Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt [Hardcover]

Leslie F. Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2009

Few creations are more associated with joy or more symbolic of the sweet life than cake. After all, it is so much more than dessert.

As a book about cake would demand, this one is a multilayered, amply frosted, delicious concoction with a slice (or more) for everyone. Let Me Eat Cake is not a book about baking cake, but about eating it.

Author Leslie F. Miller embarks on a journey (not a journey cake, although it's in there) into the moist white underbelly of the cake world. She visits factories and local bakeries and wedding cake boutiques. She interviews famous chefs like Duff Goldman of Food Network's Ace of Cakes and less famous ones like Roland Winbeckler, who sculpts life-size human figures out of hundreds of pounds of pound cake and buttercream frosting. She takes decorating classes, shares recipes, and samples the best cakes and the worst.

The book is held together by the hero on a quest, one that traces cake history and tradition. If we were to bake a cake to celebrate the birth of cake (cake is an Old Norse word, first used around 1230), it is hard to say how many candles would go on top. Though the meaning of the word (originally "lump of something"), not to mention our expectations of its ingredients, has changed over time, we now celebrate cake as the coming together of flour, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

And what a celebration. Baking a cake is hard work, but tasting it is pure pleasure. So put on some elastic-waist pants and grab a fork.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Freelancer Miller is a self-described cake chronicler, and in this memoir, she describes her indiscriminate and conflicted obsession with cakes, which yields varying and sometimes, embarrassing results. Her stories are structured like a tiered cake and begin with a series of historical tidbits based on Internet research. She mixes in her experiences as a sloppy baker and an owner of a low-carb bakeshop, sprinkles in detailed but uninsightful discussions with other bakers and tops it off with lists of cultural ephemera. Much of the earnest, conversational prose reads like a series of inflated blog entries and reveal a person whose love of sweet, sugary food makes her feel addicted, neurotic, weak-willed. Like her frantic, inconsistent attempts at baking, the writing suffers from the perils of impatience and a lack of focus. Miller manages to redeem herself with a few short, poignant memories—eating frosting from a can, her grandmother's kitchen and a dream about sweets. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

American cooks, especially beginners, love to bake cakes. The seemingly magical transformation of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs into a fluffy, sweet, visually arresting, audience-pleasing product perfectly exemplifies why so many pursue either an amateur or professional career in pastry making. Miller confesses to a lifelong obsession with cake baking. She delves into her Jewish grandmother’s recipe files for inspiration and for encouragement. Traveling the country, she finds other bakers who share her obsession. She probes for the secrets of such celebrated bakeries as Charm City Cakes. Miller inventories classic American cakes from all over the nation: the South’s red velvet cake, St. Louis’ gooey butter cake, Alabama’s Lane cake, Maryland’s ten-layer cake, and more. Miller’s highly personal approach means that the reader shouldn’t assume that every recipe is meant to be literally followed, for the recipes are often exemplars, lacking essential information but impressive nonetheless. --Mark Knoblauch

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416588736
• ISBN-13: 978-1416588733
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,398,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I have worked as a photographer, a mosaicist, a freelance writer, a graphic designer, a college English professor, a house painter, a lead singer, a songwriter, a secretary, an editor, and an account executive. I have never been a baker or a waitress.

In addition to cake, I love ale and pizza. But my passion for eating is not nearly so great as my passion for the guitar. I am an excellent eater. I suck at guitar.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I read this exactly as I eat my cake--fast, and in secret, April 27, 2009

By 

Jade - See all my reviews

This review is from: Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt (Hardcover)

I love cake. I guess it makes sense to love a book about cake. It's a satisfying fix, and I would say the first half (just like the first bite) was the best part. I can admit I was able to personally relate to a lot of those cake-nocake-cake-nocake-CAKE!!!! scenarios.

The part I didn't enjoy was the middle, where the author spent way too many pages on the wedding cake competition and its contestants. I honestly would have preferred a shorter book than the obvious filler she stuffed in--I mean, outlining the wedding couple's honeymoon and the cakes they ate on it? Entire chapters devoted to the petty dramas between bakers? Please.

She revived herself a bit in the last part, with the outline of cakes (trashy or not) around America, providing a refreshingly ironic take on the "local food" craze.

But more cake erotica, please.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's not to love about cake?, April 10, 2009

By 

J. Konig (Cold Spring, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt (Hardcover)

Everybody loves cake, whether it's the warm yellow fluffy insides, or the milk chocolate frosting your mom slathered all over the first birthday cake you can remember. There's something nostalgic and comforting about it, and that's what makes Miller's new book so gratifying.

Personally, I don't have a lot of great childhood memories, but I do remember the birthday cakes my mother made, and those are memories I hold dear. "Let Me Eat Cake" channeled me right back to those days, sneaking tastes of frosting from the chipped glass plate, taking awful pictures of the Union-Jack cake she made when I was a teenager obsessed with The Who. Miller's book follows a similar personal journey, and that's why I loved it. From her stories about her grandmother, to her own hilarious efforts to bake and decorate cakes, her love -- not just for cake but for all it represents -- is patently obvious.

This is what makes nonfiction so eminently readable: the writer's passion. Her quick-witted honesty and laugh-out-loud humor reminded me of Mary Roach's "Stiff," and I for one can't wait to see what Miller does next.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great writing, but enough foul language already, August 2, 2011

By 

Kathleen V. Hatt (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Let Me Eat Cake: A Celebration of Flour, Sugar, Butter, Eggs, Vanilla, Baking Powder, and a Pinch of Salt (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed the book for the most part, but found the abundant use of foul language disappointing. She could have had a hilarious book -- and it was -- without the bad language. I bought it to pass along to my daughter, who loves cake decorating, but I honestly don't think I will give it to her because I am embarrassed by the excessive foul language. I know you can't hardly get away from that these days, but come on! We don't need that!