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Monday 15 April 2019

Peak cake



Today we treated ourselves to an excellent breakfast in an eatery we’ve used before while visiting Norfolk. The coffee is good too.

Setting off a nearby cake display was an enormous confection made from three thick layers of sponge cake one on top of the other, all cemented together with layers of jam and buttercream. We were able to examine the construction of this monster because a slice had been removed - possibly for that reason. The whole thing was finished off all over with a thick layer of more buttercream. A few strawberries artistically scattered across the top made it look more healthy.

We’ve seen these monster sponge cakes before so this one was nothing new but we both compared it to sponge cakes our mothers made in the fifties. Just one layer of sponge cake would have been enough for my mum. She would have sliced it horizontally to make two layers of sponge, spread jam in the middle to stick then together then she would have iced the top with traditional icing.

In other words the cake we saw today was three times the size of one of my mother’s sponge cakes even if we ignore the enormous amount of buttercream.

The huge size of modern cakes is one reason we rarely indulge. Even scones are enormous compared to earlier times. Modern cakes can be so huge and such obvious calorie bombs that I’m tempted to think we may have reached peak cake. If so then we could see a trend towards conspicuous frugality where the really trendy cake has to look like an abstemious slice of coconut matting sprinkled with nuts.

6 comments:

Scrobs. said...

And this was breakfast?

As any peak in Norfolk is about three inches up from sea level, that's an awful lot of fell walking to work that lot off!

Well done for the discovery though!

(I nealy drowned the family on a Broads holiday several years ago, but I love the place still)!

Sackerson said...

It's this kind of thinking:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Proper-Yorkshire-GIANT-MUG-Coffee/dp/B01N0CHRWD

Edward Spalton said...

Do you think it was the sort of cake Boris Johnson had in mind when he said he was “ in favour of cake and in favour of eating it?”

Unfortunately M. Barniee took away the keys to the cake shop - and David Davis was too dozy to notice.

Anonymous said...

Michael, my late uncle was co-founder of the Norfolk Mountain Rescue Society. Didn't get many call-outs but the Great Dane with a brandy barrel was much appreciated by the sober.

wiggiatlarge said...

If your ever near this place, go for the pies.............
http://walsinghamcafe.co.uk/

I am pretty sure under the new strictly controlled calorie intake the govt has in mind for the plebs, that cakes as you described will be banned and we will all be forced to buy, at the same price, because we know they mean well, smaller cakes with no cream at all and little else.
Maybe just a Bath Oliver will have to suffice.

A K Haart said...

Scrobs - yes, not calorie consuming walking country although shingle walking is hard work.

Sackers - looks like a great way to lose an entire biscuit while dunking.

Edward - but British cakes are far more nourishing than chic French confections.

Anon - sounds like my kind of job.

Wiggia - a Bath Oliver and maybe a glass of water on bank holidays.