"cake" news and stories

Gather round this fluffy yellow Christmas Tree Cake swathed in frosting pine needles, fruit-tape garland and M&M lights for a rousing chorus of "O, Tannenbaum." This cake is so much easier to make than you think, and it's a fun way to get the whole gang involved. Of course, after you're done, and then admire it for a few hours, you can make short work of it with dessert forks. Click the link below, and you're halfway there.

O Christmas Tree Cake Recipe and How-To

Duff Goldman does not want you to associate him with irritable bowel syndrome. Even for a six-figure payday.
The star of Ace of Cakes was in New York the other day to promote his new line of cake decorating supplies. He said that in his five years of being on the network, this was one of the first times he had accepted an endorsement deal.

Two he had turned down: a line of Duff Dog Food and the opportunity to be the spokesman for a medicine to treat irritable bowel syndrome.

"The second I got my own show, people were saying 'hey will you be the spokesman for this? Hey can we put your name on that, hey will you endorse this?'" Duff told Slashfood. "I was like 'no, no, and no. I'm a cook. I make cakes. I decorate cakes.'"
The irritable bowel syndrome gig would have paid "a lot of money," he said. "Six figures. It was a four month run of stuff right he middle of football season so every time you'd turn on football, you'd see me."

Not for him, Duff said, although he did acknowledge that the way food TV stars make their real money is from endorsement deals. Nevertheless, the teenage rebel in him has driven his talent agent nuts saying no to deal after deal.

Happy National Devil's Food Cake Day!

Created in the late 1800s, devil's food cake came upon its dark moniker in one of two ways. According to The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, "How this chocolate cake came to be called devil's food no one knows, although it may have been a play on opposites: It was as dark and rich as angel food was light and airy." Another legend posits that it was dubbed the nourishment of the devil due to its use of dark chocolate, deemed sinful for being so decadent and rich.

Wrote food writer Caroline King of her first impression of the cake in 1880s Chicago, "Though a new cake in our household, it had made its dashing appearance in Chicago in the middle eighties, and by the time it reached our quiet little community was quite the rage." For her original recipe and more background on the rich treat, head to the Food Timeline.

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Happy National Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Day!

The glossy, fruity cake is suspected to date back to the 1920s, when the Maraschino cherry and pineapple were popular, readily available products to the American public. Thought to have been inspired by skillet cakes cooked on the stove by settlers lacking ovens, the pineapple upside-down cake was popularized by the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later renamed Dole), when they published a series of ads featuring pineapple recipes in 1925 in numerous women's magazines.

This gloriously moist rendition of the classic cake was executed by blogger Brown Eyed Baker, who promises it's an "easy recipe to manage and quick to get in the oven." Using a buttermilk cake base decoratively topped with Maraschino cherries and pineapple slices, she promises the resulting cake is "moist with a tender crumb and a rich flavor, almost melting in your mouth. The pineapples and brown sugar/butter topping provide a great contrasting sweetness, but are not overpowering."

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