In Favor of House Cake

& happy birthday Fala

I first came across the concept of house cake in the headnote for an Alison Roman recipe. Of her lemony tumeric tea cake in Nothing Fancy, she writes, “I refer to it as a ‘house cake,’ which is, of course, cake to keep in your house at all times.” This sentence disrupted my entire relationship with cake.

Before the advent of the house cake, I understood…