I dream of a gazillion-grain cake menu

You get a grain! And you get a grain!

Sep 19, 2023

This is the second edition of “I dream of a menu,” which highlights the regenerative bakes already out there in the wilds of Instagram. Last month, we stepped into a climate-era bakery.

Friends, enemies, disciples in cake: We’re halfway through cake month, and summer is slipping over the horizon. But instead of a slump—seasonal, monthly, or otherwise—we have a jolt in store today, a glimpse of cake’s more flavorful future beyond all-purpose flour.

Just one species of flour (Triticum aestivum, or bread flour) makes up 90-95% of the wheat grown worldwide, as well as most of the baked goods in America. That lack of diversity squeezes our flavor possibilities and our hopes for food security in a warming world into a narrow lane, when they could be opening wide instead.

But cake bakers on Instagram are already on it. Cottage and pop-up bakers from Austin to Australia are baking with flours beyond AP: rye to deepen chocolate, rouge de Bordeaux to make honey cake more Graham-y, or buckwheat to infuse buttercream with a toasty tang. In this month’s climate-era dessert menu, I’m sharing the nine cakes I saw on Instagram recently that made me stop blinking for a full hour, and gave me hope that cake’s future is anything but plain.

All the photos below are reprinted with permission from the cake-bakers extraordinaire.

Millet cherry blossom cake

There’s a millet sponge hiding under these buttercream storm clouds. This cherry blossom, coconut cream, and black sesame-licorice creation comes from the genius mind of Rose Wilde, whose grain-forward cookbook Bread and Roses comes out in October.

Olive oil sponge with sprouted spelt & whole-wheat flour

On the third day, god took this slice shot. Roxanne Rosensteel turns whole-wheat pastry flour and sprouted spelt into plush olive oil sponge, which she layers with vanilla bean cream and passionfruit curd.

Masa harina treat cake

When I think

Teresa Finney

, I think masa harina, Georgia ingredients, and “treat cake.” What are any of us, really, but a single-layer cake waiting to be lavished with frosting, fruit, and flowers?

Medovik cake with Rouge de Bordeaux

Rose and Rye uses Rouge de Bordeaux—a hard red wheat—in their Medovik (aka honey cake), like the matcha chamomile and classic versions pictured here. Kristine says, “The Medovik layers are very close to honey graham crackers in terms of flavor as it is even when made with AP flour, but with the Rouge it’s elevated to another level—there’s a fullness to the flavor that can’t be achieved without it.”

Buckwheat and sonora carrot cake

Carrot cake meets Dante’s inferno, but like, just the first circle of hell, where there’s a bangin’ gastropub near the entrance.

Pamela Thibodeaux

’s buckwheat and sonora carrot cake is layered with carrot curd, whipped goat cheese and honey, and brown butter miso Italian buttercream.

Spelt cake with white chocolate

Over in Australia, Justine Kajtar makes a 100% whole-grain spelt flour cake with white chocolate ploofs, lemon curd boops, and strawberrygum, which I had to Wikipedia.

Chocolate rye cake

@Gotthegoods’s chocolate rye cake is a pastel promise that chilly szn is cake szn, too. We’re talking malted milk chocolate mousse, hazelnut burnt honey buttercream, and a hit of sour cherry bay leaf jam to remind us the seasons will roll back around.

Brown sugar chiffon with buckwheat frosting

Grains don’t just go in the actual cake! Reverie Deli’s brown sugar chiffon cake is covered in a salted buckwheat condensed-milk buttercream. Michelle tells me the frosting is “made by toasting ground buckwheat groats,” which are “added to browning butter to steep and impart a stronger buckwheat flavour.”

Salad cake

And finally, we break the grain script for Katerina Shu’s salad cake. When there’s an entire vegetable garden on a birthday cake, it needs to be stared at. No blinking!