hot cakes
They’re selling like hot cakes.That’s a peculiar expression, isn’t it? You can’t even buy hot cakes. All the bakers I’ve ever been in sell cold cakes. That’s how cakes are meant to be eaten, isn’t it? You bake them in the oven, take them out and let them cool down before you eat them. If someone offered me a cake and it was hot I’d be quite startled.
I think that expression should be changed. Why not selling like hot pies? Pies are supposed to be hot. Or, sticking to the cake theme, selling like cold cakes. Or not even specify the temperature, since we can take that as a given. Selling like cakes – that works, doesn’t it?
Maybe I’m over-thinking this.
But a hot cake is a pancake, rather than a cake like a sponge. Edible cold, but not so great.
??? You’re over thinking this. Why should colourful expressions have to conform exactly to reality? I suspect there’s some context to the circumstances in which the expression first arose that genuinely involved hot cakes. Perhaps “cake” preferred to a slightly different compatible back then…
Fair enough. ‘Compatible’ should read ‘comestible’, right?