Alexander Pope's Essay On Criticism is known for its infamous line, "To err is human" ...and oh how appropriate those four little words are, no matter what walk of life you're from or specific profession you choose to take on. None of us can expect to be on our game every single moment of every day -- an example of this can be seen with cake designers. Sprucing up infinite flour-and-sugar-based canvases is far more challenging than you might imagine and there's definitely a reason why we pay these trained edible artisans the big bucks to shroud somewhat humble springy-interiors with a riot of multi-colored frostings, florettes and hand-piped messages.
Of course, accidents do happen. Icing artists are not immune to wobbly hands or bleary eyes, particularly after transcribing the 459th "Happy Birthday" message in a row. Have you ever wondered what happens to cakes that are accidentally peppered with mistakes? An amusing website called Cake Wrecks recently documented a few sad casualties of various in-store bakeries that were ultimately relegated to the reduced section, such as the white frosting "schmear" and thick icing "wite-out" versions above.
In a way, it's actually nice to learn that these cake accidents weren't tossed in the garbage can since there are plenty of people out there who crave a spot of yum without the high price tag or decorative perfection. I hope that this is the norm rather than the exception. Cake Wrecks' photos of this far more prominent blue icing blob cover-up job and yet another example of "whoops, guess I didn't spell that name quite right" beg the question...why do these accidents always seem to happen when someone is armed with highly pigmented blue sugar paste?!?
Okay...onto more pressing matters. You just had a party. Based on all of the "YES! We'll be there!!" R.S.V.P.s that were e-mailed back to you, the volume of cake that you had on hand was proportionate to the number of anticipated guests...except that 86.7% of them ended up being no shows. Whoa. Totally uncool. Now, that big fat juicy layer cake -- adorned with a minimum of seven pounds of glistening, artery-clogging frosting -- is taunting you every time you walk back into your kitchen, beckoning you to just grab a fork and hack off a square. Deep inside, you know that you can always remove the evidence with a sharp knife later on. Come on...no one is looking.
Resisting edible cake temptation may be easy for some of the people in this world -- hey, more power to them! -- but for the rest of us who lack self control and also happen to be members of the non-wasters club, what recourse do we have? When everyone we know is currently on a diet and our own personal resolve to resist ready-made bulk sweets can be easily kicked to the curb in a few seconds flat, what are the best options to recycle perfectly good cake sometime down the road?
Cake Recycling 101:
1) Toast individual "bread-sized" slices of old cake, dip in a mixture of egg, milk and vanilla extract and voila, you've got French Cake Toast - this would probably be quite delicious as a decadent dessert or diet-be-damned weekend brunch entrée.
2) Break up leftover cake (sans icing) into chunky crumbs and use it to make crumb-topping for fruit crisps or to add texture to the top of muffin batter before you pop it in the oven.
3) You could also alternate layers of cake crumbs with fruit and ice cream for a delicious parfait or create a cake-flavored malted milk shake!
4) Cut plain cake into sizable cubes, toast in the oven and spear them into chocolate fondue or add them to the bottom of a bowl of comforting pudding.
5) Create a pie crust in a pinch by mixing melted butter into a few cups of coarsely crumbled cake bits. Press the whole butter-cake blend into a pie plate and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees prior to filling it with a custard-based or cheesecake blend.
6) Create your own "premium" ice cream sundae by mashing cake chunks into vanilla ice crean along with coarsely chopped candy bars, sliced bananas, salted nuts and anything else that floats your boat.
7) Bake up a leftover cake version of "bread pudding".
8) Fancy some homemade truffles? Pulse leftover plain cake in a food processor until small crumbs form and slowly add a liquid (a flavored cordial of your choice like Irish Cream or fruit juice or even espresso) until the whole mixture comes together and can be hand-formed into round bite sized morsels. Tuck a glaced cherry or other surprise into the center of each and then chill in the refrigerator until they are solid. Finally, roll each truffle in traditional coatings such as cocoa powder, dark chocolate shavings, toasted coconut, chopped nuts, etc. and dig in to your homemade fancy-pants treat or bring them to your next party!
9) Sandwich slightly softened ice cream in between two toasted cake slices and then dip half of the confection in melted chocolate, finally rolling it in chopped up candy bars, mini M&Ms or anything else to give it a bit more pizazz.
10) Make mini bite-sized cakelets by thinly slicing cake, toasting it, layering it with the fillings of your choice (raspberry jam, almond paste and/or Nutella work nicely) and ultimatley stacking three sheets on top of each other. Then cut into 1 - 2 inch mini layer cakes and drizzle (or submerge) into melted chocolate. Mmmmm.
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