Inspired by a discussion in (of all things) the Spider-Man 2 thread.
What do you call a yellow cake with chocolate icing? All my life, that’s been called a chocolate cake. However, others have different experiences. They contend that a chocolate cake must have have actual chocolate batter/mix.
So, what’s your experience?
My experience is that it is the best cake ever. 
But I wouldn’t refer to it as chocolate cake. If I ordered chocolate cake in a restaurant, I would expect to get the chocolate batter cake, not yellow cake. I just call it yellow cake.
If a freakishly skinny girl offered me chocolate cake I would expect chocolate cake. It could have any kind of frosting, but the cake could not be yellow.
I would call yellow cake with chocolate frosting… well, a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.
Agreed.
When I was a kid, I’d swear that this was called “chocolate layer cake.” Since then, I’ve ordered or requested “chocolate layer cake”, and gotten chocolate cake with various frostings. So I don’t do that anymore.
Haven’t seen Spiderman 2 yet.
Chocolate cake is cake that is chocolate. Icing is not cake. If the icing is chocolate, but not the cake, then it is not chocolate cake. Chocolate cake can have chocolate icing, which is yummy. But even without any icing, it is still chocolate cake. Yellow cake does not become chocolate cake if it has chocolate icing because icing is not cake.
OK, now just picture me in really raggedy Salvation Army clothes sitting on a park bench and we should be all set.
That’s how I think we all picture you anyway, O. 
I just took a poll at work to add to my personal opinion expressed in the Spiderman thread - it’s unanimous that unless the actual cake itself is chocolate, it’s not chocolate cake.
In an hour or so (after we get a few more replies) I’m going to e-mail it to my SO, claim victory and then demand another cake as compensation.
When I was a kid we called the yellow cake with chocolate frosting chocolate cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting we called devil’s-food cake.
That dovetails exactly with my experience.
Another vote for “the best cake.”
Growing up, we called yellow cake mix with chocolate icing “birthday cake,” but I can see as how that’s kind of subjective and not any kind of official name. We always called that particular combination “birthday cake” even if it wasn’t being served for a particular birthday, as in “Let’s make chocolate cake, birthday cake, and coffee cake to serve after Easter dinner.”
I believe that chocolate cake is chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Devil’s food cake, to me, implies dark chocolate.
Now I really, really have a hankering for some cake …
I like pie.
Heed the word of Olentzero. He is indeed wise.
Oh, and before I forget … ::plink:: there’s a quarter for ya in your cup.
I am so proud. My statement about the movie started this big hullabalo.
Yellow cake with chocolate icing being called “chocolate cake” is just wrong. It is obviously a mistake that is regional in nature and all those in that area just need to understand that they are wrong and admit this wrongness and repent of said wrong.
So would white cake with choc icing be chocolate cake too? Or Orange cake with choc icing? Nah, gotta be the cake itself.
And Devil’s food is it’s own type of chocolate. Like Angel’s food is not white or yellow cake.
BTW Sauron, I’m just up the road in Nashville and we call chocolate cake chocolate cake and your cake yellow cake with chocolate icing. Maybe in AL there is a shortage of batter varieties so they just name it by the icing
That’s my experience, too, but I thought it was a family thing. See, none of us liked the cake to be chocolate, but we LOVED chocolate icing. My dad’s favorite was the version with yellow cake. So, since that was the only cake we customarily ate that included chocolate in any form, it was convenient to refer to it as “Chocolate Cake.”
But, I can imagine the confusion this approach would cause in the greater cake-eating world. Despite my rearing, I would have to admit that chocolate cake is, well, chocolate cake.
Jammer
All I know is, you so-and-so’s* hijacked the Spiderman thread and made it so my on-topic question didn’t get answered. Now I’m gonna ask the same question in your cake thread:
why is the elevator seen made especially funny by Hal Sparks’s presence?
Daniel
We call it butter cake with chocolate frosting.
Left Hand of Dorkness: This is MY thread. Shut your cake-hole.
I think the tendency around here is to name the cake after the flavor of the icing, as I mentioned in the Spider-Man thread, as long as the cake mix itself doesn’t have an overpowering flavor. So, as mentioned above, yellow mix + chocolate icing = chocolate cake. White mix + chocolate icing = chocolate cake (but of a lesser quality). Orange mix + chocolate icing = an abomination unto God, and frankly I’m amazed somebody was allowed to type that without being hit by lightning.
There are obvious exceptions, such as cakes that have actual names (red velvet cake, carrot cake).
Usually, I think of a chocolate cake as cake made with a chocolate batter. My grandma, however, called her yellow cake with chocolate frosting “chocolate cake.” The rest of us just called it good.
With all due respect, Sauron, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
I think the yellow cake mix is a part of an unauthorized WMD program, and the chocolate icing is just a red herring to distract the investigators.
