What does “Somebody just can’t bake the cake,” mean? Is it a popular phrase?

I found the phrase “I don’t care how you cut it, the brother just can’t bake the cake,” in the Maureen Dowd’s article in New York Times (December 10), titled “Fire and Ice,” that compares the character of GOP Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich and President Obama.

In this article, there was the following line referring to the skirmish between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney in the recent presidential debate:

“Nutty Newt is dancing a fandango on Mitt Romney’s head even though not a single hair has gone askew. As Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chief eloquently summed up the Romney free fall on MSNBC, “I don’t care how you cut it; the brother just can’t bake the cake.”

I don’t understand what this ending line means. I guess Steele said “It’s up to Romney how to respond to Newt’ charge (or cook Newt) in the debate, but he didn’t know how to finish Newt off,” but I’m not sure.

What does “I don’t care how you cut it, the brother just can’t bake the cake,” exactly mean? Is “(Somebody) bake the cake” an idiom or a popular set of words?

Solution 1:

In my experience, and according to web searches, "can’t bake the cake" is not idiomatic and is not common except in its literal sense of not being able to cook a cake, for example because of an oven problem.

The sentence "I don’t care how you cut it; the brother just can’t bake the cake" means that Romney "just can't get it done" and is failing to accomplish his campaign plans. This usage of "bake the cake" is found in numerous web pages that discuss planning sequential processes.

Note that Maureen Dowd’s wording, "As Michael Steele, ... eloquently summed up..." uses eloquently ironically, to indicate that the quotation is not eloquent and instead appears to be an attempt to be hip.