Take the cake
Layer upon layer of creativity and nostalgia await the adventurous baker
The Diner Cake at Dessert Gallery is a thing of undeniable beauty — three layers of buttery yellow tablets lavished with a thick robe of chocolate frosting. Its flavors of moist crumb and deep swirls of fluffy icing have made it the bestselling cake at the 25-year- old bakery business at 3600 Kirby.
“Without fail or exception, people who are new to the Diner Cake say it’s the type of cake that their grandmother made for their birthday,” Dessert Gallery owner Sara Brooks said. “It’s very sweet to hear, no pun intended. It makes me feel good about what we do; we touch people.”
Perhaps times of political unrest and an ongoing worldwide health crisis have made us yearn for simple, comforting foods. We could do worse than reach for a slice of layer cake.
Any way you slice it, Houston is stacked with options, whether from a bake shop or professional cake baker (Chocolate Bar, Red Dessert Dive, Take the Cake, Ooh La La Dessert Boutique, Jodycakes, Ashley Cakes, Three
Brothers Bakery, Fluff Bake Bar) or from local restaurants (Empire Cafe, Field & Tides, Kenny & Ziggy’s, Katz’s Deli, Truth BBQ).
“During this time of uncertainty, layer cakes are a comforting thing,” said Ziggy Gruber, owner of Kenny & Ziggy’s New York Delicatessen restaurant, where showstopping layer cakes rule the dessert options. “Cakes are a throwback. They bring a hominess to the table.”
Gruber suggests that food television such as the hit “The Great British Baking Show” have opened up the eyes of home bakers to the rich possibilities of the sponge. Stack it, frost it, call it your own.
“When people think of celebrations, especially birthdays, they almost always go to cakes,” said Bobby Jucker, fifth- generation owner/ baker of Three Brothers Bakery. “A slice of cake is like a slice of happiness. We really saw that a few years ago when we started making the Rainbow Cake for the LGBT community.”
The seven-layer stack of rainbow- colored layers with white frosting was introduced four years ago for Gay Pride month in Houston. It became so popular the cake is now offered year-round.
No matter the occasion, a good layer cake offers a sense of nostalgia as powerful as anything that comes from the oven, said Martha Stewart, who celebrates the joys of classic scratch cakes in her new “Martha Stewart’s Cake Perfection” cookbook.
“Cakes have and will always signify celebration in my mind, but you don’t necessarily need to celebrate something to bake a cake,” Stewart said. “I think that throughout the pandemic, cake baking can offer bakers the opportunity to celebrate anything, big or small, and that to me is what makes cake baking so special.”
To be sure, a good layer cake is a commitment of time and effort. Multiple layers, cream and fruit fillings, flavorings and frosting options contribute to making a spectacular layer cake a time- consuming process.
Pushing the layer cake beyond familiar tiers of sponge and frosting is brave new territory for the home baker. While new cookbooks such as Stewart’s “Cake Perfection” and “Dessert Person” by Claire Saffitz embrace the beauty of layer- cake desserts, they also invite a deeper dive into cake recipes that require more patience and skill.
David Berg, the new executive pastry chef for Common Bond Bistro & Bakery, says that though people are looking for something identifiable and familiar, they also appreciate the adventurous spirit layer cakes afford.
“Right now, for me, it’s all about what you can put between a layer,” he said. “Flavors are what’s really important in creating something new.”
To that end, Berg is experimenting with densities and flavors in cake, fillings and frostings — meringues, buttercreams, mousses shot through with nut powders, chocolate, lime, coconut and rose water. His new Opera Cake, coming soon to the Common Bond menu, will offer intense coffee and chocolate in compact bites.
Houston, he said, is ready for new layers of flavors.