While I do not want to re-ignite the firestorm we had here recently over Toast or Hillbillies or Coffee, I do feel it is necessary to make it clear frosting always belongs on cookies and never on cakes or cake-ish subcultures like cupcakes. Thank you.

23 Comments

  1. I have to say that I am confused by this. The statement you made rarely occurs unless I am misunderstanding your usages of cookie and cake. Cookies sometimes have icing, but this is different from what I would call frosting. Frosting is usually a butter-cream confection, thick and velvety, it doesnt dry because of the fat content. Icing is usually just sugar, water and flavoring, it forms a hard layer when spread on baked goods.

  2. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    We may be back in the Realm of Coke vs. Pepsi vs. Soda vs. Soda Pop vs. Pop vs. Coffee vs. Regular Coffee!

    Cake should have no frosting OR icing OR sparkles OR sprinkles. That includes bunt and cup and all forms of layer.
    Cookies should always have frosting — SURE FROSTING — or icing — SURE ICING!
    Thank you.

  4. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Yes, tajuki, a naked cake and a covered cookie!

  6. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Cake is moist. It needs no frosting/icing to entice.
    A cookie, by default, is dry and needs the frosting/icing to entice one to let it enter the mouth.

  8. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Now you’re getting to the core of today’s post, tajuki!
    YES! Frosting/icing is, indeed most, because it makes your mouth water!

  10. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    There’s no such thing as having too many cookies, tajuki!
    Cookies rule over all cakes all day.

  12. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Me too, my friend tajuki, me too.
    Cake is entirely overrated.

  13. I always like the Christmas sugar cookies with frosting. Too bad more cookies weren’t frosted.
    Cake without frosting? Our world would miss out on a lot without frosted cakes and cupcakes.
    Frosting is the best part of the cake. The cake is just a frosting delivery system designed to make eating frosting socially acceptable.
    Of course, frosting and cake are bad for our health.
    Instead of cookies, cakes, and other frosted treats, we should instead have celery and carrot sticks. That would make the frosting issue moot!

  14. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Hi Chris —
    I understand the world desires frosting/icing on their cakes and sub-cakes. I just think it is a sugary overkill.
    Cookies need the extra sugar kick while cakes — tasty and already moist — need no extra boot needed for our buds.

  15. What about cookies like gingerbread that are soft and moist? (Not to be confused with ginger snaps, which are hard and crunchy.) Gingerbread is practically cake, just in cookie form. Now I’m confused 😉

  16. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Hmmm… this may be another regional anomaly along the previous Toast discussion I linked in the main post, Flannery, but I have never had a moist gingerbread anything!
    We also have an ongoing contextual problem with “gingerbread” and “cookie” being used in the same sentence because, alas, a bread can never be a cookie though we both know it always wants to be.

  17. Ummm… cookies should be moist and entice without frosting, certainly the homebaked variety fresh out of the oven.
    Cakes, well cooked, can live without frosting. But certain classics (like British traditional wedding cake) are impossible without marzipan and frosting. At least if you don’t like it, you can “detach” it and eat just the fruitcake part.
    -Fruey

  18. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Dear fruey —
    Let’s get a bit technical.
    If a cookie is moist in any way it is not a cookie but a sub-category of cake-like foodstuffs like ding-dongs, Twinkies and the Devil’s Food cakey things covered in a hardened marshmallow shell.
    Cookies, as the old saying goes, are required to crumble.
    I agree certain cakes require something on them and German Chocolate Cake immediately leaps to mind but that cake’s covering is more cake-like than it is frosting/icing-like.
    Marzipan is never a frosting/icing. It is a character like candles and bride and groom figurines.

  20. i think i would have to agree that cookies, though best when fresh from the oven and subsequently still moist and soft, they are destined to become the crumbly things of holidays and afternoon, or early morning, snacks. Cakes, on the other hand should be moist and soft all the time. Thus they are by definition not in need of a frosting or an icing. A good cake should be sweet enough and moist enough on it’s own. I feel the main point, and intention, of frosting or icing a cake should be only for decorating it to appropriatly fit in with some special event, such as a clown faced birthday, or fancily decorated wedding cake(also with the clown face) and really no other reason should exist for covering a wonderfully created cake with anything sweeter or moister. unless you just don’t like the taste and texture of cake, then just eat frosting.

  21. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Hey T.Bone!
    Nice to meet you and I thank you for your brilliant, insightful and meaningful take on frosting!
    How can one person be so right?!
    :mrgreen::!:

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