Desserts

In restaurants in America, one problem I have always had with the dessert selection is the preponderance of cakes. Just as I believe that eggs are best eaten at one in the morning, I think cakes belong in the afternoon, with tea or coffee. After dinner, that big wedge of frosted fluffy cake tends to overwhelm what has come before, and to wipe out all memory of previous subtleties and flavors. So when I think of desserts, I can think of only two cakes I would like to try again: the Viennese chocolate torte, of the reine de Saba family, and the Lady Baltimore cake, which is the ultimate cake indulgence. I must mention one other cake, which evokes mixed emotions: the Frankfurterkranz, a masterpiece of genoise and buttercream that takes two dozen eggs, pounds of butter, and all day to make. My emotions are mixed because the first time I tried to make it, it took several attempts and I had to invite all the neighborhood kids in to keep running to the store for me, in exchange for which they got to eat about sixty eggs’ worth of genoise and quarts of buttercream.