York, Yorkshire.
You know how it is, your on holiday in Yorkshire, its mid January, you're prowling the streets looking for extra special cafes and cakes, but you aren't sure quite where to find them. So on an overcast afternoon on a day trip to York, we are on a mission to discover that unique cafe in possession of an excellent cake range, appetising in quality and confection. Not having much luck, we are beginning to become tired and dispirited. Then we stumbled across this cafe, gaze into the window at cakes with a certain rustic roughness, a finish frequently affected by cafes in cosmopolitan cities. What's more they do have a substantial looking carrot cake. Yes, this seemed very appealing, its an Italian family run cafe, what could possibly be wrong? Italy is the birth place of cafe culture, after all.
The decor looks fine, quite modern with dark blue lampshades, gold lined inside, panted wood tables rubbed back, a thoroughly classic style of cafe environment. Yet the first thing that hits you as you entered was the noise. Initially we sat at a table by the door, but positioned by a micro speaker that blared right in my ear I couldn't hear what Hubby was asking me barely a few feet away. We moved a couple of tables further down. However, it wasn't just the music, all the staff working there talked loudly and animatedly. They were almost the cliche Italian stereotype. I wanted to say ' if you turned the music down a notch or two you might not have to bellow at each other' The liveliness of the atmosphere might have even been fun to be around otherwise. I tried, I really did, to not to be too English about this, but it did feel discomforting, like being trapped in a very small room with raucous children you want to slap and tell to behave.
From the street the carrot cake had appeared hewn out of something solid, loaded with weighty ingredients. However, I should have paid more attention to my Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 2 - the larger its size the larger the disappointment will be. Had I not allowed myself to be seduced by its size I might have noticed a tiny but highly significant detail, small marzipan carrots placed around its circumference like hours on a clock face. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 3 - marzipan carrots are spawned from the devils a-hole. Fake signifiers to inform you what a cake is is infantile, one mouthful should be enough. In some cases, more than enough. Marzipan carrots should ward off even Dracula from taking a bite.
First impressions were that it looked rather too pale to be a true carrot cake. As you can see from the photograph, it also came rather dishabille, in a partly dismantled state. Cakes falling apart before you even hover a cake fork over them are, in my experience, usually gluten free. Its more and more common for carrot cakes to be made gluten free, but without being advertised as such. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 4 - a cake that doesn't tell me exactly what it is, definitely has something to hide. So, it was crumbly, so whatever its ingredients were they couldn't hold it together. One withering look and the stratification of its entire cliff face collapsed.
So what was it hiding? Well, that this was basically a Spice Cake, breaking numero uno bet noir, the Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No1 - a spice cake is not a carrot cake! (Angry capitals removed at the behest of the deaf ). There was no powdery aftertaste so what gluten free flour was being used was unclear. It did, however, have sizable boulders of walnut suspended precariously within it. In fact, together with the pecans and marzipan carrots on top, the flavour was decidedly of a nutty spice cake. The frosting and filling were both butter cream, made with butter not margarine, which explains its solidity and why it fell away from the crumbling cake like slabs of concrete. Plus, it was over sweetened. Golden Rule of Carrot Cake No 7 - drowning it in sugar does not disguise or transform a carrot cake. If its bland, its bland.
CARROT CAKE SCORE - 3/8
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