30+ Years ago, when I first started baking, my wife and I were hosting 20+ people for Christmas dinner, with me doing all the cooking; my wife stopped cooking after she lost the recipe for toast!
I saw a great-looking chocolate pine cone cake in either “Bon Appetit” or “Gourmet”, and decided that that was what I was going to make for dessert. It looked like a lot of work, but I was fearless in my innocence; that was what I was going to make for dessert!
I bought the best chocolate I could find, and made the base cake, marzipan, and filling/glaze. After I put it all together, carefully following the instructions, it looked kinda weird to me. I called my wife into the kitchen for her opinion, telling her the cake looked strange, and telling her not to laugh.
She came into the kitchen, looked at the cake, and dashed out laughing, saying, “It looks like a torpedo.”
I was not going to toss it after all that work, so I served it as is. It tasted great!
