Reviews

With both a bang AND a whimper… and a bit of moaning… and dragging its bullet-riddled body along…

As any watcher of horror films knows, the only way to defeat the alien/vampire/zombie/lawyer horde is to eliminate its progenitor.

So too exists a similar case with cake. To experience the heights of its form, and to soundly defeat any addiction one might possess, you must travel to the place wherefrom cake originates. Not the place wherefrom all cake originates of course; that would require time travel to ancient Egypt, where cake came into being as a type of bread sweetened with honey, fruit, and wine*; or to Viking times, from which we derive the word "cake" from the old Norse word "kaka", which also happens to be the name of a New Zealand parrot and another name for poo.**

(* That's the kind of key information you'll need if you ever want to win Telebingo. Remember Telebingo? No? Don't worry; nobody does, apart from Simon Barnett, who occasionally cries himself to sleep over it, we're sure.)

(** The Romans also referred to cake as "placenta". Geez. I guess it really does go to show that a rose by any other name would taste as sweet, even if it's named after excrement or an organ that connects a fetus to the uterine wall.)

Anyway, point being, if you want to get the best cake in town, then it would make sense to go to the place that bakes cakes for a lot of other places that are known for cake. Careful research suggests Just Desserts produces the types of cakes available from many Christchurch eateries; the likes of Coffee Culture. And so, it made sense for the very final Cake Review to go to this Mecca of baked delicacies.*

(* Mecca in the non-sacrilegious way; please don't get grumpy at me; I don't need angry letters on my last thing.)

But it required travel to Sydenham. Sydenham, as you know, was once a place that nobody wanted to visit; an awkward strip jammed between Cashmere and the city, kind of like that fork that dropped between the bench and the fridge: sure, it had some use, and you'd take it if didn't require effort, but you're content just to forget about it and take another fork out of the drawer – oh, hello, Aranui; you got some illicit substances for me?

All that changed when the fridge that is the CBD was pulled out of the way and sent off for repairs. Suddenly, Sydenham was right out there, and the punters came flocking in, as demonstrated recently by the resurrection of Burgers & Beers.*

(* An overrated establishment if ever there was one. I know, I know; you've all been won over by the style, but those burgers are lacking substance for the price. Maybe I should get into burger reviewing now that this gig is coming to a close... hmm... it does have more street cred...)

Thus, we finally found ourselves at this, the centre of all cake dreams. Yet somehow, it was a disappointment. One hoped to glimpse perhaps some experimental cakes that were still on their learner licenses and hadn't been approved for general distribution; perhaps with the inclusion of exotic ingredients or volatile components. But the selection, alas, was not all that unfamiliar; the few slices available being beasts we'd already glimpsed out in the wild – and not the finest examples of them at that. Looking for some kind of variety – any kind of variety – we flailed desperately at an inverted cup-shaped cheesecake...

Chocolate and Caramel Cheesecake

Cake Categories: cheese, chocolate, upside-down, weird-ass shape
Price: $7.50
Available from: Just Desserts Cafe

Construction, Texture, and Structural Integrity

Cakes that rock the shape boat by coming in unusual forms always make me suspicious. Just what do they think they are playing at? Surely they know that showing any type of individuality is means for rejection and general alienation.
But still, despite initial reticence that the reduced profile would make for an abbreviated eating experience, the cake managed to provide sufficient substance. Although slightly on the soft side of the ideal cheesecake consistency, it did not give much to complain about; and the marbled appearance gave it all a touch of higher class.

Taste

This humble cake reviewer – totally humble, particularly for someone of such vast intellect, such fabled wit, such a handsome visage, so enormous a - uh, anyway, this cake reviewer tends to often favour cakes with chocolate and caramel elements, so a cheesecake such as this would generally come with a special advantage.

And it was good... it's just that it wasn't more than good, and to really be worthy of special praise, it needs to be something really special. We suspect that Just Desserts produce the Moro Bar Cheesecake, the very first cake reviewed on these pages, and to this day that remains a true symphony of caramel. Maybe we're expecting too much trying to find something of that quality, but dammit, that's just the kind of thing we want.

Extras

Here the cake really began to earn its stripes. The $7.50 price initially seemed far too steep for something of this kind, but then it turns out their promise of a "dessert café" was actually legit.

The cake came adorned with a flat shard of marbled chocolate; a chocolate squiggly stuck out its side; and the plate had a puddle of berry coulis, a plop of chocolate goop, and a splot of crème fraiche. Puddles, glops, and splots are rare outside restaurant executions of cake (generally hovering around the $12 mark), so this made it into a creation of decent enough value.

Concluding Thoughts

We should be wiser than to think that chasing a dream will always produce a joyous outcome, but the Cake Review has been nothing but not a relentless search for comfort and satisfaction. In a town where good cake was often all-too-hard to find, the enduring hope would be that somewhere there'd be a Wonka-esque factory where cakes the product of our most sanguine reveries would be made so. But then, maybe it's good that we didn't discover it that day, for though the Cake Review now ends, the search can continue on unabated, into the boundless sea of perpetuity, and sugar.