Cake Layers

The last couple of cake slices I’ve had suffered from the same problem, one that I have found to be quite relevant in layered cake: the middle layer was too close to the top. Now think about it: you’ve got cake, which provides consistency and some flavor, and frosting, which (ideally) is what really gives the cake its flavor. (There are of course people who eat just the frosting, but that’s a different issue.) The frosting is on top. And unless the cake is small enough to get a complete cross-section onto your fork, you’re going to have to take at least one bite without that top frosting for every bite you take with it.

This is the major challenge of eating cake. And in a single-layer cake, pretty much your only option is to set aside some of the frosting from the top or edge to mix with the bottom part of the cake. Obviously, single-layer cakes should be fairly short.

Things are different with multiple layers, though. That extra layer of frosting is there to make sure the lower half of the cake gets frosting too. But how much frosting does it get? Well ideally, it would get the same amount as the top, from a layer of about the same thickness halfway down. If the layer is more than halfway down, that’s fine – you just include cake from both sides of the middle layer. But if the frosting layer is less than halfway down, you’re left with the same problem as before, only worse: a bite from the top half intersects two layers of frosting, while a bite from the bottom half gets none! In this case, you’re back to extreme measures like siphoning off frosting from other parts of the cake – but avoiding that is the whole point of putting an additional layer in there to start with! I can only imagine that cakes like that were invented by people who cram the entire height of the slice into their mouths at once, never taking time to consider the taste of the individual layers or the woes of people left to compensate for the cake makers’ lack of foresight or consideration.

Shame on them.

Peanut Butter and Jelly/Jam

First of all, watch this skit if you haven’t seen it already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDxjcXQjJoU

This has caused me serious doubts about how I make peanut butter and jelly/jam sandwiches. I should state up front that I don’t actually like them; I just eat straight peanut butter on bread. But maybe that’s because I’ve been doing it wrong. I’ve always made them the Whitney way, with peanut butter on one slice and jam/jelly on the other. But Jason’s logic is very strong. I guess as long as my kids aren’t complaining, I’ll just keep doing it the old way though, because it’s easier and seems to have a good balance of ingredients. (Matt’s way gets both ingredients on the knife at the same time and could corrupt the jam jar.)

Ice Cream Cones

I’m afraid I’m rather proud of the following.

Ice cream cones don’t taste good. I’m not talking about waffle cones; I’m referring to the normal kind that are basically puffy paper. When you’ve eaten the ice cream above the cone, you want to get the rest, and unless you have a spoon, you condescend to eat the cone down as far as it takes to be able to get at it. There has to be a better way, right?

Yes. There is. And tonight I discovered it. Now, I’ve only done this once, so this might not be as consistently useful as the cupcake trick I mentioned earlier. And it might only work with soft serve, not regular ice cream. But check this out: the top of the cone screws right off!

Cupcakes

I have mixed feelings about cupcakes. I’m not that much of a cake fan generally, and the best cakes have layers of frosting so that you don’t ever have to get too much unfrosted cake in a single bite. Cupcakes go against that, with no frosting on the sides, and a disproportionate amount on top. Here’s my workaround for this problem: rip off the bottom half and stick it on the top.

If the frosting is really tall, it’s also valid to just scrape some off onto the bottom half and eat each half as a short but individual cupcake.

Failed Junk Food

I have been forced to accept the realization that I do not like plain M&Ms. Or Krispy Kreme donuts.

I do not make this statement lightly. I have fond memories of consuming significant amounts of M&Ms, enjoying the perpetual "chonk" that comes from biting down on each one. And peanut M&Ms seemed inferior, since the peanut just pushed aside the chocolate, which was ostensibly the whole point. But lately, my taste seems to have reversed. When I eat plain M&Ms, I seem to taste the shell at least as much as the chocolate. It's an empty feeling, a waste of calories. This might not even be such a huge deal, but M&Ms are everywhere. Blizzards. Bowls outside of people's offices. Halloween candy. There are so many situations that invite me to enjoy them, and I have repeatedly tried to put aside past disappointments and take them up on the offer. But I have been disappointed consistently enough and often enough that I think I need to just put plain M&Ms behind me forever.

Except maybe in cookies, if there's no better alternative. (The peanut kind seem to avoid the issue, I guess due to the balance of the extra flavor and texture.)

Krispy Kremes are a similar problem. I like donuts. Non-sticky glazed donuts are among the best. But Krispy Kreme donuts (which, again, show up all the time) leave this coating of shortening on my tongue. (Thanks to my wife for showing me how to articulate this.) And the flavor is almost lemony. Again, a consistent disappointment and a waste of calories. And if it's got frosting on top of the glaze, it's even worse, because the glaze acts as a barrier that makes the frosting seem like a totally different experience.

So there, I've said it. Hopefully having done so will help me stay strong and resist these evil traps in the future so I can save my calorie quota for more deserving forms of junk food.

Fortune Cookie Morality

For Valentine’s Day at work there was a morale event where they served, among other things, fortune cookies with white frosting and sprinkles. This in itself is a very strange idea, since fortune cookies don’t actually taste good. But what was even more disturbing was the “fortune” I got:

The value lies not within any particular thing, but in the desire placed on that thing.

Okay, first of all, that’s not a fortune. But no fortune cookies have “fortunes” anymore, presumably because they don’t want to get sued by people who follow them. That’s not what’s annoying.

I assume that what they were trying to say was that the amount of value we place on things isn’t necessarily tied to its intrinsic worth – for instance, a diamond ring can’t keep you alive, while food can, but we put more value on the ring.

What we have here is an equivocation – in the literal sense of trying to use two definitions for a word at the same time. The word “value” here carries two different connotations – “perceived value”, or the amount that people value a thing, and “actual value”, the potential benefit a thing can have.

If by “value” the cookie makers mean “perceived value”, then they are not really saying anything at all; they are just stating the definition of “perceived value” – they are saying that perceived value is based on how people perceive something. Duh. That’s so obvious that even fortune cookie designers wouldn’t bother writing it down. So that’s probably not what they meant.

But the only other thing I can imagine they meant was for “value” to mean “actual value”. But then if we use that definition, then what they are actually saying is that perceived value determines actual value. If you believe that, then a car that everyone likes has more worth (actual value) than a person that nobody likes. So with this ostensibly “feel-good” message, you actually end up with an argument that could be used to justify all sorts of horrible acts. And while I don’t think anyone would actually base a moral code on a close inspection of a fortune cookie message, this mentality is actually not that foreign to a lot of modern thinking. You know, the notion that believing something is right makes it right for you.

So who knows – maybe this fortune cookie really is part of a worldwide plot to undermine the moral integrity of humanity. Just in case, please think twice before making a decision based on anything you read in a cheap dessert.

Fun Size

I have recently had an epiphany about fun size candy bars. To my shock, they may not be as bad as they seem.

Of course, like probably every kid who ever had the privilege of eating candy, I was not swayed by the obvious propaganda of calling smaller packaging “fun size.” Not only do you get less candy per package, but you also have thinner chocolate walls on the candy bars. This was of particular interest to me, since I tend to eat candy bars in pieces, isolating as much chocolate as I can, leaving the inner layers to also be eaten separately. (Of course, on some bites I’ll get all layers at once, for variety.)

My wife, on the other hand, prefers the fun or even mini size of certain candy bars, due to the proportions. And I’m starting to see her point. They’re definitely not just smaller; they really do have significantly different proportions of chocolate, caramel, nougat, etc. And if you think about it, the question never was about amount per package. If someone gives you a “fun size” candy bar, it’s not like they were going to give you a bigger one and then just changed their mind. If it wasn’t the fun size candy bar, it would have been some other small thing, or nothing at all. And if you are buying a package, you can get a few large items or many small ones. It’s about amount per volume, or per dollar, not per package.

So to my shock, I suppose I must admit that the term “fun size” might be more than just blatant propaganda. (It’s blatant propaganda also, of course. But maybe not just that.)

Food Texture

Some foods have a gross texture; that’s just a fact. Once in a while I’ll hear someone deny this fact, usually in condemnation of someone else who doesn’t want to eat a particular dish based on its texture. “It all ends up the same once you swallow it,” the complainer might say. Or at the very least, they point out that it has the same ingredients as some other food. I must say I’m a little surprised about this argument. To anyone who finds himself or herself raising such a complaint, I offer the following challenge: The next time you are about to eat your favorite meal, put it through the blender first. If you enjoy it just as much, you have clearance to complain about others’ pickiness about texture all you want. But if you don’t, or if you can’t bring yourself to do it, then I think you’ll be forced to agree that it is perfectly legitimate to hate food based on how it feels.