I’ve always called yellow cake with chocolate frosting…“yellow cake with chocolate frosting.”
Oh, yeah … there was actually a topic here. (Go figger.) I did a scientific study yesterday by asking some coworkers and my husband this question, and the answers I got would shock you! OK, not really, but anyway …
[ul]
[li]All but one person (including myself) said, “That’s yellow cake with chocolate frosting.”[/li][li]Plus, most people asked, “Why on earth would anyone call that chocolate cake?”[/li][li]And three of the survey-ees added, “Now I’m hungry for cake.”[/li][li]The one person who did not call it “yellow cake with chocolate frosting” said, quote, “Eww, that’s gross, everyone knows that yellow cake is disgusting and mutated and that what you really want is that white cake with the confetti chips and matching frosting.”[/li][/ul]
I just want to emphasize that this thread’s OP asked what yellow cake plus chocolate icing was called, not what it should be called. I recognize the ambiguity, but, as I noted, when I was a kid I always heard this called “chocolate layer cake”. Not, I note, “chocolate cake”. That word “layer” makes a difference.
Apparently a lot of people have never baked anything properly. I can’t imagine any other reason for thinking that baking a cake or muffins or cookies from scratch is particularly hard. It’s depressing when you think about it. I can’t imagine what the thoughts must be of someone who never even gets the urge to try actually baking something.
Seriously, what’s the point? I looked at the blurb on Amazon, and it mentions “concealing questionable tastes”. What is the world coming to? If you’re going to the trouble of modifying a cake mix, you’re already doing as much or more work than you would if you actually baked a cake. and meanwhile you’ve got “questionable tastes” that you won’t eliminate entirely.
You’ll discover that the same facility at which you purchase cake mixes also sells flour and other baking supplies. Not only that, but you can get decent quality cake flour for quite a bit cheaper (per cake, at least) than cake mix.
And no offense, but I’m not that skilled a cook, and I didn’t go wrong the first time I baked a cake. I was about ten. This was without the help of my parents. The frosting was actually harder to make, but it turned out fine. It’s just a matter of reading a recipe.
Ya know, I’ve noticed several posts in this thread where people have received “chocolate cake” and were disappointed to realize, once they began eating it, that it was “yellow cake with chocolate icing.”
Maybe calling this dessert “chocolate cake” (or “chocolate layer cake”) is something that the older generation did, and it’s being slowly supplanted with the (apparently) more-common “yellow cake with chocolate icing”?
In re: “The Words of the Prophet Rockle”
I actually do know how to bake. I am a pretty good pastry chef, if I say so myself, and I have no doubt that my husband would agree. All my Christmas cookies are made from scratch, and many of my cakes are. Pies, too, and even the occasional cheesecake and batch of brownies. I can even do the “fancy” stuff, like make jam fillings and six kinds of homemade frosting, and for certain kinds of desserts I even grate baking chocolate by hand instead of running it through the food processor. If that is what I am going for, I do it from scratch.
But, many people cannot bake from scratch. I know this is hard for some people to understand, but it isn’t all that unusual. My sister cannot bake. She is a wonderful cook, but she cannot bake. Even if the instructions and measurements and ingredients are simple, she will mess it up. Even if someone else measured out all the ingredients for her, she will mess it up. Even if someone else did everything except take the finished cake out of the oven, she will mess it up. But cakes from a box, she can do. Some people are like that.
And in my experience, most people don’t care one way or the other. At least, not anyone to whom I have served cake. (Or at least nobody has been rude enough to say anything to me about it.) I have found that if you make it look like you did a lot of work on it, even if the cake and the frosting both came from containers, people will enjoy it - kind of like a small but beautifully wrapped birthday gift: It’s the thought the counts. Most of the time it just gets dipped in coffee or tea or partnered with ice cream anyway. Cake is cake. To me and most people I know who eat cake, it’s to-may-to, to-mah-to.
Could I have my slice without the bitchiness, please? It’s no mystery that supermarkets carry flour. And in fact, I quite enjoy baking - I was baking long before I was cooking anything else. But among my friends here in New York, I’m just about the only one who bakes. Among my sisters’ friends in the DC area, the most anyone has ever done is use a cake mix. And no amount of telling them that scratch is almost as easy will convince them to start. See, it’s that niggling “almost.” People don’t have time to make mistakes. If the choice is between using a box, which works every time, and baking from scratch, which might be ok, but then there’s the risk that you’ll have spent half on hour of time you don’t have, only to have to throw it all out and start over - well, that’s simply not worth it for most people, most of the time. Sure, it’s not hard - for you. But it’s not simply “reading the recipe,” because recipes presume a fair amount of cooking knowledge already. A lot of folks don’t know how to measure, don’t know what temperature butter should be at, don’t know the difference between baking powder and baking soda, and can’t tell if the batter consistency is off. It’s a lot easier picking these skills up at 10 than at 30 - that you have did did so does not make you a better person. Fundamentally, that’s the message that’s coming through among the I-wouldn’t-dream-of-a-mix types.
Now, going back to the OP - this all explains a mystery from many years ago. Searching for choclate cake recipes, I stumbled across a marvelous cookbook-cum-family history called Spoonbread & Strawberry Wine. I managed to get halfway through making the “Chocolate Layer Cake” when I noticed that it didn’t call for chocolate. So I improvised, adjusting the recipe until I ended up with something pretty good - and truly chocolate.
I always thought it was a misprint.
I guess people don’t understand what cake mix IS. Cake mix is just flour, sugar, leavening (ie baking powder/soda), cocoa powder for a chocolate cake or whatever artifical flavors are needed for another kind of cake, salt, and various emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial colors, anti-caking agents (I slay me…) and whatever other chemical additives the shadowy figures who control the food industry want to add. After that you have to add your own eggs, add your own liquid, maybe add your own oil.
To make your own chocolate cake mix, just mix flour, sugar, baking powder and cocao together. Honestly, this is all “Big Cake” does when they sell you pre-packaged cake mixes.
For flexibility, you could leave the flour, sugar, baking powder and cocoa in separate bins until you want a cake, then take 30 seconds to make your cake mix first, then make the cake with the cake mix. If you’re so hung up about making a cake “from scratch”, that is. Can we please reduce our reliance on foreign cake supplies, and practice sustainable cake independence?
That’s still wrong to me. “Layer cake” has nothing to do with the flavor. It’s cake that has layers, like a standard round 2-layer birthday cake, baked in two different round pans and then put on top of each other with frosting in the middle and on the top and sides. As opposed to “sheet cake,” which is a single-layer cake baked in a 9x13 pan.
Before reading this thread a couple of days ago, I would never have guessed that people would call white or yellow cake with chocolate frosting chocolate cake. The mere idea was ludicrous and led me to believe these people were raised by monkeys.
So last night I was dealing with the typical family night: herd the kids to the table, herd them back out to wash hands, herd them to the table again, more milk, “mine looks funny”, “feed me Daddy!”, wife called over to neighbors, all vegetables eaten? Cake time! Leftover white cake with confetti sprinkles in it and… chocolate frosting. So in my harried state of mind, what did I ask the kids?
Who wants chocolate cake?
I froze in shame, immediately realizing what I did, but was too tired to correct myself. So now my kids will probably call it chocolate cake next time. I have warped them. And I blame Sauron. I will now begin my quest for the buntcake of power to crush you and your evil influence on my world!
Would you eat bagels in a pinch?
Would you eat them with a Grinch?
Would you eat bagels in a box?
Would you eat them with some lox?
Sorry. It just popped in there. 
Actually, baking is very much “reading the recipe.” If you really don’t know how to measure a cup of flour, then, well, I can’t see how making cake from cake mix is going to help you. You still have to measure stuff there.
Baking is quite scientific compared to other forms of cooking. You do have to be careful with your ratios of ingredients. If you can read and follow directions to the letter, though, you’ll be perfectly fine. If you’re someone who insists on constantly changing the recipe and making substitutions willy-nilly, you will fail miserably (unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
Any idiot can make a simple sponge cake. I mean this. I don’t care how bad of a cook you think you are, but if you can communicate to me in more than a series of grunts, you can make a sponge cake. People think baking is a freaking mystery. It’s nice (people think you put in much more effort than is actually required when you bake them a cake). However, I have shown more than a handful of folks how easy it is to do; people to whom making ramen is the pinnacle of culinary achievement. And now, they can bake their own cakes.
I don’t mean to sound snide or anything. I’m just saying that you too, can make a nice homemade cake and it really isn’t a hassle. I believe in you. I’m willing to put down money that every single doper here can bake a simple cake, and the effort and skill required will not be more than baking a cake from a cake mix. The only step that requires any skill is separating the eggs, and there are ways around that.
[QUOTE=Kat]
The best cake is chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberry filling. This is the cake I request every year for my birthday. I never ever get it. Because my birthday is also my sister’s birthday, and she does not like chocolate. This makes me sad. 
[QUOTE]
Do you know, I think this is the saddest post I’ve ever read? A little girl who has grown up and never, not even once, gotten the cake of her choice for her birthday!
What is wrong with your mother? So what if your sister doesn’t like chocolate? Doesn’t your mother know the rule is, each child gets a birthday cake of her/his own?
I think you should report her to Child Protective Services.
Or, if you’re too old for them to take an interest, at least write a tell-all novel about this horrible abuse.
My sould weeps for your slaughtered hopes.
I think it’s tragic, too! And I swear if it didn’t have whipped cream icing, I’d whip one up (from scratch, Pulykamill) and mail it to her!
[QUOTE=StarvingButStrong]
[QUOTE=Kat]
The best cake is chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting and strawberry filling. This is the cake I request every year for my birthday. I never ever get it. Because my birthday is also my sister’s birthday, and she does not like chocolate. This makes me sad.
Forty years of cake-baking experience talking to all you neophytes and experienced bakers: Making a cake is NOT, repeat NOT easy. Please believe when I tell you. It’s not ditch-digging, but it’s not a finger-snap either. What IS easy is basking in the compliments after serving up a well-made, home-made creation. THAT satisfaction is what makes baking worthwhile. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Oh, we can never bake as good as YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!” Probably true, but never having tried it, or attempted it properly, you’ll never know. I like getting rave reviews. I hope my invitations to people’s homes rests on my scintillating personality, and not on the fact that I make THE BEST DAMN CHOCOLATE CAKE IN THE WORLD. Want to know the pleasure and satisfaction firsthand? Seek out a really good homebaker, and ask to spend a session or two of baking from scratch, start to finish. Get to see, and possibly understand what we experienced bakers know, since it is now second nature to us. It’s not unusual for me to spend an entire afternoon or evening on a cake. Not many out there want to, or have the time to, spend baking like that. If your guests heap lavish praise over your box cake and canned frosting, well, maybe that’s good enough. BUT, just invite someone who is a scratch baker, and watch your guests’ attention and tastebuds shift to whatever he or she brought. Think of it as a paint-by-number “Mona Lisa” vs. The Real Thing.
Well, I admit that my standard cakes are made from cake mix. That’s just what I’m used to – my mom also used cake mixes for most of her cakes. By ‘standard’ I mean a chocolate, spice, white or yellow layer cake. They taste right to me. I suppose it’s possible that my taste buds have been corrupted by my mother’s home cooking. However, my mother is universally acknowledged to be an excellent cook – anyone who’s ever eaten at her house will tell you so – and I’m considered to be a pretty good cook myself. We are not fancy cooks, or gourmet cooks, or foodies. Cooking isn’t a hobby for us – we’re just plain old cooks, slapping the meals on the table 2 or 3 times a day, every day.
I do make my frosting from scratch – again, that’s how my mom did it and taught me to do it. I find the stuff in the tubs to be too sweet and too gooey.
I can make a scratch cake, BTW – in fact, certain cakes I always make from scratch. Carrot cake, for instance. Now, carrot cake isn’t my very favorite, but I make one once in a while and, when I do, I make it from scratch. I’ve never had a decent carrot cake made from a mix. Applesause is another – I’ve never seen an applesauce cake mix, but I wouldn’t buy one if I did – to me ‘applesauce cake’ means] my grandmother’s recipe. So that’s what I make when I make applesauce cake. My lemon cake recipe is kind of from a mix, but very doctored up – it’s an extremely retro recipe my mom’s been making since the '60s. Calls for white cake mix and lemon jello… it isn’t a poke cake, BTW – the jello is mixed right in. Mom altered the recipe further to make it more lemony… If I’m wanting a lemon cake, this is the one I want.
Another thing – I use Bisquick for my biscuits and shortcakes (also pancakes, waffles and cornbread). Why? Just because I always have. I have made both from scratch (when I was out of Bisquick) and I can’t tell the difference. My biscuits are good. One southern friend gave me no end of shit when she heard I use Bisquick for cornbread, but when she came for dinner she gobbled my biscuits down with high praise and was astounded to find that they were made from Bisquick, too. And she isn’t the type who’d have hesitated to say, “Hey, these taste like crap – why don’t you make real biscuits!”
I have never made a cookie from a mix, though. I make cookies from scratch. And I make my own pie crust. Pie crust is easy and I’ve never had a prefab pie crust that could hold a candle to the real thing.
You can argue with the lack of logic all you want – I agree with you. But I’m just reporting what I recall. I figured it was just another of those weird adult inconsistencies, like saying a flag is at “half staff” when it’s only one flag width down.
Besides, I can see some sense in this – it is a layer cake (I’ve never heard this confusion occurring with sheet cakes), and it’s chocolate in that this is the type of icing. If one assumed that the cake was yellow unless informed otherwise, then it all fits together. And if you argue, then it just shows you’re not in the know. You probably pronounce “forecastle” as if it were “four-castle”.
Please, please, pretty please with cherries, can I have this recipe? I need it or I will just die! I don’t know why, but I saw this paragraph and my mouth began to water and now there is drool all over my desk. Please? You can email me. I promise forevermore that this will be called “Doper Jess’s Grandmother’s Retro Lemon Cake from the 60’s.” Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?
See, I think this might be the heart of the matter, for me. When I was growing up, every cake was yellow cake (unless it was something specific, like red velvet cake or carrot cake). The only difference between cakes was the type of icing applied. So, chocolate icing = chocolate cake. Peanut-butter icing = peanut-butter cake. And so on. You didn’t think to specify what the interior of the cake looked like under the icing; it was always yellow cake.
It wasn’t just my mother who baked cakes like this – it was every cake I can remember eating from my childhood. Dessert at a friend’s house, cake sales, church socials … all yellow cake. Maybe it was because I grew up in a small Southern town, and the only cake mix sold at the local A&P was yellow cake mix. I dunno.
Thanks. I shockingly had some real vanilla extract and put in about a teaspoon. It tasted good, though I can’t credit the vanilla on its own. I hadn’t eaten cake in a long time so I forget what it tasted like with no extra vanilla. I’ll do it every time from now on though.
HAHA, thanks!
jellyblue, I’ll try the cocoa power, thanks.
Um, yeah, that would be me. If it doesn’t come out of a box or a can or a bottle or a jar or some kind of container, it doesn’t exist at my house. I hate cooking/baking. I’m not proud of it. I envy people who cook and enjoy it. I guess I hate it because it’s a lot of work and a lot of expense and a lot of time, plus the most simple recipe has a shitload of ingredients that of course I never have, so I have to go buy (I snort at recipes that say “On hand” Ha!). You spend all that time, trouble and money and it gets eaten within minutes and then you have a messy kitchen. Blah! Again though, I envy and admire people who have a good time going through all that just for the pleasure of doing it.
Gah, like that! That would cost a fortune, way more than a cake mix. That’s just too much (for me).
Btw, soda? buttermilk?? SALT??? It sounds like a casserole. (I’m not trying to be bitchy mean, I honestly do salute you and I’m sure it’s probably yummy. Without the salt.)
Bill Cosby Himself. I LOVE THAT! —It was because of my father that from the ages of seven to fifteen, I thought that my name was Jesus Christ and my brother, Russell, thought that his name was ‘Dammit’. ‘Dammit, will you stop all that noise? Jesus Christ, sit down!’ One day, I’m out playing in the rain, and my father yelled, ‘Dammit will you get back in here?’ I said, ‘Dad, I’m Jesus Christ’. —