'The Best Cake I Ever Had'

A taste of pink heaven at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo

Pink chocolate! Bavarian cream! (Photos by Ruth)

Passover is finally over! I’ve still got a couple of boxes of matzo left to play around with in case I get a yen to make some matzo brei, but, really, after eight days of unleavened bread, it’s enough already (or, as we Jews say, dayenu!).

What I’m really dreaming of is pink champagne cake—specifically pink champagne cake from the the Copper Cafe at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, a famous stop that we couldn’t pass up during a recent excursion to California’s Central Coast.

My obsession with this magnificent gateau began after a favorite fellow food blogger, Jolene, of Time Travel Kitchen, wrote a guest post about pink champagne cake—complete with a detailed recipe—on the site of another favorite blogger, Anne Byrn, of Between the Layers (whose recipe it just happens to be!).

Then a third blogger whose work I enjoy, Annette Laing, of Non-Boring History, commented that she’d tasted the glorious fuchsia-hued confection during a summer sojourn at the Madonna Inn. In her very “non-boring” post about her visit, Annette described the hotel, which opened in December 1958 and is still owned by the founders, Alex Madonna and Phyllis Madonna, as “a homage to bad taste with a huge sense of humor.”

The Madonna Inn’s Gold Rush Steak House, a study in pink.

Indeed, the place does make you laugh and then gasp at this unabashed display of kitsch. Not only is the champagne cake ($14 for a generous slice!) dressed in the most outrageous chocolate curls tinted by a secret process into their trademark shocking pink, but the interior of the hotel is awash in striking, sometimes clashing variegations of rose, red, rust, mauve and just about every conceivable roseate hue you could imagine, from the carpets to the gardens to the restaurant, bar and cafe to the pink umbrellas that surround the pool and the utility go-carts. Even the women’s restroom is awash in pink, though the men’s room is best known for its giant rock urinal—brown, not pink.

Women’s restroom at the Madonna Inn.

Madonna Inn features 110 rooms, some designed by a Disney artist, with themed quarters with decors to match names like Krazy Dazy, Swiss Chalet, and Love Nest. Though the reality of the lodging experience may or may not live up to the fantasy (we’ve heard mixed reviews but haven’t yet booked a room), in my opinion, the pink champagne cake can’t be beat.

Our Copper Cafe server told us as much: “It’s so good,” she said. “It’s probably the best cake I’ve ever had.”

Prices for the quadruple-layer Pink Champagne Cake at the Madonna Inn start at $50 for a 6-inch cake. It’s the bakery’s most popular cake.

The cake is creamy white, not pink, with whipped cream and Bavarian cream sandwiched between four layers. It’s iced with whipped cream and garnished with Bavarian cream dollops, pink chocolate shavings and curls.

The bakery doesn’t share its recipe, which has remained the same for more than 50 years, but butter and cream are definitely part of the mix. I didn’t taste any pink champagne, but I assume it’s in there somewhere. The cake went down like ambrosia.

As you might expect, this is a cake with a colorful backstory that, like so many things in this part of the country, is linked to the silver screen.

“Less than 200 miles south of San Luis Obispo, the evenings in star-studded Hollywood were punctuated by the hollow popping of corks from Champagne bottles,” writes Aja Gore in an article detailing the cake’s history that ran last April in Edible San Luis Obispo.

“It was the middle of the 1960s and what’s known as the Hollywood Renaissance was underway. The drink of choice for many young rouge-cheeked starlets was the rose Champagne, a drink that symbolized high society, the pinnacle of elegance.”

Audrey Pearce told the magazine that her grandpa, Alex Madonna, loved pink—and he also loved dessert. It seems his tastes tended toward cakes with a little bit of panache and a European pedigree.

The chef who came up with the idea for the pink champagne cake, a native of the Czech Republic, “crafted a Bavarian cream layered cake enrobed in pink-hued white chocolate shavings and topped with chocolate curls. Unlike many other pink Champagne cake recipes, the Madonna Inn variation features a cloud of whipped cream topping instead of the more common buttercream.”

The signature pink chocolate shavings on the cake almost became a thing of the past a few years ago when the supplier of the pink coloring used to tint the chocolate ceased operation. The makers had to drop “pink” from the name and were met with great disappointment.

“Some people said it just tasted different without the pink,” Audrey Pearce said.

But luckily, a new supplier was found, and all was well.

Pink Champagne Cake isn’t the only thing on the cake menu.

There are many other cakes at the Madonna Bakery, including Black Forest, Lemon Coconut and Toffee Crunch. There are pies, cookies, Danish pastries and rolls too. I’m sure they’re all wonderful—and I’d like to sample every one (though my waistline and arteries would not be happy!). But for now I’m dining off the rosy memory of that glorious pink cake. I agree with our server: It’s probably the best cake I ever had. I’m just glad memories don’t have calories!

Pink Champagne Cakes awaiting pickup.

If you would like learn more about what to do and capture photographically in San Luis Obispo (which locals refer to as “SLO”), be sure and check out my husband Jefferson Graham’s Photowalks episode on this fascinating city located about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Thanks for checking out this week’s edition of Ruth Talks Food. A special thank you to my new subscribers and to loyal readers. Comments, shares and likes are gratefully welcomed.

Talk to you again soon!