Two Strawberry Cakes

Listen! say my hordes of listeners. Weeks away from the blog, and you come back with tales of cake?

What better say I? I have spent the last few weeks in Tucson and San Antonio eating delicious food. Came back weighing one pound more than when I left. Not bad, not bad. And I am going to talk some more about the food of Texas among other things.

The two strawberry cakes were eaten in restaurants in El Paso and San Antonio. They were very different from each other, and very different from the fake flans and fake lava cakes that are proliferating in our middle class restaurants now.

The first one was eaten in a tiny restaurant outside of El Paso in a market/antique mall kind of place. Can't remember its name but the food was very good. I ordered Strawberry Cake for dessert.  This cake was a very pink strawberry-flavored cake as in a cake mix, but very tasty.  Between the layers was spread a generous layer of strawberry jam; over the top and sides was a pale pink strawberry buttercream frosting.  The cake was huge; I'd guess the slice was nearly a pound in weight. I ate it all.

Then in San Antonio, at Crumpets, I ordered Strawberry Cake again. I prayed it wouldnt be shortcake, and it wasn't.  The cake was white and pleasant; there was a creme anglaise filling and a whipped cream filling (three layers) with whipped cream covering all. There were mashed strawberries in the cake batter, baked in. The whole thing was moist and rich and refrigerated and was just scrumptious.

So there. I could not wait to tell people about that delicious cake.  I rarely see cake offered in a restaurant and of course I hardly ever make one any more; last one I made I think I mixed up my gluten free biscuit mix with flour so the whole thing was coarse and tasted like garbanzos.  Not too good.

I ate several tortilla soups on the trip and will discuss those later. Also ate my favorite meal: shrimp cocktail, which makes a surprisingly satisfying lunch all by itself. And makes you feel virtuous too when everyone else is eating fried things with fries on the side. YAZZYBEL