From Like Water for Chocolate · 1992 · Screen-exact
Chabela Wedding Cake
Serve when
Serve it with a warning — Tita's tears baked into this cake sent an entire wedding party into weeping, longing, and worse.
Before you start
Sponge, filling, and glaze all need time to bake, cool, and set in stages — build it well ahead so it's ready to cut cold, no rushing the layers.
Cook-along start: before the movie
In the movie
Theatrical
- 00:20:24 Forced to bake the cake for Pedro's wedding to her sister, Tita weeps into the batter — and every guest who eats it is seized by grief for their lost loves, with memorably messy results.
The wedding cake is the story's cruelest assignment — bake the cake for the man you love marrying your sister — and its most famous consequence: communal heartbreak by dessert. Esquivel's novel gives the actual recipe; the film gives it the aftermath.
Ingredients
- For the fondant glaze:
- For the apricot filling:
Method
- Whisk the eggs and sugar over a bain-marie until warm, then beat until tripled, pale, and ribboned — the old sponge method, no leavening but air.
- Fold in the flour, zest, and salt with a light hand.
- Bake in two 9-inch pans at 350°F for 25 minutes, until golden and a skewer poked into the center comes out clean; cool completely.
- Fill with warmed apricot preserves.
- Beat the fondant glaze smooth and pour over, letting it set to a pale shell. Keep your feelings out of the batter, or don't — but know what happens.
Beyond the recipe
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