In honor of Juan’s birthday, I decided that I’d address a topic, a choice, that has baffled me for many years. It’s nothing I lose sleep over but every birthday I attend and celebrate with birthday cake, the interest in this is spurred up again.
There are some things that go together without question, you know like french fries with ketchup or pancakes with syrup. So how about cake? What would you say cake goes with? If you are like me, and I thought everybody else in the world was, the answer is without question MILK!
Milk and cake is the natural order! Just like milk with doughnuts or milk with cereal. Well, when you get married you learn a lot about yourself and you learn a lot about your partner. Turns out HE doesn’t drink milk with cake. Turns out practically his whole family doesn’t drink milk with cake. This to me was a “wait now, hold on a minute” moment.
Here we were celebrating a birthday, don’t remember who’s, the cake is out, the song is sung and the face is planted right on the edge. After making sure I don’t get a piece of where he or she’s face was on the cake, I naturally search for a cup of milk. Low and behold, there was none! “What are you guys drinking the cake with?” I ask. “Soda” they answer. “Soda? Soda?!”
You can’t have soda with cake! Cake is sweet, sugary. So is soda! Nothing beats washing down a piece of cake with a nice cold glass of milk, especially when it is chocolate cake!
Yes, yes, I know not everybody around the world drinks milk with cake. My husband and his family made that very clear. I just had never thought about drinking cake with anything else. So whenever a birthday celebration comes around and drinks are put out to accompany a birthday cake, I wonder… is it just a regiomontano thing (my hubby and his family are from Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico…¡ajúa!) or do a large segment of the population really like their cake with soda?
What do you prefer? Milk or soda with cake?
16 thoughts on “Milk vs Soda: Which do you prefer with cake?”
Niether, I like water, or coffee. I do not drink milk and soda is too sweet and I get a weird taste in my mouth. Although it is not uncommon for to drink soda with cake I have family that drink soda with cake.
Neither is what I meant I should use spell check next time….
Hi Lena,
I love dipping bolillos (french bread) into my coffee. I consider it a very good substitute to drink with cake. 🙂 Thanks for reading the blog and for commenting.
Sybil
I don’t know how common it is in the rest of México but my husband is from Michoacán. Here in Houston there are a lot of people from that area, so a lot of his friends are from there too. All the birthday parties (except at my house) you don’t get milk or ice cream with your birthday cake, you get sodapop and jello. Sometimes if people are fancy instead of sodapop they’re serving agua de sabor, which the way sugar gets dumped in there, it has even more sugar than a coke. Whenever we go visiting, birthday or otherwise, I always bring some bottled water in my purse because so often there isn’t even any drinking-type water in the house anywhere. The 5-gallon water thing in the kitchen might (or might not) have been filled up earlier but it gets empty pretty quick. More normal is just sodapop or Tampico koolade to drink. And no there’s nothing diet. I learned the hard way when I was just recently married and it was my sister-in-law’s house, I was so thirsty because literally for medical reasons I’m not supposed to have so much sugar (although other people don’t seem to let that stop them) and was thinking hey this is close family so I could ask for something, I ask if I could get myself a glass from the cupboard so I could have some tap water, & then everyone is grossed out that I would drink tap water, and somebody has to go run to the store to buy me some water. I know in Mexico of course nobody would drink tap water but they have been living here literally decades so I assumed they were used to it, but I was so wrong. I have to say they’ve all always been really nice to me even though I weird them out on a regular basis. Where I am from I would never insult my host by bringing my own drink in but my husband assures me they are not insulted. So it works out. Nobody but nobody but NOBODY throws a party like Mexicans and I love love LOVE my sisters-in-law and cousins-in-law and love that my son is growing up with his cousins. So I’m certainly not complaining! I just have learned to bring myself some water in my purse. And TP.
Hi Beth,
Well I am definitely learning that there are several options to compliment eating cake! Yup, now I bring with me milk because if I’m going to eat enjoy the many calories served up in my cake, I might as well enjoy them with the beverage of my choice.
Thanks for sharing and for reading my blog. 🙂
Sybil
Sorry, I didn’t know you liked milk when we celebrated your 1st birthday at HAS. I think we had punch, didn’t we?
And honestly, I’ve always kind of preferred coffee with my cake, but then again in my family we kind of grew up drinking coffee from a very young age. Go figure?
I rarely go to birthday parties these days, but when I do, it’s Dos Equis. Ha! Just kidding.
I rarely go to birthday parties that aren’t thrown by my brothers or sisters where we can just grab a glass of milk or water. However, there is always ice cream. When I think cake, my next thought is ice cream, not milk and definitely not soda.
Hi MexicanWoman,
I’ve thrown several parties for my kiddos and when I feel like being extravagant, that’s when I splurge with a serving of ice cream. Although I hate serving ice cream. It is so hard sometimes to scoop out!
🙂 Sybil
Milk, or espresso.
Oh, and the solution to scooping hard ice cream is to take out the container and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes.
Hi Texano78704! I usually dip the spoon into a hot cup of water. It kind of helps. At the next birthday party, I’ll have to take out the ice cream a few minutes before.
I don’t even drink milk, but I know it sounds better than soda with cake! Definitely we like coffee with cake or any pan dulce. And for birthday parties, baby showers, etc we do gelatinas more likely than cake, with either agua fresca or maybe an atole, depends the season. But I think no one in my family really likes super sweet food, more things like conchas that are just a little sweet.
I prefer orange juice with my cake. It’s a nice sweet/sour balance for those of us who avoid soda and hate drinking milk.
Can’t say I would choose orange juice… but it does sound better than milk 🙂