I’ve been waffling over this post of Lynn’s for a few days now. Is pie really better than cake?
Well, geez. I think pie is a lot more versatile. Pie can be savory, and pie can be sweet. Pie can be creamy, and pie can be fruity. Are there savory cakes? Do crab cakes count? I don’t know.
Lynn notes that frosting isn’t her favorite part of the cake. It is mine, although I’ve come to appreciate the cake itself a lot more over the years. Dry, disappointing cake with wonderful frosting is a pretty meh experience; however, moist, delicious cake with meh frosting is still pretty good. Frosting has to be good, though. I’ve had a lot of icky frosting in my day. Give me a nice carrot cake loaded with enormous amounts of cream cheese frosting, I’m a happy guy.
I’m not generally of the view that cake and pie have certain “events” for which each is called for, except for the very obvious: Thanksgiving is a pie day, all the way. But I find the generic vanilla/chocolate/marble cakes that are usually trotted out at various celebratory events that apparently call for cake to be generally disappointing: not enough frosting, and the cake is inevitably cut into pieces of ridiculously small size. When I have cake, I want it to be rich cake, moist cake, with tons of wonderful, wonderful frosting. (Well, sometimes. Some cakes are so good that you don’t need frosting at all. But those are in a class by themselves.)
In terms of dessert, I’m probably in the mood for cake more often than I am for pie, but that doesn’t mean much. Plus there are wonderful things like pot pies; and when you factor pizza into the pie equation, well, that tilts the scales toward pie by quite a lot. In terms of dessert pies, I like cream pies as much as fruit pies, but fruit pies scream out for ice cream. (Sorry, Lynn, but even as I’ve come to love slices of apple with cheddar cheese, putting cheddar cheese on apple pie is just going a wee bit too far for me!) Of course, when it comes to throwing, I suppose it’s gotta be pie…never heard of cake throwing before, although I suppose it could be done.
Pie, cake — ach, who cares. I like ’em both!
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I think I agree with you. I am let down more often by cake and less often by pie. Pie gives you what it advertises. You can see inside it. Frosting on cake just covers up the dryness so you have to add the milk then there are freshness issues there since I do not consume dairy products that I personally have not opened. That's a major dealbreaker with me. Carrot cake is too much…too rich and I have bad vomit memories with carrot cake and cream soda. Come to think of it I am a delicate little hothouse orchid, aren't I? And pizza is NOT a pie in the regular sense. Hell's damnations on the person that came up with the term PIZZA PIE. Pie is dessert. Pizza is a main dish or a snack – but don't tell me pie can be a snack because I know that but that doesn't invalidate my arguement.
I agree that it's easy to be disappointed by cake – but the times when cake is good, it's astonishingly good. Between a pecan pie and Duncan Hines cake, I'll take the pecan pie any day of the week. But, between pecan pie and a Sacher Torte… helllllllllloooooooooooo chocolatey goodness.
I agree, a good cake is fabulous but a bad cake is not fabulous.
But, the same is true for pies.
In truth, I just like dessert.