Last month I made a cake. Not a Japanese style cake, but an American style cake. What is the difference? Quite a lot! Japanese cake is usually very small and beautiful with subtle and delicate flavors. Japanese cakes also have a lot of whipped cream. Most importantly, Japanese cakes are very very expensive.
American cakes, on the other hand, are more utilitarian. They should be big, sweet, fun and most importantly inexpensive. A beautiful cake is ok, but a fun cake is great! A common type of cake in America is the sheet cake. It is a big square cake that is covered in very colorful frosting that is sweet, cheap and, in my opinion, almost inedible. Perhaps you can imagine a big birthday party with twenty kids running around crazily and screaming ‘cake! cake! cake!’. The most important thing is to give them something before a mob forms!
Here is a picture my mom sent me from the supermarket. This is a nice supermarket so they don’t sell the super cheap sheet cakes, but they do have a selection of premium (for America) cakes.
It is common in America to buy cake mix at the store. I first saw this cake mix in the supermarket a few years ago on my visit to America. I was surprised by it. I imagined Global Cafe customers would be even more surprised since I have often been asked why American cakes are such strange and unnatural colors.
I didn’t buy the cake mix. I only took a picture. After showing the picture to customers many times and receiving a satisfying surprised/disgusted reaction, I regretted not buying the cake mix when I had the chance. Luckily, my mom was able to send me the cake mix in the mail.
The cake is called ‘Tie-dye’. Tie-dye was a fun way to make t-shirts when I was a child. You take a white t-shirt and bunch up the fabric in many places holding it in place with rubber bands. Then you dip the bunched up fabric in different colors of dye. After letting it dry you remove the rubber bands and spread the shirt out. It will have really crazy color patterns all over it. I recommend you search on the internet if you are interested.
