I'm betting that there's a direct correlation between refined sugar and romantic sparks. Girl Gives You Cake = You Want To Marry Her. Admit it -- you've seen people go unnecessarily bonkers when they're offered free dessert. There's something undeniable about sweets fueling attraction, (and diabetes, among other things). After accidentally discovering a dating strategy that involves luring boys with sugar, I've been testing my cake = boyfriend theory out for months now, slowly compiling evidence for my case as I venture out to LA bars with my little cake carrier and see what happens when I offer up its homemade contents to males. Does vanilla work better than chocolate? Is frosting better than glaze? And do more layers of cake mean a higher probability of scoring a date?
I'll have to wait until the end of the year to do a full analysis, weighing things like cake calories versus the length of conversation with the people who consumed them, and factoring in the occasional special almond garnish or gluten-free bargoer. There's also the variable of luck -- how many people are in the bar that night, and how many of them are single and hungry. This whole strategy hinges upon my relentless hostessing skills, trying to make the bar feel like my living room, and its inhabitants feel like my guests, whether they wanted any cake in the first place or not. "Wouldn't you like some of our cake? Here, let me get you a piece..."
I've baked 25 cakes this year, and intend to bake 25 more.
Here are the cakes that have gotten me the most noteworthy results so far:
1.Pink Champagne Cake got me a phone number, a date, and a trivia night... and a call into Ryan Seacrest's morning show to report about my cake gallivanting.
2.Pink Marshmallow Concoction Cake got me an invitation to dance at the bar.
3.Chocolate Crème Pie got me some unwarranted attention under the presumption of being drawn to my nose. (I had to break it to this man that I'm not technically Jewish.)
4.Coffee Cake got me a new girl friend and invitations to her backyard comedy shows.
5.Salted Caramel Cake got me a conversation with a member of my favorite LA comedy troupe, The Groundlings!
6.Strawberry Pudding Cake got me and my friends an invitation back to a guy's place, which I for safety reasons declined. (And we were going camping really early the next morning, okay?!)
7.Sweet Potato Marshmallow Cake got me a round of applause and a Shirley Temple.
8.Best Chocolate Cake got me a kiss at the bar, and the first attempt to feed me my own cake.
9.Nana's Coconut Cake with Chocolate Frosting got me a marriage proposal in Oklahoma City from an affable Christian rocker dude. ("I know we don't know each other very well, but this is the best cake I've had in two decades...")
10.Banana Cake -- by far the worst cake I've ever made -- got me two months of happy times with an almost boyfriend, who gave me a toothbrush to keep at his house and then promptly disappeared. MAKE THIS CAKE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
All images are author's own. Illustration provided by the sweet-as-sugar and incredibly talented Evie Garf.