Just a quick post today as I go back to a principle I’ve been on the verge of forsaking, that making/serving a big, massive dessert is almost always a mistake. Much, much better to make small, individual portions that are easy to serve and that don’t overload people. I let myself get sucked into making that huge three-layer carrot cake for the Easter dinner, and, while I enjoyed the challenge, in the end I decided it just wasn’t worth it. People were very appreciative of my wonderful dinner and ate a lot, so then that massive (I know I keep using that word) cake was almost a burden. It would have been much better for me to make a smaller cake but even better to have made cupcakes. For awhile I’ve been awash in cake decorating websites, thinking, ‘Well, I could make something like that for a special occasion,’ and indeed I’d be happy to do so for a big party, even for a wedding, although my cake-decorating skills are pretty much nonexistent. But for 99% of the stuff that I do there’s no reason to go big. We were at a reception for a nonprofit not too long ago, and they had a groaning appetizer and dessert table. Among all the offerings was a multi-layer cake from some fancy bakery, beautifully decorated. But very little of it had been served. The thought of eating one of those huge slices was just too daunting, I think, even for those who like sweets. I wonder how much of it was left over. Way over the top! (I sure hope it was a donated item and that no one paid full price for it.)
I’ve talked before about how much fun it was one summer at a family reunion for a group of us to help decorate this adorable birthday cake, with all sorts of clever ideas used to make a lagoon, a palm tree, sand, a monkey, etc. It was a whole afternoon’s work, and we were justifiably proud of the results. But then we had to eat the thing! It was cut into slices and handed out. I no more wanted to eat it than I wanted to eat a real monkey. I wish there had been some way to have the fun of making it, to enjoy looking at it for awhile, and then poof! to have it disappear. The same thing happened at a wedding I helped with—the wedding cake wasn’t being eaten, and the bride’s family were urging people to take some as they didn’t want the leftovers. But there was so much other great stuff to eat (including my adorable little cheesecake cupcakes) that people just didn’t want the cake. It was kind of a waste.
And don’t get me started on those huge Costco sheet cakes! Now folks, I love Costco. I wouldn’t be without my membership for anything, and I go there an average of twice a month. I’m going to use their wonderful packages of deli roast chicken to make the chicken enchilada casseroles that will be part of the menu for the annual business meeting dinner I’ll be providing the evening before a 5:30 AM plane flight. (Nobody’s making me do this, understand.) They carry tons of wonderful stuff, and I don’t know what I’d do without their great deals on all sorts of items I use for the big events I oversee. But their cakes are the best possible illustration I can think of for my don’t-have-a-massive-dessert-just-for-the-sake-of-having-dessert principle. It’s cake for the sake of cake. Last summer we ordered one for the 25th wedding anniversary celebration, complete with custom decoration. We had a guest who had to stay away from artificial dyes and other ingredients, so I asked the guy at the bakery if he could give me an ingredients list and he printed it out for me. It started out with the usual stuff: flour, sugar, eggs (or egg whites), etc., but then quickly segued into an unbelievable laundry list of additives. Here’s the interesting thing: Costco does not give you that information online. I’ve just spent 20-30 minutes bopping around trying to find an easily-postable ingredients list, and it doesn’t exist. Of course I don’t still have the label from last year. Here’s a quotation and a photo from a website called FoodBabe in a post called “Why You Shouldn’t Buy Supermarket Birthday Cakes“:
Then you move on to Costco where the ingredient list is so long I literally had trouble keeping count – but it’s close to 80 ingredients! The majority of them are fake chemical fillers and food-like substances that are obviously not real food.
Her photo isn’t clear enough for you to easily read the ingredient list, but it will give you the idea:
Before you get all hot and bothered and say, “Hey, Debi, lighten up!” let me just say that I’m not trying to criticize anyone personally. As I plan to say in two sessions on “respectful eating” I’m teaching this weekend at a women’s retreat, “You’re free to choose what you put in your mouth. My job is to give you good, solid information about it. Then your choice can be based on facts.” I’d urge you to think about alternatives when you’re considering what to serve and are inclined to pick up one of those unbelievably-cheap cakes from the Costco cooler. You can always make something yourself, with good ingredients, but what if you just don’t feel that you can do that? (I’ll say here that I wish I’d pushed for a homemade cake last summer; I would have been happy to do it.) Maybe you don’t have the time or the skills. Can someone else make it? (Pick me! Pick me!) Can you just serve something else that you do feel comfortable making? Or can you farm out the work so that no one person has to do everything? (I remember a wedding reception at our old church at which homemade cookies were served, with a number of people being asked to make a batch. Since the bride was from Texas, I bought a Texas-shaped cookie cutter and made sugar cookies, putting a silver dragee at the approximate spot where Austin is. They were a huge hit. I’ve also read online about a wedding reception for which the bride asked a number of her friends to make a regular-sized cake and therefore ended up with a nice selection from which people could pick and choose.) Do we have to have the same thing at every occasion, for Heaven’s sake? Ho-kay! It’s time to hand out the sickeningly-sweet slices! Same thing as we had at the last party! There’s just no need for this type of thing. People don’t savor every molecule of that cake; they just eat it to be eating it. To reference our old church again, many brides would order a custom cake from an upscale bakery in the smallest size available and then fill in with Costco cakes to save money. Usually there was quite a bit of cake left over, which would be served the following Sunday morning as part of fellowship time. It was just getting eaten up. I’m all for saving money, believe me. Wedding cakes are unbelievably expensive. But, again, it would be nice if people thought things through just a little more. “What could we serve that would be delicious, not too expensive, and not more like a chemistry experiment than food?”
Well, I said at the beginning of this post that it was going to be short. Ha! Sorry about all the ranting and raving, but there it is. Let’s all try to buck the tide at least once in a blue moon!