It’s cake time.
Indecision meets me as I stare through the glass display in front of me at the array of cakes sitting behind it.
Lemon, chocolate, hazelnut, black forest, strawberry, red velvet, and coffee cakes, the restaurant we were in had a good variety of flavors.
Which cake to get? I thought to myself.
You see, I have a sweet tooth and a specific preference for cakes.
However, I can’t binge eat cakes due to weight gain concerns, and these slices of cake aren’t cheap these days.
So at any chance that I get to eat cake, be it my kid’s birthday parties or a special date night out, I would somewhat anguish over which cake to get, and it can take quite a while for me to come to a decision.
In the past my cake selections have had their share of hits and also many misses, making me ponder even harder during the next cake selection. Some cakes look really good but tasted mediocre, as we can’t see inside a cake until we slice into it.
Some turned out unexpectedly good, not being a looker but the filling and texture within were great. Moist, and full of flavor.
And for birthdays, we tend to get a large cake to share together with family and friends. So if that cake turns out to be unappetizing, it’s going to be a whole lot of cake to finish up, unwillingly.
So this time, I changed my cake selection strategy.
It was my youngest daughter’s 3rd birthday, and I decided I would do things differently.
Instead of buying a whole cake, I proposed to my husband that we get slices of cake from different flavors instead.
My kids get to choose some, and the adults get to choose too.
We ended up selecting 6 types of different flavors, even some cake slices with alcohol in them. Those were limited to adults only.
The cakes were sent to our table on a large plate per my request, then I stuck in the candles, arranged the cake slices into a somewhat semi-circle shape in front of my daughter, and we sang happy birthday to her.
Then my girl had her slice of cake of choice, which she ate half of it and was disinterested to consume the rest.
And as for me? I got to sample and eat all 6 cakes and their different flavors, making memories of which were good and which were not for future reference.
I even got a good surprise at the alcoholic cakes which had rum and Kahlua in them. It was good and the adults enjoyed it.
An added plus was that the cost turned out to be cheaper from buying slice cakes instead of a full cake with all the bells and whistles.
This time we didn’t need to finish up a cake at the restaurant or discuss who should take the remainder back home. Especially if it wasn’t a good cake, none of the families were keen on bringing home the uneaten portion of the cake.
I will repeat this strategy at future birthdays. Unless, of course, my kids wanted their own full cake of choice when they get older and have developed their own preferences.
Hope this simple tip helps all the cake lovers out there who are maybe like me, fussy about cakes but also on a budget.