"Fruit Cocktail Cake"

Twas time to explore the desserts chapter of Bay Leaves. BAKING. GREAT. Not my favorite pastime, traditionally. With the sort of spazzy, impatient, impulsive cooking I do, my baking projects often end in failure. Patience is one of the primary requirements of baking, and that is not really my forte. You mean I have to get out measuring cups and spoons? All sorts of appliances? UGGH so many dishes. Can't I just eat a bowl of granulated sugar with a milk poured on it and call it dessert? actually, that sounds good. Nevertheless, occasionally I do bake. In recent years I have gotten better about making sure I actually measure and read dessert recipes carefully. It's like science. It's like homework. And If I were to tell you my husband ate my homework...

Bay Leaves has many-a-dessert. Oddly enough, none of the weird jello recipes are in the desserts section. Thank god. Those are (oh-so-aptly??) housed in the SALADS section. I wanted to choose something retro, and I am always the most fascinated by recipes that I can not visualize from their description alone. I narrowed it down, and decided on the following:

The Recipe:

HOORAY! A disclaimer! So apparently aesthetics will not be this cake's strength. I'm cool with it, because often the prettiest desserts taste the worst. Fruit cocktail is one of those things that I am sure they still sell, but I can't imagine anyone buying it anymore, at least not in the can. My memory of fruit cocktail is mostly just the disappointment of a lack of maraschino cherries. Maybe the modern versions are just swimming with those cherries! I have high hopes. That may be a bad thing. Oh man, I had to buy a lot of stuff for this cake so I hope it is good!

The Players:

Ok, so nothing too outlandish here. The fruit cocktail is a little scary, who knows how it looks inside. I could not imagine what this icing would be like. I visualized white coconut cake-type icing, which is usually pretty, but we already know that this cake shan't be a charmer. I started the icing first, and it created a frothy sort of dull color. Ok, so, an ethereal white coconut cake, this will not be. I took it off the heat and tasted it, and HEY THAT'S REALLY HOT. It was like sugar magma. I am glad I decided to make this first because it took a very long time to cool. When my tongue recovered, I did actually taste it, and it tasted like diabetes. In a good way.

There were more components to componify! I mixed up my cake batter as specified, and when I looked into the can of now drained fruit cocktail, I found several cherries! Hooray! As I dumped it in, however, I discovered that the fruit was "layered" in the can. The three cherries on top were the only three in the can, followed by a layer of reject grapes, gritty pears, and slimy peaches. So fruit cocktail is still just how I remember it. A disappointment.

A few steps later, I had whirred up my nuts and coconut in the food processor and mixed those in with the icing. I baked two layers of cake, but I only had one cake pan so I did them one after another in between commercial breaks of Big Brother. I had to bake the cakes for more than 20 minutes as the toothpick test proved them to be gooey in the middle after the suggested 20. It was probably about 25 minutes for each layer.

Tim's interest was piqued by the extremely sweet smells coming from the kitchen. Everything was steaming off clouds of hot sugar. He arrived to watch me assemble and ice the cakes, and it was evident that this was going to look like a monster. As I spread the icing, described by Tim as "troll snot," I was definitely worried. I tried to pretty it up with some whipped cream, which is a bit like trying to put lipstick on a naked mole rat.

If someone in 1975 said, "hey, taste my homemade fruit cocktail cake on the buffet!" I would scan back and forth, repeatedly looking past this thing. Nothing about it looks fruity. I mean it barely looks like a cake. Maybe if someone said, "hey, try the inverted can of cat food I feed my mutant giant cat!" I'd be like, oh right! but, no, no thanks. Ok, so it's ugly. But, is it tasty? ...Tim?

I thought it was pretty good. The cake itself was a little too chewy and dry, but the flavor was very nice. The fruit cocktail was basically lost. I don't think anyone would pick that out as the feature of this cake. It tasted like the cake version of pecan pie. I suggest leaving out the fruit cocktail entirely, and calling it a pecan pie cake. There would be a lot less confusion, except for maybe the juxtaposition of the words pie and cake, that might actually cause more confusion. Is it a pie or a cake? I don't know! This cake is confusing! My braaaain!

With a whole cake, I would usually take some to work to share, but, I just can't. No, this cake is to be enjoyed in a dark room, alone. Wait, I got it! We will call it the The Shame Cake (with pecan pie notes and for some reason 3 maraschino cherries). Has a nice ring.