Cake Love

After Tae Kwon Do this morning, I took the boys to the market for a few essentials. We seem perennially low on or out of milk, particularly 2% as Oliver drinks as much as possible because it will "make me big and strong and then I can reach the pedals on the excavator." I faux-test every time he asks for a glass: "please stop drinking all this good milk, Ol. I don't want you to grow! I want you to stay little! Do I need to put a book on your head!?" He giggles outrageously, glances at me with mischievous gimlet eyes, and chugs away. In any case, 2% was on the list and as we headed towards the milk section, by way of the taqueria - naturally, as Jack is obsessed- we passed a cake-tasting stand. The kids went ape: "can we taste CAAAAKKKKEEE?" It was against my better judgment as I let them each have four pieces of Halloween candy this morning for no other reason than they're cute, but ah well. Hell's bells, it was Warren Brown, of DC's Cake Love. He and a colleague were at Whole Foods today to introduce a new product, Cake Bites. Though he's shorn his dreads, he still looked slightly familiar to me, and as the kids dug in, I introduced myself and Em-i-lis. Do you know Warren's story? I remember it because Cake Love was a hot new thing when T and I moved here. Once a lawyer, Warren left his career in 2000 to focus on baking and open a business. He wasn't a trained cook and he had never run a business before, but passion drove him and Cake Love now boasts multiple locations. He also hosted "Sugar Rush" on the Food Network. He is the nicest guy, and I really admire the way he jumped into the unknown, confident that greater fulfillment awaited him there.

Anyway, I'd only been to Cake Love once, eons ago, and frankly, I don't remember being wild about the slice of cake I chose (possibly because I chose a lemon cake [white cake base] and while Warren is committed to butter, I prefer oil as the fat in my white cakes). But in sampling today's Cake Bites, I was really pleased. It's hard to find a tasty slice of cake, even at many of the best bakeries. The jar versus clamshell packaging seems to help keeps the cake fresher. And it's nice to think that if you really need/want a bit of dessert, you can grab a good one easily.

We tasted the samples: Ol and I loved the pumpkin, but Jack preferred Chocolate Downfall. In light of the chocolate-majority Halloween candy piles we have, I vetoed that and let them choose between Salty Caramel and Pumpkin; they chose the latter, which I applauded!

What stood out to me most was the cream cheese frosting, and I asked Warren if plans were in the works to sell these cute jars of icing only. He said yes!! This really excites me for two reasons: 1) there are no good, commercially available, not full-of-unpronounceable frostings on the market, and 2) while I love to make cakes, I can totally give or take making frosting. If I could buy a really good one, I would. So I'm happy about the possibility of that being at my fingertips in the not-too-distant future.