Discussion: I Review A Thousand Perfect Notes Cake

The 2018 Discussion Challenge is hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction & It Starts At Midnight

I’m a book reviewer, not a food reviewer, but it’s good to expand your horizons, right? Today, I’m going to take the skills I’ve learned from reviewing 464 books and apply them to fruitcake.

Yep, I’m going to review a fruitcake.

No, I’m not running out of blog post ideas. Why do you ask? *Nervous laughter.*

Have you ever come across a yummy-sounding food in a novel and thought, I want that in my belly right now? It happens to me pretty much every day. (I really love books and food, okay? Don’t judge.) Luckily, there are talented wizards on the Internet who can transform fictional meals into real-life recipes.

One of those food wizards is Alison Walsh, who came up with a fruitcake recipe based on C.G. Drews's novel A Thousand Perfect Notes. I read A Thousand Perfect Notes earlier this year and enjoyed it immensely. When the weather finally cooled down enough to turn on the oven, I dusted off my nonexistent baking skills, kidnapped my mom’s stand mixer, and made fictional cake a reality.

I Made A Thousand Perfect Notes Cake, And It Wasn’t A Complete Disaster

I’m not going to post the recipe here, so if you want to see it, head over to Paper Fury.

When I set out to make fruitcake, I smacked head-on into two problems right away. First, I couldn’t find chocolate chunks. I had to use chocolate chips. Most of them sank to the bottom while the cake was baking. Second, the recipe doesn’t come with high altitude modifications, and I’m not smart enough to figure them out by myself. I just followed the regular directions and hoped for the best. Your results may be different from mine. 

(Seriously, if you’ve never tried baking on a mountain, you’re missing out on a frustrating experience. Earlier this year, I accidentally made chocolate chip cookies that shattered when I bit them. It was like eating a delicious chocolate car window.)

As long as you have a stand mixer and a way to grind almonds, A Thousand Perfect Notes Cake is pretty easy to make. You mostly dump stuff in the mixer and let it do its thing. The recipe says to bake for 45 minutes, but it took closer to 60 minutes for the toothpick to come out non-gooey. (This is probably because of the altitude. Cooking takes longer here.)

Yes, I stirred with a knife. Knives are for everything.

Mix, mix, mix, mix, etc.

The cake tasted pretty good! I only got one piece before the hungry scavengers in my house gobbled the rest. The cake is crunchy on the outside and chocolaty on the inside. It mostly tastes like almonds, dates, oranges, and chocolate (all things I like). You could probably cut back on the almond extract if you want. I apologize to any hardcore almond extract fans, but I think that stuff smells like poison. If I make this recipe again, I’ll put in less extract.

This isn’t the best cake I’ve ever tasted, but I’d eat it again. If you like almonds, chocolate, and fruit, I recommend giving it a try.

Right out of the oven. There's almond dust on top because I ground too many almonds and needed to use them.

Is cake reviewer a job? Because I could get used to this. Have you ever made a recipe that was inspired by fictional food?