I want to make that bloody cranberry-lemon stripe cake, but I can't make sense of the roll-up part of the assembly. I wish there were a video.
1
I must have watched too many Midsomer Murders!
I guess by reading the comments, one is able to separate the bakers from the barkers. My gosh people, it's cranberry puree dripping down that luscious cranberry buttercream icing, resulting in a very beautiful and poetic presentation. How else would one achieve that result? I thought the graphics were amazing. It is indeed a great cake for the holidays indeed.
I made the devils food cake yesterday and holy mackerel, it's all gone. Folks were licking their plates. Such an easy recipe and the end product is wickedly wonderful. Really happy a chocolate cake was included in this mix of recipes.
Thank you Tejal Rao for sharing these fantastic cakes and accompanying photos, especially before Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many a happy and stuffed guest will have faces with smiles and a lot of icing.
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I don't know why people are commenting on one image when there was such a fantastic piece written underneath it. Tejal Rao, as always, thank you for this write-up. I love, love, love your style, and especially am amazed at how well you describe food. I'd be so interested in reading your Yelp reviews! Keep up the good work, and thanks again :)
9
My mother had a special step to ensure success for the angel food cakes she always baked—from scratch!—for our family birthdays.
First, fill the special tube pan with the batter and then bang it, hard, on the counter.
Then, as you put the cake in the oven, say, "Here goes nothing . . ."
It always worked.
5
Wow. Had no idea cake could be so triggering. lol.
2
Unlike many readers, I loved the graphics and photographs! Gruesome images never entered my minge, only some inspiration taken from Wayne Thiebaud's paintings and older recipe books and magazines.
5
please correct my comment I clearly meant mind not minge..
The bleeding cake gif really... takes the cake. Perhaps the photographer was trying to act out family gatherings in these polarized times?
3
This is the most unappetizing cake I have ever seen. It looks poisonous.
Poor taste for a tasty cake.
1
"Gorgeous" is completely out of sync with the unattractive animated graphics. Reminds of me of old cookbooks with recipes for jello molds.
NYTimes A Suggestion: Could you please consider balancing all of the sugary desserts with some that are sugar-free and perhaps made with Stevia. I have not had a piece of sugar of any kind in many years (I use Stevia) and as there are many people who struggle with sugar your efforts to provide delicious sugar-free recipes will not fall on deaf ears. You may even be doing some people a great service!
Thanks very much and enjoy the holidays!
2
After that intro, we don't get the recipe for the family favorite sticky toffee cake?!
8
Sometimes, a red cake is just a red cake...
Most upbeat unbiased thing on your front page in weeks...
Besides, if there were really a hidden political message, you'd have used orange-colored icing on the devil's food cake...
And for those inclined to see something violent and foreboding in your animation...
Let them eat Moore cake...
4
I was naive enough to think the New York Times might still have a sane comments section, but ugh, people, get a grip. "It looks like gore!" "Bad choice, in these dark times."
Will y'all be able to look at the cranberry jelly this Thanksgiving without associating it with the news? If you are unable to enjoy so much as a cake GIF without turning to apocalyptic visions, it might be time to look into therapy
Don't even get me started on the "real adults have slivered almonds for dessert" crowd - your parties must be thrilling.
8
That looks like a bleeding cake of Spam.
2
Would love to know the author’s sticky toffee recipe.
5
Me too! The recipes look interesting but the sticky toffee cake is the one I would like most to try.
I was completely absorbed into the content of this article! Cake is a one of my favorite things to eat. I’ve tried making cake from scratch on my own but it’s difficult to create what I had in mind. I enjoyed reading about this writer’s journey and will try some of these recipes to see what happens! By the way, there is nothing in this article that relates to politics and I find it sad that some feel it necessary to judge it in political terms.
2
It's obviously cranberry puree. For those of you that see blood I can only think of a scene from the movie "What about Bob" where Bob, played by bill Murray, is telling a joke to a group of psych workers: So the doctor draws trees, "What do you see?" the guy says "sex". The doctor draws a car, owl, "Sex, sex, sex". The doctor says to him "You are obsessed with sex", he replies "Well you're the one drawing all the dirty pictures!"
7
The photographer must have misunderstood instructions in the British Baking Content when they said make a bloody good cake.
21
The animated graphic of the cake oozing what appears to be blood is just awful. But then, so is the idea of ingesting vast quantities of sugar over the holidays. I plan to serve poached pears, chestnuts boiled in red wine, and roasted fruits with ricotta cream to end this year's feasts - adult, delicious, and healthy.
17
I'll bring the wine. All of it. I'm in the business! And franky, I'm so tired of baking!
4
I saw raspberry puree. I am sorry that your horrid imagination got the best of you. Nothing wrong with your dessert plans, they sound delicious but, we all don't have to be as puritanical as the pilgrims on thanksgiving and need not a lecture regarding the health hazards of sugar as many of us do understand the pleasures of enjoyment through moderation.
11
If you promise not to lecture me about sugar I will promise not to lecture you about prudishness. I live on the other side of the river where many of us are not so grim.
4
Cakes are a wonderful distraction - but readers should perfect their skills on simple recipes before dashing their confidence on these monstrosities.
After all, it is NOT a competition!
4
Many of us are quite adept at baking. Should all recipes in the times be geared towards beginners?
3
Is this another distraction from trump? "Let them eat cake."
3
There is no reason to try to cream cold butter, whether electric whisk or professional Hobart mixer. Let the butter (and eggs!) come to room temperature and you won't have to torture your electric appliances or arms. No wonder your arms got tired!
8
I thought Halloween was over, or is that "bleeding" cake to be served at the NRA's holiday party?!
13
Your cake is hemorrhaging.
15
Thank you, NYT, for a front page article that has absolutely nothing to do with badly behaved men! I for one appreciate the reminder that cake is one of the many things that Donald Trump hasn't ruined.
15
This bloody cake is perfect for the Trump era.
2
Yet!
1
Those cakes may taste divine, and the second two look lovely, but the one on the homepage looks like a pink slime experiment with ketchup oozing out. I thought it was a joke!
5
I'm sorry, the red cake, with the dripping "blood" is just plain creepy. Devil's-food cake looks yummy, though!
5
So many people are so literal: when they see red they instantly default to blood. It never occurred to me that the red was anything other than a creative way to illustrate the accent in the cake. I think some folks have seen a few too many horror movies.
1
Just weighing in on the graphic design of this page. Yuck. I wouldn't make any of these cakes based on the colors chosen for the background or cakes.
4
Looks great! Old school cake recipes reminiscent of my childhood and I love the cake antique platters; those are "cranberry glass" and "depression glass" platters.
4
This celebratory nonsense must have been sponsored by someone in big pharma, the medical industry or just a regular cultural food addict.
Diabetes! Yay! Let's celebrate by eating dead bird flesh and veggies ruined by being soaked in sugar and then "LET US EAT CAKE"!
What better way to celebrate stealing this country from the natives!
6
Lighten up and have a cookie.
33
Can you soak veggies in sugar? I'm in!
3
AH, eating the cookie would have the opposite effect.
1
Oops--I looked at the bits of frosting dripping off the big fat cake and thought this was going to be a piece on trickle down economics.
5
Wow! Am I the only person it the world who thought the pink cake looked luscious. People stop reacting in the context of current events. Really, if we follow your logic, what does a chocolate cake remind you of?
26
Upper GI bleed cake.
9
Bravo to those who o freely share family traditions and to the photographer and stylist for these wonderful cakes. Can't wait to try them!
11
It's Tarantino cake!
18
It looks a lot like a big cylinder of bologna with ketchup on top.
6
too bloody for my visual taste. wrong image!!
11
Yikes, the bleeding cake gif has to go!
30
Great sounding cakes but the graphic for the pink cake with the red icing running over the edges resonates with recent mass shootings for me. Bad choice of image, given the times.
21
I see the first two recipes ending up on a lot of #pinterestfail feeds. Maybe it's just me, but count me out once a recipe requires a blowtorch.
7
It's nice to use my blowtorch for something other than creme brulee.
1
You guys need to change the image. It is really disturbing. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees gore and not peppermint icing.
24
Beautiful! They look delicious! A major indulgence with respect to the waistline but it's so wonderful to have these special occasion cakes to celebrate the holidays!
7
NYTimes I love you, but goodness please take down that graphic! Your front page has a bleeding cake on it! Yuck.
24
Sorry to say, but the pink and red one look unappetizing. I wish they'd take it off the front page b/c watching the icing flow down the sides every time I click on the page is rather sickening.
19
Horror Movie Cake. Looks like blood dripping. :-/
16
Better suited for Halloween!
Looks a little too much red dripping, considering the recent shootings I think. Perhaps better editing.
10
Rose Levy Beranbaum's Southern Manhattan Coconut Cake is a cake a make over and over and love every time. It's a favorite in my family. And for some reason everyone forgets it until I make it again. It get's rave reviews. then it goes back to the cookbook shelf to be forgotten until the next time.
4
What an appropriate article. "Let them eat cake."
3
FYI
That pick cake animation? The one with the red syrup?
Tasty though it might be.
I have to say it looks like bad CGI from a vampire movie.
9
I prefer a real photograph to any cake graphics, especially this disturbing one. Before I put all that time and effort into a cake, I want see what it will really look like.
7
Disgusting picture! At first glance, it looks like a bursting aorta, with blood gushing over the side of a cylinder.
11
That pink cake is distracting, unattractive and unhealthy. Please leave out flashing articles, not newsworthy.
3
why is this on the front page??
5
WOW.
I wish I had 2 plus hours to make a cake with a 1000 cal per serving!!!
1
I know you didn't mean this, but the dripping red on the cake, in the context of the times we live in was very disturbing to me. Please reevaluate that choice of image.
10
The cakes look good, but the graphics accompanying the article look like knock-offs of paintings by Wayne Thiebaud.
4
I decided not to mention the bleeding cake graphic on the homepage, even though it was the first thing that struck me, before even looking at the recipes. But I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one who was turned off by it.
7
Ouch! Cranberry Lemon Stripe Cake - Did you have Halloween in mind? or is this just a bad photo!
2
Quick, get that cake a bandaid before it bleeds out!
10
I believe it was the Bobbsey Twins and their stereotype maid Dinah, who introduced me to the over-the-top idea of devil's food cake and marshmallow frosting.
1
The giphs/art direction take this over the top. Bravo.
4
My comment is, why is a picture of a cake taking up most of the front page of the website when the Administration is threatening to sic a special prosecutor on the Clintons, Trump is bending over for the Russians and Chinese, and the Republicans are mounting a sneak attack on Obamacare through their tax bill?
6
Not to mention the State Department hiring a Russian security firm with ties to the KGB to protect our Embassy in Moscow, all in the name of saving money!
#complicit
2
Horrid. It appears to be bleeding. Just the photo is hard to look at.
6
I really want to lick the screen. REALLY.
3
Good grief, I would love an assortment of these cakes but I prefer eating healthy and staying slim and the thought of baking makes me thankful that I was never taught how. Imagine me, home from the office, having exercised and run, roaming about the kitchen waving a cake-maker (is that what cooks wave?)...
I do appreciate not having to be my grandmother (though I dearly love her). Grandmother understands.
1
I'm diabetic and cannot eat many things I cook. Cooking and eating together is the single greatest social act. It's about giving, it's about the process, and it's about the company. This is something our grandmothers indeed understood.
12
You know you can eat healthy and stay slim AND both bake and eat cake, right? I am a baker who is also a healthy eater and quite fit - I just don't eat all the cake all the time. Baking a delightful hobby that helps me de-stress from the office.
21
Condescension and your perfection duly noted.
3