Siegelman's cake

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  • #618522
    Joseph
    Participant

    When and how did it become a minhag Klal Yisroel to have a Siegelman’s cake by every Vort?

    #1187376

    people today are going crazy by peer-pressure with everything, from expensive cakes which are gone an hour later to expensive fancy Simchas & expensive clothing. all caused by peer-pressure & then they wonder why they are broke with no money for food R”L

    wake yourselves up to reality before you go broke C”V by living by the motto of:

    “GET WHAT YOU NEED NOT WHAT YOU WANT”

    a person can go out to eat, but to go just cause you want that fancy steak is insane. There are many ways to go on vacation without spending thousands of dollars that can be spend more wisely on your own family needs.

    #1187377
    ubiquitin
    Participant

    Actualy Joseph

    The minhag of Siegelmans cake goes back to the time of the geonim (it was just never written down) their are many reasons given for this heilige minhag yisroel. Pleas dont tell me you are doubting a minhag yiseol just becasue it wasnt written

    #1187378
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    Joseph……….

    The gantze frum veldt does not live in your area and there is not a Siegelman’s cake at every Vort.

    It is sad that people have no imagination and feel they have to have exactly the same things as their neighbors, family and friends.

    When our last married daughter’s vort took place a year ago Mrs. CTL and her mother baked and decorated the cakes and it wasn’t because I couldn’t afford to buy expensive cakes.

    #1187379
    gofish
    Member

    This is a case of minhag hamakom. It only applies to New York and Lakewood, last I saw. As to who started this sacred minhag – the feinshmekers, of course.

    #1187380
    Meno
    Participant

    “Siegelman’s cake”

    Is that the long square one?

    I thought it was called a Vort Cake.

    I don’t think I had one at my Vort (in NY).

    Was my Kiddushin chal?

    #1187381
    Joseph
    Participant

    gofish, so I would think, too. But the reality is that you can find this cake at almost every which vort in the greater New York Metropolitan Area. I can’t recall a vort in at least well over a decade that lacked this delicacy. Rich or poor, Litvish or Chasidish, fancy vort and simple vort, they all got it.

    So there’s got to be something more to it since, clearly, it is to be found at far more than just the feinschmeckers.

    #1187382
    Joseph
    Participant

    Meno, yes, the long rectangular caramel cake. I suppose some folks call it a Vort Cake but it is much more popularly known as Siegelman’s (pronounced Ziegelman’s) cake.

    #1187383
    flatbusher
    Participant

    It’s popular and people go for it so why not provide what you know people like? I don’t think it’s a minhag, even as a joke, no different from having those awful expensive petit fours.

    #1187384
    gofish
    Member

    Joseph, the minhag started with the feinshmekers, and then spread to the hamon am who wanted to reach that exalted level too.

    Actually, there are cake gemachs in the NY area, where people can give their frozen untouched vort/bar mitzvah fancy cakes, and it gets passed on from simcha to simcha… So people may not necessarily be spending $90 a cake.

    #1187385
    flatbusher
    Participant

    From my experience the Zeigelman caramel log is often gifted by friends or family of the baal simcha. Generally costs $65 and from what I have noticed is one of the first things to go at a kiddush. Cake gemach is a nice idea but I have seen what I imagine are some of these. Not everthing freezes and defrosts well, or it’s not done properly.

    #1187386

    Joseph

    Sure cause every party planner has no choice and knows if it’s not included in the cakes of her setup package no one will hire her.

    ITS CALLED PEER PRESSURE

    #1187387
    iacisrmma
    Participant

    What is a Siegelman’s cake? I have been to a number of lchsim/vort’s in the last year (yes in Brooklyn) and have never seen it.

    #1187389
    flatbusher
    Participant

    It is referred to as a caramel log, about a foot long covered with a mocha and chocolate frosting. I am surprised you haven’t seen anything fitting that description. But she also makes strawberry shortcake and other less distinctive looking cakes

    #1187390
    Yserbius123
    Participant

    Overrated, too rich and heavy. That describes a lot of people and the Siegleman hazelnut cake that they like too.

    I one time was at a kiddush out of the Tri State Area where one went almost completely uneaten. People unused to it just don’t really like it that much. Which cements my opinion that it’s more of a status symbol than an actual enjoyable dish.

    #1187391
    golfer
    Participant

    Yserbius, your 1st 2 sentences are priceless!

    (Perhaps not totally befitting the first days after the Yamim Noraim, but giving a person such a good laugh must be a mitzvah- Milsa d’bedichasa… Maybe not one of the 613, but thanks anyway!)

    #1187392
    flatbusher
    Participant

    I happen to like it a lot, as does most of my family. It’s a matter of personal taste. I don’t believe it’s any more a status symbol than the ridiculous nature of kiddushim and vorts, or the huge sums spent on flowers, or having hot dishes or cholent at a sholom zachor. Hosts want to please their guests. I don’t think it is anything more than that.

    #1187393
    seeallsides
    Participant

    It is beyond delicious-from the cake to the layered fillings to the frosting-mmmmmm – actually the whole block smells delicious when they bake their cakes-i have tried to imitate it, it’s just *not*-the other cakes are yum too, but the caramel log is my favorite, and it always goes first- also they sell a 1/2 log which is not too chintzy looking if you only want to spend about 35.

    #1187394
    flatbusher
    Participant

    I’ve bought the half log as a birthday cake within my family, and not for status reasons. We just happen to like it.

    #1187395
    YesOrNo
    Participant

    Yum!

    #1187396
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    I never even heard of it before. But it does sound Yum!

    #1187397
    yehudayona
    Participant

    All the cakes at my daughter’s vort came from a cake gemach. They looked fine and they went over well. There was a cake that looked like what’s described here. I don’t like bakery cakes (too much frosting/filling/goop) so I didn’t have any.

    #1187398
    flatbusher
    Participant

    Regarding gemach cakes. I was at a vort where the gemach cake was just a prop–it wasn’t real, likely styrofoam with icing. Wish I had a video of the people trying to cut it!

    #1187399
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    flatbusher……

    I was in both the kosher catering and kosher bakery business in the late 1970s. Most of the wedding and Bar Mitzvah cakes we sold/provided for show were made of styrofoam, cardboard cake circles and hard royal icing.

    The actual cakes cut and served were sheet cakes held in the kitchen during the meal. The exception was that the top 6″ tier of a wedding cake was real so that the photographer could get a shot of a bride or groom feeding the spouse a piece of cake (at non-frum but kosher cuisine weddings).

    #1187400
    flatbusher
    Participant

    CTlawyer–well I won’t argue with that experience, but in all my years and simchas, I saw the fake cake only that one time

    #1187401
    golfer
    Participant

    So it was all pretty icing with no mammashus, CT?

    Alma d’shikra !

    As an attorney I’m sure you’ll agree that’s Emmes

    #1187402
    CTLAWYER
    Participant

    Golfer…………..

    Clients were always given a choice and prices. A typical 4 tier wedding cake to serve 300 guests back then was about $450, a show cake with real 6″ top tier and sheet cakes cut and plated in the kitchen was $150. 9 of 10 clients chose to save money.

    As a practical matter we could bake and frost sheet cakes and the 6″ round topper on Sunday for Sunday night chasunahs. But a 4 tier wedding cake would have been baked on Thursday and decorated Friday morning….by Sunday night guests would not be served a really fresh dessert.

    #1187403
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Omgosh yumms!!! I really wish that I didn’t look up Siegelman’s cakes because now I want to eat all of them!!! I’ll probably dream about eating them.

    Are the ones not labeled dairy really pareve?

    Do they sell them OOT?

    #1187404
    flatbusher
    Participant

    She sells to the public as retail. Call if she will ship out of town (Why do people use acronyms assuming everyone knows what they are?)

    #1187405
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    flatbusher: Good point. I learned it from imamother and so true, I did assume that it was common knowledge.

    Thanks for schooling me on this one 🙂

    #1187406
    cherrybim
    Participant

    When and how did it become a minhag Klal Yisroel to have a Vort?

    #1187407
    flatbusher
    Participant

    You mean what they call a VOrt today? I believe in previous generations the Vort was the tannaim. WHat they have a vort today is no more than an engagement party and if they called it as such maybe this practice will become less popular. The lchaim can serve as both, and people do combine them.

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