The best cake I ever tasted

My German grandmother back in the 1960's when we visited her in Berlin, made her own version of Pflaumenkuchen, the famous plum cake. It remains the best tasting cake I have ever eaten. She would set aside a day to make it because she would bake several large sheets of it. I don't have the recipe and while there are many on the Internet, and I have baked my own a few times many years ago, it is not the same. It is hard to duplicate the garden fresh plums, the flour and pure farm butter of those times, and so the most basic of ingredients just are not the same, plus even details like the old fashioned baking sheets she used in the old fashioned oven. Even my mother could only come close, but not totally duplicate in her American kitchen, Oma's pflaumenkuchen. True cooks and pizza connoisseurs know what I mean, that the ingredients and the details make a very big difference. Anyway, Oma's pflaumenkucken set the standard for me of the best cake I have ever had.

Food talk: Cake

Growing up in a poor household we baked our own cakes for special occasions. So I liked to bake and actually became better at baking desserts than cooking main meals at first, though that later reversed. I wanted to share a memory that a lot of Americans of a certain age will relate to. When I was a kid that was when "Sara Lee" first came out with frozen cakes and pies. We could not believe how wonderful they tasted and what a treat they were. However, they were "expensive" relative to our budget, so I doubt I had Sara Lee desserts more than a handful of times in my entire young and young adulthood! Now we all can take them for granted, and today if I feel the urge I tend to buy from the grocery store bakery. The price of food is a common topic and concern so I thought I'd share the Sara Lee story. Maybe I'll buy a Sara Lee on my charge card LOL.