So my next post was going to be something short and jovial about my latest project to spruce up the banking trolleys (that’s right, there are two now), but after this afternoon, I just couldn’t help but write this post.
My writing venue of choice today is one that I don’t usually frequent, and the gluten free cakes on offer were either an orange almond cake, or a lemon polenta cake – otherwise known as the “go-to” gluten free cakes, the type of cakes I’ve eaten so much of I can’t eat another slice. In the name of market research, however, I thought “bugger it” and went for the lesser of the two evils, the orange almond cake.
Lesson learned; never think “bugger it” when ordering cake. Ever. The orange almond cake may as well be lemon polenta cake for I have truly lost the ability to tell the difference. To top it all off, in a literal and metaphorical sense, it was burnt.
Now we all know how much I love cake, but I have had so much generic orange/lemon almond/polenta cake since going wheat free, that last year I was verging on a very physical reaction to one slice that I actually couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t finish it! That’s right, I broke my own cardinal rule – never leave a crumb of cake behind.
Café owners and restaurateurs be warned, serve orange/lemon almond/polenta cake at your peril, and only if you have true faith in your products ability to defy all preconceptions of what an orange/lemon almond/polenta cake will taste like. In two years, I have had just one decent lemon polenta cake – so good I order it every time I visit – served courtesy of Small Street Espresso, and made by the talented Exploding Bakery.
Is your polenta cake that good? Would you choose it over all of your other cake? No? Then don’t serve it.
(Second image from Exploding Bakery)