Yesterday was my 65th birthday. When my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I answered without hesitation:

I don't remember my exact age when my Mom first made me Chocolate Cake with Lemon Icing for my birthday. My best guess is 10 years old. Let's go with that. Using that as a good baseline, I have now had Chocolate Cake with Lemon Icing at least 55 times in my life. It's my Birthday Cake. Mine.

I love it. Everyone else in my family - not so much. For me the two flavors of chocolate and lemon are a perfect combination. Sweet and tart.

A tart taste is agreeably sharp, bright, and acidic, like a balanced lemon or cranberry, providing a refreshing, palate-cleansing sensation rather than a strong, disagreeable sourness. It involves a complex, stimulating flavor profile with a distinctive tang that often complements sweetness and can add depth to other savory or sweet elements in a dish.

What a Tart Taste Is Like
Sharp and Acidic: It has a pleasant, acidic quality that stimulates the taste buds with a refreshing zest.
Balanced: Unlike a purely sour flavor, tartness is a well-balanced acidity that provides a clean sharpness without being overly bitter or astringent.
Complex: Foods described as tart often have a complex flavor where acidity is a prominent, but not dominant, part of the overall taste.
Refreshing: The acidity in a tart flavor often acts as a palate cleanser, making it a bright and clean taste sensation.

Examples of Tart Foods
Cranberries: Their natural tartness provides a refreshing contrast and balances their fruit sugars, making them a good complement to rich Thanksgiving meals.
Granny Smith Apples: These apples are a good example of a tart fruit, offering both sharpness and sweetness.
Lemonade: By adding sugar to sour lemon juice, the resulting lemonade becomes tart, showcasing a balanced sweet and acidic flavor.

Tart vs. Sour
Tart is Agreeably Acidic: Tartness is an acceptable or even pleasant sharpness from an acid, often with some sweetness or complexity.

Sour is a Broader Category: Sour can refer to any acid taste, and while it can overlap with tartness, it can also sometimes carry a more disagreeable connotation or a strong, broad profile of astringency.

So, FOR ME....... Chocolate Cake with Lemon Icing is my best fit. It's MY CAKE.

There are approximately 500 Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) operating in the United States, according to the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO), the industry's leading trade group. This figure represents certified PEOs providing co-employment services like HR, payroll, benefits, and compliance to over 200,000 small and mid-sized client businesses, which collectively employ about 4.5 million workers.

Some sources cite slightly higher estimates, such as around 957 PEOs, but these likely include non-certified providers or broader HR outsourcing firms rather than strict PEOs. NAPEO's data is the most authoritative for the core industry.

Chocolate Cake with Lemon Icing is a 'best fit' for me. Now, do I love it because my Mom made it for me from childhood, or do I just really love the taste? Or did I learn to love the taste because IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY and my brain became hard-wired that THIS cake made the day (my birthday) great? 

The number of different cakes is vast and difficult to pin down precisely, as it depends on variations in recipes, ingredients, cultural traditions, and personal creativity. However, we can break it down into broad categories and notable types based on culinary frameworks:

Major Cake Categories: Cakes are typically classified by their preparation method or base ingredients. Common categories include:

Sponge Cakes: Light and airy, like genoise, chiffon, or angel food cake.
Butter Cakes: Dense and rich, like pound cake or yellow cake.
Foam Cakes: Rely on whipped eggs, like Swiss roll or sponge cake.
Fruit Cakes: Dense with dried fruits, like Christmas fruitcake.
Layer Cakes: Multi-layered with fillings, like red velvet or Black Forest.
Cheesecakes: Creamy, like New York-style or Japanese cotton cheesecake.
Tortes: Rich, often flourless or nut-based, like Sachertorte.
Yeast Cakes: Leavened with yeast, like babka or panettone.
Specialty Cakes: Like flourless chocolate cake or ice cream cake.

Global Variations: Different cultures contribute unique cakes.

USA: Red velvet, carrot cake, German chocolate cake.
Europe: Black Forest (Germany), Victoria sponge (UK), tiramisu cake (Italy).
Asia: Japanese castella, Chinese mooncake (though not always a "cake" in the Western sense), Korean rice cake (tteok, in dessert forms).
Latin America: Tres leches (Mexico), alfajores-inspired cakes (Argentina).
Middle East: Basbousa (semolina cake).

Estimate of Distinct Types: Based on culinary books and baking resources, there are likely hundreds of distinct cake types when considering standardized recipes (e.g., Betty Crocker, Joy of Baking, or global cookbooks). If you include regional variations, flavor combinations (e.g., chocolate, vanilla, matcha), and unique frostings or fillings (e.g., ganache, buttercream, fruit preserves), the number could easily climb into the thousands. For instance, just within sponge cakes, you could have dozens of variations based on flavorings (lemon, almond, pandan) or fillings (custard, jam, whipped cream).

Custom Cakes: Modern baking, especially with custom cake shops and shows like Cake Boss, introduces infinite variations through decoration, shape, and personalized recipes. These aren’t standardized but add to the diversity.

Wow.
That's a lot of cakes. Too many to choose from, right? How can anyone possibly pick one? Also this: if someone is shopping for a PEO for their business, how can they possibly pick one? Too many to choose from, right? You would need some help to figure it all out, right? 

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