Could you help me understand this saying please?

It means you can not have it both ways. You cannot both keep your cake and eat your cake; you have to choose to keep it or eat it.

@noelleptc I am with you on that. Kept cake is useless.

@optimisticpessimist has it.

Origin is John Heywood’s ‘A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue’

An interesting thought about cakes you don’t get to eat:
For weddings, the actual wedding cake often isn’t served to the guests. It is for the bride and groom, only basically. So the guests get sheet trays of a similar cake. Also, sometimes the lower tiers of the cake are just rolled fondant covered styrofoam. The bride and groom can freeze the cake and eat it on their one year anniversary, if they want. Also some people keep a cake because it’s pretty / a work of art, and they rather look at it then eat it.

If they said that to me I would do this with the cake

It actually should be, “you can’t eat your cake and have it too” but people say it the other way.

@janbb The real way makes way more sense than the way it’s actually said. At first I didn’t get the saying either @noelleptc but now I get it.

Yeah, it doesn’t really make sense unless you realize that “have” means “keep” in this case.

If you eat the cake, you won’t have it anymore.
Sort of like, if you spend the money, you can not spend it anymore.
It means you cannot believe in two opposite principles. You can not have it both ways-like @optimisticpessimist says.

Actually if it is a fruit cake made with alcohol, they can keep for years (I believe, never eaten one I have to say. I am an EAT your cake person). People often keep them for christenings and as has been suggested first year anniversaries.

I think it means you can’t be greedy in general.

My mom used to say this to me all the time and it made me furious! Somebody finally told me the meaning. Yeah, stupid saying, like the burning the candle at both ends saying. I always get an image of pudgy fingers holding a candle in the middle, horizontally.

Actually, you can eat your cake and have it too, if you want to keep it in whatever post-digested form you choose. ;-)

You can eat your cake and have it too if you don’t eat all of it. ;)

@chocolatechip The part you have eaten you can no longer have (at least, not in cake form.)

This is most often used negatively, meaning an individual owning a thing, and still attempting to benefit from or use it. It may also indicate having or wanting more than one can handle or deserve, or trying to have two incompatible things. The proverb’s meaning is similar to the phrases, “you can’t have it both ways” and “you can’t have the best of both worlds.