Went to one last month and the wedding cake was terrible! I’m not sure what was wrong with it - my tastebuds could not figure out a flavor. Such a disappointment!
Other favorites are coconut cake, and I love a good carrot cake! I had the best cheesecake of my life in Spain of all places - it was light and custard-y. I have to be in the mood for the heavier version we know here. I typically only take a couple of bites. My husband is Italian and loves ricotta cheesecake.
Cheesecake and Carrot Cake are my two favorite types of cake but I would typically pick a curd or fruit tart/pie over cake if given the option.
We have a family recipe to doctor up a chocolate cake mix with sour cream and chocolate chips. That with chocolate fudge frosting is my favorite! Bakery chocolate cakes often do not taste that great to me, so prefer yellow cake with chocolate frosting.
Also love carrot cake and cheesecake!!
Made a lemon blueberry pound cake which was delicious!
I like pound cake fine, though IMO it’s more a breakfast food. H loves pound cake.
But my funny pound cake story was after I had older S, I was STARVING while in the hospital. I ate all the meals the hospital gave me, Hardees Meals H brought me in between… And all kinds of goodies friends/family brought me, including a WHOLE POUND cake. I ate that sucker in 1 sitting…
I love haupia cakes which are basically a light white cake with haupia pudding frosting.
Godiva Triple Chocolate Cheesecake is pretty darn good, if we’re allowed to count cheesecake. Decades ago I had a cheesecake with Kahlua in it that I remember being amazing, but I’ve never had it again.
Chocolate stout cheesecake is so good! One local brewery used to have it on the menu in its restaurant. Alas, that brewery restaurant is no longer in business.
I was surprised to scroll this far before seeing caramel cake! It’s a favorite, along with tres leches, coconut cake, pineapple upside down cake, and German chocolate cake.
