Top 10 Cakes To Make You Bake

It's that time again, Top 10 Tuesday! Make sure to check out Kate's Blog as well as Tiffany's to see what their view on this topic is (there's are always SOOO much better than mine!).

I'm going to do something I don't really like to do, I'm going to manipulate the topic. I live alone and have for so many years now that I just don't cook, let alone bake. I can, but why? Buying food to cook for one is a really expensive prospect. When it comes to cakes, you can either bake one from a mix which means you've got a LOT of cake to eat, you could buy one (but again, lots to eat), or you could bake one yourself and make it one person-sized, but I don't keep those sort of ingredients in my house. So, I'm going to do a countdown of my top 10 favorite cakes instead.

#1: ICING
When it comes to cake, I'm not usually a fan (excluding the nine below). I will typically just eat the icing. Whenever we have cake at work, my coworkers are trained to let me have the corner piece and I will often cut it in such a way that there is barely any cake in the piece. At my previous job, everyone tried to "portray" healthy eating habits and since the cake is "OK" to eat but not the icing, they would scrape off their icing and give it to me and I'd end up with an entire bowl of nothing but icing! I still have issues with controlling myself when it comes to icing, my absolute favorite thing is to put a huge wad of it on top of raw cookie dough and eat tons of it. But not all icings are created equal and I'm very particular about the types I'll eat as well. Since I also have issues with white creamy foods, I will often mix blue food color in the icing to make it more appealing and less gag-worthy. I'm not sure why I use blue, especially since my favorite color is purple, but it's just the one I've always used (I have to do the same with Cool-Whip).

#2: PURPLE VELVET CAKE
Speaking of purple, yep, you read that right, purple velvet cake (you just use purple food coloring instead of red). I have actually made myself one of these once and it was AH-MAZ-ING (but probably due more to the color than the flavor). I have very specific velvet cake requirements...I have to mix the cream cheese icing with vanilla buttercream (because I can't stand the overpowering cream cheese icing) and I cover the entire outside of the cake in mini white chocolate chips. I've always been a huge fan of red velvet anything and right now I'm obsessed with the red velvet oreo shakes at Burger King (but I must stop because I am SOO screwing up my Disney diet).

Every year on my birthday I go to Wal-Mart and buy a pre-made red velvet cake, a can of icing, and a bag of white chocolate chips. Sometimes I color the new icing, sometimes I don't, but I always try to mix it in with the old as best as possible and then coat with the white chocolate chips (they hide the white icing part and I'm not so prone to think about it much). Is it sad that I buy my own birthday cake? I don't necessarily think so because I never could do the "party" thing and at least eating it alone means no one else witnesses me eating an entire cake by myself. Guess I need to prep myself for a store visit because the B-day is coming up this weekend.

#3: CAKE POPS
Whoever came up with this idea should be canonized right along with the Sonic Nerds-in-drinks guy. We have them at my local Wal-Mart and, don't get me wrong, they are good, but they are NOT Disney World cake pops...especially since Disney World has RED VELVET CAKE POPS! For those who have never had a cake pop, imagine cake crumbled up, mixed with icing and formed into balls, and then dipped in a hard icing shell...heaven on a stick! There are also cookie pops, but I guess I can't really go there since this is a cake theme. And how about a picture this time? Seriously, who wouldn't want to eat this?

The only bad caveat with the Disney World version is that the ears are marshmallows, so I often won't eat those. I'm not a marshmallow fan unless they are either part of rice crispy treats or practically burnt to a crisp on a stick.

#4: COOKIE CAKE
One of the most brilliant inventions ever...a giant cookie covered in icing! I LOVE these! Again, I do have to pick the heavily icing'ed parts, but when I get one for home, I just buy a can of icing to spruce it up (but I rarely ever buy one of these for myself...control issues can be pretty dangerous!). One of my favorite things is icing between two chocolate chip cookies (well, I'd prefer the cookie part uncooked, but that's another story), but you can now get cookie cakes in layers with icing in the middle! They are REALLY expensive and I haven't gotten one yet, but maybe one day!

#5: WHITE CHOCOLATE AMARETTO CHEESECAKE
When it comes to cheesecake, I'm VERY particular (shock). It is blasphemy to use graham cracker crusts (and I contend that graham cracker crusts on ANYTHING is blasphemy...it should either be a cookie crust or nothing and, when it comes to cheesecake, I prefer nothing). The very best cheesecake I've ever had was on vacation (but not Disney, believe it or not). It was a white chocolate amaretto flavored cheesecake which had marzipan streaked through the middle. I have never had a better cheesecake since (although I do keep trying). It's just really hard to find one out that doesn't have a graham cracker crust. I did try to make one of these once, I even bought a springform pan, but I couldn't keep the marzipan from making the batter runny, no matter how I tried, so the few times I baked a cheesecake (crust free), I just kept it simple and white chocolate (my favorite). One of my biggest gag-worthy foods is sour cream...I hate it! I have the innate ability to smell sour cream in cheesecake and if it's made with sour cream, I won't eat it. If you ever seen me in public and I've got a cheesecake in front of me, don't be surprised if I'm sniffing it.

#6: CUPCAKES
Cupcakes are all the rage and even here in backwoods Arkansas we have six (count them, SIX) cupcake shops. But honestly, as ticky as I am about the other cakes, when it comes to cupcakes, I prefer the mini chocolate ones you get at Wal-Mart (and probably the only time I would pick chocolate or vanilla). The mini ones have a higher icing to cake ratio than the normal size ones (which is always good). I think that cupcake stores get "too" creative when it comes to the cake part and they tend to taste weird. The Wal-Mart ones are moist and actually taste like cake. Same with the Disney World ones (although I still profess that EVERYTHING tastes better in Disney World).

#7: CONCRETES
Yes, we even have cake versions of ice cream here. For those who don't know what a concrete is, it's kind of hard to explain, but I'm going to try. If you have a Dairy Queen, think Blizzard made with yogurt instead of ice cream and, if you have Sonic, think the same but in Blast form. If you don't have either one of those, the best that I can do is that it's very stiff frozen yogurt with flavors mixed in and it has the consistency of hardening concrete. My two favorite concretes are wedding cake (which is mushed up cake and icing mixed in) or cake batter (which is self explanatory). I can control myself with these as long as I stay away for a while, but the moment I have one, I am literally going every single day until I can get control of myself again (which is usually when I get broke because it's the middle of a pay period).

#8: HALLOWEEN CAKE
This is more of a theme cake versus a flavor, but there is something about black food coloring that I adore. Besides, is there anything bad about Halloween in general? Put it in cake form, and I'm SOOO there! They always have them at the various stores in town, but I can only go to the Wal-Mart Marketplace since they moved my beloved Kroger (I can't typically go to new places by myself and since they built the Super Kroger, I haven't been able to go). Hopefully, Wal-Mart Marketplace will have a Halloween cake this year!

#9: SEVEN LAYER CHOCOLATE CAKE
This is kind of a mute point, because they don't make these anymore...but back in the day, you could get a slice of this cake at Red Lobster (back in the day when Red Lobster was a destination restaurant and not the fast-foodie type version on every street corner now). This cake was made up of seven different types of chocolate all in one cake. I'm not a chocolate fan by nature, I'm more of a candy girl, but this cake was some of the best chocolate I've ever eaten and I do really miss it. Last week we went to Red Lobster for my parents anniversary and I got their new chocolate cake, the chocolate wave and, although it was good, it didn't even compare to the seven layer, so that cake has been on my mind ever since. Maybe I'll make one of those some day.

#10: GRAPEFRUIT CAKE
I'm not a fan of fruit-flavored cakes, but the Grapefruit Cake at The Brown Derby Restaurant in Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, is a love-hate cake for me. I always get it and I always complain about it, but yet I still keep getting it. I'm not sure why. It's bitter when you expect sweet, it's covered in icing, but it's a strange, heavily bitter grapefruit flavor (and I LOVE grapefruits, especially white ones, which are bitter). I've never made one myself (although they ALWAYS give you the recipe when you order it). Maybe if I made one, I could "correct" the bitter flavor that bothers me so much. But then again, if I change the bitterness, I have the feeling I won't like it at all. I don't know what my deal with this cake is, but love it or hate it, it's always something I order, so there must be something about it!


And that's it! My top 10 favorite cakes. Sorry, I went off subject a bit, but technically, I could try to make any one of these, so I didn't branch that far off!