07: CAKES AND TORTES

07: Cakes and Tortes image

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While some Bake-Off® prize-winning cakes, like 1950's Orange Kiss-Me Cake and 1953's "My Inspiration" Cake, were simple cakes to round out a meal, most Bake-Off® cakes have been lavish creations, the product of a homemaker's expansive love and a bit of time. The 1951 contest's Starlight Double- Delight Cake and 1959's Mardi Gras Party Cake are both beautifully frosted, elaborate cakes. The Tunnel of Fudge Cake, from the 1966 contest, may have been the ultimate home-grown extravagance, packed full of nuts and fudgy chocolate.The 1970s marked a real change in cake baking, with more homey cakes gaining in popularity, featuring whole-food ingredients like molasses, bananas and oats, as in 1973's Banana Crunch Cake or 1978's Nutty Graham Picnic Cake. In the 1980s, cooks returned to decadence and looked to Europe for inspiration. With 1984's Dark Chocolate Sacher Torte or 1988's Almond Mocha Cake, American families were treated like European royalty.Recently, American cooks have been displaying their increased sophistication by combining the best of European and American traditions. The Chocolate Mousse Fantasy Torte, from the 1990s contest, combined an American original--brownies--with a European classic--chocolate mousse. In 1994 Glazed Sweet Potato Mini-Cakes revealed an haute cuisine treatment of indigenous American ingredients: sweet potatoes, maple syrup and pecans.While ingredients, manners of preparation and tastes have changed over the years, the reasons for presenting a special cake haven't. Celebrations find cake bakers and cake eaters in perfect agreement: cakes are the perfect food for sharing.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.