One's Red. One's German, One Isn't

There are three cakes that generate more requests on our site than anything else. At least they did.

I'm happy to welcome Carousel Cakes to the growing list of 1-800-Bakery.com partners. They've got the three cakes in question, and they're quite delicious.

First, the Red Velvet Cake, good enough to earn recognition as one of Oprah's Favorite Things in O, The Oprah Magazine. Three layers of mild chocolate cake filled and covered in a very, very rich cream-cheese frosting. This will satisfy your sweetest tooth. And in case you're wondering, this cake got its name from a chemical reaction that used to take place with chocolate in the mix, resulting in a red-colored cake. Today's chocolate doesn't do that anymore, but a couple drops of food coloring do the trick.

Next, the Black Forest Cake, which is tough to find because it takes some skill to stabilize whipped cream for shipping. Carousel's done just that, and they deliver two layers of chocolate cake filled with custard and black cherries, covered in whipped cream, and topped with Maraschino cherries. By far, this is America's favorite European import when it comes to cakes, and we're happy to have them on the site.

Finally, the German Chocolate Cake, which isn't German at all, but gets its name from a popular type of Baker's chocolate developed in 1852 by a Mr. Sam German and still available today. As the legend goes, the recipe was submitted to a newspaper in 1957 and America fell in love, with the cakes being made at a furious pace each time the recipe was reprinted, helped along by a very happy General Foods, which was only too eager to keep the Baker's German's Chocolate sales high. Apart from the creamy, mild-chocolate cake, the key ingredients are a buttery mix of pecan and coconut used for filling and topping and a thick fudge icing.

All three cakes are available in a seven-inch size, which gives us some smaller cakes on the site, another popular request. Overnight shipping is the only option on these cakes right now, but we'll have Second-Day Air available once it stops being so hot down South. That would be around October, I believe.