This photo from a New York Times Cooking ad has been in my social media feed for a few weeks now. The craving for it intensifies each time I scroll past it. I described it to my 10-year-old nephew the other day on FaceTime, after he and Nonna announced they were making a yellow cake because “Well, Nonna just wants some yellow cake!”

Well, Zia wants some Funfetti cake! Oh, Funfetti! I remember when Mom came home with this new boxed cake. It was DELICIOUS. Even though it’s just white cake with sprinkles, I remember that cake stood out as one of the best of my childhood.

Aside from the colorful sprinkles, because I’m attracted to bright colors like a raccoon is to shiny things, what really gets me is that frosting.

The edges are squared off, but are not smooth like fondant or ganache. There are still knife swirls on the frosting, giving it some texture. Specifically, my eye goes immediately to that upper left quadrant – there’s a depression in the frosting, like a crust edge. Or the cake sunk a bit as it cooled.

The frosting looks waxy, or crusty, like how frosting dries out a bit a few hours after application.

Then when a knife slices through it, the frosted edges of each slice crumble a bit, as if one were to slice a knife through a semi-soft wax candle.

So then I look at the sliced edges of the cake in the picture and see the perfect smooth lines. Same goes for the slices. Those slices are cut like perfect wedges of a Trivial Pursuit game piece. And those sprinkles are NOT disturbed.

There is something about all those edges that are incredibly satisfying to look at. So perfect.

Way to go, Food Stylist Lady, way to go.

This post was inspired by this article: THE 12 MOST UNFORGETTABLE DESCRIPTIONS OF FOOD IN LITERATURE

(For the record, here is Nonna and Nipote’s cake – NAILED IT.)