Mrs. Raffald's recipe for Sweet Patties, 1769:



"Sweet patties.

Take the meat of a boiled calf's foot, two large apples and one ounce of candied orange, chop them very small. Grate half a nutmeg, mix them with the yolk of an egg, a spoonful of French brandy, and a quarter of a pound of currants clean washed and dried. Make a good puff paste, roll it in different shapes, as the fried ones, and fill them the same way. You may either fry or bake them. They are a pretty side dish for supper."

---The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, intorduction by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 79)



"Eccles Cakes.--Required: some paste, a filling made by mixing a pound of washed and dried currants, six ounces of moist sugar, two ounces of chopped candied peel, and a saltspoonful of grated nutmeg. Cost, about 1d. Each. The cuttings of puff or flaky paste will do for these, and are often used, though the cakes are nice when paste is made purposely. It should be thinly rolled and cut in rounds; a teaspoonful of the mixture is put in the middle, and the pastry doubled over like a ball; it is then pressed on the board to make round flat cakes, the size of the top of a small tumbler. Three small cuts should be made with a knife, and the cakes finished off like Banbury cakes. NOTE.--The filling for these is sometimes the same as Banbury cakes, or a little grated apple is added to the mixture given, with an increased quantity of sugar if required."

---Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book, Lizzie Heritage [Cassell and Company:London] 1894 (p. 1023)

About Eccles

About Manchester

If you would like more information on the evolution and history of British baked goods we recommend these sources:

1. English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David

2. Food in Britian, From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson

3. Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson (separate entries for specific items)

Realated foods? Portable pies...pasties, turnovers and such.

Election cake

What makes the history of Election cake so interesting are the conflicting theories regarding the "why and when" this cake was served. While many people today assume it's a November treat, history tells that's not likely. Elections are moveable feasts. We find several historic references to Election cake placing it anywhere from mid-January to June. The month with the most documentation is May. This is what the food historians have to say:

"So what then is the how, when, where, what and why of Election Cakes? The Connecticut Historical Society provided some answers, but...said...that some conflicts cannot be resolved. "What you can say...is that this is cake traditionally made in conneciton with elections in Hartford form pre-Revolutionary times...the Colonial Records of Connecticut from May 1771 show that one Ezekial Williams Esq. submitted a bill to the Connecticut General Assembly for the cost of making the cake for the election'." To understand why the government of the colony of Connecticut would pay for such a cake, along with other food, you have to know how the Governor of the colony, and later the state, was elected. In early spring, elections were held in Connecticut towns, and in May representatives of the towns gathered in Hartford, the capitol, for the formal counting of the votes, first for Governor, then for Lieutenant Governor and then for other officials. The counting often went on into the night. The representatives came the day before and stayed overnight in Hartford...in every Hartford home, Election Cakes were made to serve the out-of-town lodgers. According to...[The Connecticut Historical Society], housewives planned for Election Day well in advance and made cakes that would keep. By the mid-1800's Election Day had declined as a major festival and around 1875 the date for election of the Governor shifted to January from May..."

---"Election Cake: A Noble Tradition, Marian Burros, New York Times, November 2, 1988 (p. C12)

"Election cakes date from well before the American Revolution. They were very large, enriched yeast cakes, tasting like modern coffee cakes or Hot Cross Buns. In England such cakes were called "great cake" and made for local festivals. The Puritan election cakes were made for Election Day, Muster Day or Training Day. These were spring and September (a second training day) [and] regional gatherings to elect local officials...The custom persisted into the 1820s, but by then the larger cakes were, in Lydia Maria Child's cookbook,'old fashioned'."

---The American History Cookbook, Mark H. Zanger [Greenwood Press:Westport CT.] 2003 (p. 59-61)

[NOTE: this book contains a modernized recipe]

"Election cake. A raised fruitcake of New England, first mentioned by Amelia Simmons in her American Cookery as early as 1796, although, as the name indicates, records show that such cakes have been baked to celebrate Election Days at least as early as 1771 in Connecticut. Although this practice spread throughout the Midwest and West in the nineteenth century, the cake is usually associated with Hartford, Connecticut, and, by the 1830s, was often called "Hartford election cake." There were also "election buns," which were doled out along similar party lines. Cookies, usually of gingerbread, served at such functions were often called "training cakes," because another name for Election day was "Training Day."

---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 122)

WHAT EXACTLY IS ELECTION CAKE?

Contrary to some reports, Election cake was not invented by American colonists. It was borrowed (and/or adapted) from popular period English yeast breads.

"The American or Hartford election cake is American in name only. The cake itself is a classic English "rich cake," "loaf cake," or "fruitcake," which went by many names and varied many ingredients. Martha Washington wupplies the essential in her many kinds of "great cake," listed in The Booke of Sweet-meats, always beginning with barm, the froth produced by fermenting ale. Amelia Simmons calls these "emptins," a contraction of "emptyings," which meant the yeasty dregs in the bottom of a cask of ale. On baking day, a thrifty housewife would use some of this yeast to make a richer dough than bread and she might use some of her raw bread dough as a starter or sponge for cake..."

---I Hear America Cooking, Betty Fussell [Viking:New York] 1986 (p. 324)

A survey of recipes through time

[1796]

"Election cake

Thirty quarts of flour, 10 pound butter, 14 pound sugar, 12 pound raisins, 3 doz eggs, one pint wine, one quart brandy, 4 ounces cinnamon, 4 ounces fine coriander seed, 3 ounces ground allspice; wet flour with milk to the consistency of bread over night, adding one quart yeast; the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has rise light work in every other ingredient except the plumbs, which work in when going into the oven."

---American Cookery, Amelia Simmons, facsimile of the Second Edition, printed in Albany, 1796 with an introduction by Karen Hess [Applewood Books:Bedford MA] 1996 (p. 43-44)

[NOTES: This recipe is cited by some food historians as the first recipe for Election Cake. In the 18th century, the word plumb was often used interchangeably with the word raisin] [1839]

"Election cake

Take half a pint of lively yeast, mix with is half a pint of sweet milk and enough flour to make it a good batter; cover it, and set it by the fire to rise. This is called setting a sponge. Sift two pounds of flour into a broad pan, cut up in it a pound of fresh butter, add a pound of powdered sugar, two grated nutmegs and six beaten eggs. When the sponge is quite light, pour it on the flour, &c., make the whole into a soft dough, knead it well, and make it into small flattish loaves. Sprinkle a shallow iron pan with flour, lay the rolls in it close together, put them at first in a very slow oven, that will permit them to rise, and when risen, bake them with moderate heat."

---The Kentucky Housewife, Lettice Bryan, facsimile edition [Image Graphics:Paducah KY] (p. 299-300) [1844]

"Hartford Cake

Rub two pounds of butter into five of four; add sixteen eggs, not much beaten, one pint of yeast, and one of wine. Knead it up stiff like biscuit; let it stand till perfectly light. When light, work in thoroughly, two and a half pounds of raisins soaked several hours in a gill of brandy, a gill of rose-water, two and a half pounds of powdered loaf sugar, half an ounce of mace, and a spoonful of cinnamon. Put it in your pans, let it rise, and bake as "Loaf Cake."

---The Improved Housewife, Mrs. A.L. Webster [Hartford, CT] 1844 (p. 113)

[NOTE:Hartford Cake is another name for this recipe. It is interesting to note this author (from Hartford) calls it such.] [1844]

"Old Harford Election Cake (100 years old)

Five pounds dried and sifted flour.

Two pounds of butter.

Two pounds of sugar.

Three gills of distillery yeast, or twice the quantity of home-brewed.

Four eggs.

A gill of wine and a gill of brandy.

Half an ounce of nutmegs, and two pounds of fruit.

A quart of milk.

Rub the butter very fine into the flour, add half the sugar, then the yeast, then half the milk, hot in winter, and blood warm in summer, then the eggs well beaten, the wine, and the remainder of the milk. Beat it well, and let it stand to rise all night. Beat it well in the morning, adding the brandy, the sugar, and the spice. Let it rise three or four hours, till very light. When you put the wood into the oven, put the cake in buttered pans, and put in the fruit as directed previously. If you wish it richer, add a pound of citron."

---Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt-Book, Catharine E. Beecher, facsimile 1844 reprint [Dover Publications:Mineola NY] 2001 (p. 146)

[NOTE: Miss Beecher was born to a very prominent Hartford family. Her sister was Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.] [1866]

Election cake, National Cookbook, Hannah Peterson [1877]

Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Wood Wilcox provides these recipes for Salem Election Cake & Old Hartford Election Cake. Notes in this book indicates both versions are "100 years old." [1918]

Election cake, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Fannie Merrit Farmer

[NOTE: this recipe is more like modern cake] [2004]

Election Cake; historic notes & modernized recipe courtesy of the Washington Post

Culinary evidence confirms this recipe was a staple in American cookbooks up until the 1940s. The last recipe we have for Election cake was printed in the 1939 edition of Fannie Farmer's The Boston Cooking School Cook Book. In recent years, the recipe and its history are sometimes printed in newspaper articles the week preceding our current November election date.

Modernized recipe, redacted by Stephen Schmidt, culinary historian.

Related food? Irish soda bread.

Hummingbird cake

Where did this cake originate and why is it named such? Recent evidence suggests this confection descended from Jamaican roots. The hummingbird (aka Dr. Bird) is one of the national symbols. Notes below also suggest the cake we know know today was adapted for American tastes:

"29 March 1969, Kingston (Jamaica) Daily Gleaner, pg. 7: Press kits presented included Jamaican menu modified for American kitchens, and featured recipes like the Doctor Bird cake, made from bananas."

SOURCE: American Dialect Society

"When it comes to cake, the Dr. Bird or Hummingbird Cake recipe has been one of the most popular through the years. Originally the recipe came to me during the late `60`s, as I recall, from the Jamaican airlines...Ruth Threat of Matthews even sent a picture of a Dr. Bird, a national symbol of Jamaica "

---"HUMMINGBIRD CAKE FROM JAMAICA REMAINS POPULAR," Helen Moore, Charlotte Observer, November 23, 1986

This is what the food writers say:

"But the sweetest import from below the Mason-Dixon line might be hummingbird cake, which has started popping up at popular baking spots around town with little fanfare - fine Southern upbringing indeed. To many Southerners living in New York, the concoction of mashed banana, pineapple, pecans, and cream cheese icing weighing more than your average one-year-old serves as a sweet, immediate reminder of home. The impressive looking three-layer treat seems like it would be tough to make, but is, in fact, quite easy; it can be whipped up in a little more than an hour. The exact origin of the cake remains a mystery. In 1978, a Mrs. L.H. Wiggins of Greensboro, N.C., submitted the recipe to Southern Living magazine, the Southern belle bible of gracious hostessing, and the cake became renowned. "It is still our most requested recipe," says Donna Florio, a senior writer at the magazine."

---"The Recipe for Hummingbird Cake, Food & Drink," ELIZABETH SCHATZ, The New York Sun, November 13, 2002 , Pg. 1

"IT SEEMS as if just about everyone but yours truly had a recipe for the Cake That Doesn't Last. Then a reader clued me with a December 1972 date and I found our copy in the older files. Meanwhile we have been swamped with telephone calls and letter, far too many to credit individually. Be assured, however, that all assistance was appreciated. Elizabeth Bartlett of North Little Rock, the first to reach us via telephone, said that the cake also is known as Hummingbird Cake. The bird connection puzzles me, just as it does Juliet Macy of Bull Shoals, who describes the cake as very rich and heavy. Macy also said it is a delicious cake, an evaluation with which everyone seems to agree. Virginia Raney of Russellville, who has made the cake many times, said, " Sure enough, it doesn't last!' Pat Jefferson of Paron, noting that it is a family favorite, added that it has replaced fruit cake at their holiday table. Never Ending Cake is the name turned in by Pauline Isley. A Benton respondent supplied Jamaican Cake, a title that might not be far afield considering the ingredients. Ella Sheets knows it as Granney's Best Cake. Nothing Left Cake is the name supplied by Patricia H. Downes of Jacksonville, who, with her 8-and 11-year-old sons, prefers it sans icing. More than 75 copies of the recipe have been received, most of them identical. The variations _ notably in mixing directions, oil measurement and additional fruits _ are incorporated in the recipe that follows. Cake That Won't Last."

---Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR), April 3, 1985

We wonder if hummingbird cake was named in reference to how these birds eat. These tiny creatures are drawn to intensely sweet food sources. They engage the food source quickly and disperse when sated. Some of the descriptions we read regarding how this cake attracts people and is consumed quickly reminds us of hummingbirds eating patterns. PLEASE NOTE: This is our theory, not a documented fact.

Mrs. Wiggins' recipe [1978]



"Hummingbird cake

3 cups all-pupose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 eggs, beaten

1 1/2 cups salad oil

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained

2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts, divided

2 cups chopped bananas

Cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)

Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl; add eggs and salad oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. Do not beat. Stir in vanilla, pineapple, 1 cup chopped pecans, and bananas. Spoon batter into 3 well-greased and floured 9-inch cakepans. Bake at 350 degrees F. For 25 to 30 minutes; remove from pans, and cool immediately. Spread frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake. Sprinkle with 1 cup chopped pecans. Yield: one 9-inch layer cake. Cream Cheese Frosting

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

2 (16 ounce) packages powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine cream cheese and butter; cream until smooth. Add powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla. Yield: enough for a 3 layer cake.--Mrs. L.H. Wiggins, Greesnboro, North Carolina"

---"Making the most of bananas," Southern Living, February 1978 (p. 206)

The Kentucky Derby Cook Book [Kentucky Derby Museum:Louisville KY, 1986] contains a recipe for Hummingbird Cake on p. 204. A note printed in this book states "Hummingbird Cake. Helen Wiser's recipe won Favorite Cake Award in the 1978 Kentucky State Fair."

Ice Box Cake (aka Refrigerator Cake)

Ice box cakes, as we Americans know them today, were introduced during World War I. In the 1920s & 1930s these trendy cakes were promoted as "modern" because they embraced commercial shortcuts: store-bought ladyfingers, crushed graham crackers, & packaged cookies. Companies manufacturing refrigerator cake ingredients (condensed milk, marshmallows, wafer cookies, tub whipped cream, electric refrigerators) capitalized on this trend with "back of the box" recipes and company brochures. When ice boxes became extinct recipes were renamed "refrigerator."

Our survey of historic newspapers (best source for trending recipes) and cookbooks confirm early recipes combined cake (sponge, ladyfingers) with whipped cream or custard filling. Ingredients were layered in molds or loaf pans. The earliest recipe we have employing cookies (vanilla wafers) is a Nabisco cooking booklet, c. 1932. The earliest recipe we have combining chocolate wafers and whipped cream to create the classic festive "ice box log" is 1935.

Ida Bailey Allen, popular home economist, described ice box cakes this way:

"Icebox cake is an adaptation of either a charlotte or Bavarian cream, or a mixture of both. It always calls for whipped cream in some form and freqently for butter. Nuts are often added and the mould is either decorated or put together with some sort of a cake mixture, as macaroons, sponge cake, angel cake, or lady fingers. In any case the dessert is so extremely rich that it should be served only in small quantities in a meal containing very little fat."

---Ida Bailey Allen's Modern Cook Book, Ida Baily Allen [Garden City:New York] 1924 (p. 602)

A survey of early ice box cake recipes

[1917]

"An absolutely new confection is the refrigerator cake, which is being served occasionally at parties in Kansas City when the hostess takes a vacation from Hooverizing, for the ingredients are expensive. However, it makes a very large cake. The unique feature is that no baking is required, and the cake is served cut in wedge shaped pieces like pie. In fact, it is really more like a very sumptuous pudding. To make it, take half a pound of unsalted butter (which can be purchased at the larger markets), one half pound of powdered sugar, one-half pound of crushed macaroons, one-half pound of blanched almonds, one-half dozen eggs, and one and a half dozen lady fingers. Beat the egg yolks till thick and lemon colored; beat the whites till stiff; cream together the butter and sugar, chop the almonds and crush the macaroons. Mix all together. In a round loaf cake pan arrange the lady fingers, split in halves around the edge, so that they all form an upstanding border. The pour in the cake batter. The best pan to use is a large one that has removable sides and bottom. The success of the cake depends largely on the thorough beating given the yolks of the eggs. They would be beaten until as thick as mayonnaise. Instead of being baked the cake should stand in the refrigerator for at least thirty hours before being cut. Serve with whipped cream piled on top."

---"Ever Eat Refrigerator Cake? Instead of baking you put it in the ice box," Kansas City Star, October 19, 1917 (p. 2) [1919]

"Ice Box Cake

There are two recipes for icebox cake in the new Stevenson Memorial Cook Book which, as we know, has been put out for one of the best of causes... One dozen lady fingers; one tablespoonful sugar; three eggs, separated; one cake sweet chocolate. Melt chocolate in double boiler with tablespoonful of warm water. Add mixture of yolks of eggs and sugar, well beaten, a little vanilla, and lastly, well beaten whites of eggs. Dip each ladyfinger in mixture, arrange in form which has been wet with cold water, and fill in. Place in icebox over night. Serve with whipped cream." The other recipe is for a larger cake ang gives fuller directions: "Three cakes sweet chocolate, three tablespoonfuls powdered sugar, three tablespoonfuls hot water, two dozen ladyfingers. Melt chocolate, sugar and water in double boiler and add half beaten yolks of six eggs. Line a mold with ladyfingers and pour half the mixture on them, then fill with ladyfingers, repeating with the chocolate mixture. Make twenty-four hours before serving. Just before serving whip one half pint of cream and put on top of cake. Grate a little chocolate over all."

---"Ice Box Cake," Jane Eddington, Chicago Daily Tribune, December 1, 1919 (p. 24) [1923]

"Ice Box Cake

(Rich but oh, so good! If you are trying to reduce, turn the page.)

One-fourth cup water

One-half cup sugar

Two squares chocolate

Four egg yolks

One cup butter

One cup powdered sugar

One teaspoon vanilla

Four egg whites

Two dozen lady fingers.

Cook the water, sugar and chocolate together in a double boiler until the mixture is smooth. Add the beaten egg yolks. Cook for one minute, beating constantly. Cream the butter, and slowly add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture. Beat the egg whites very stiff and add to the first mixture. Line a square cake pan with waxed paper. Arrange lady fingers, split, around the sides and across the bottom. Add a layer of the cake mixture. Add another layer of the lady fingers and place the rest of the mixture on top. Set in an ice box with whipped cream. It is delicious but very rich."

---Bettina's Best Desserts, Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron [A.L. Burt Company:New York] 1923 (p. 36) [1924]

Chocolate Icebox Cake

Follow the recipe for almond icebox cake, omitting the nuts and adding to the creamed butter and sugar a half pound of grated sweet chocolate, melted." "Almond Icebox Cake

3/4 cupful fresh butter

1 1/4 cupfuls sifted powdered or confectioner's sugar

3 eggs

1 cupful finely chopped toasted almond meats

1/2 pint heavy cream

1/2 teaspoonful almond extracts

12 macaroons

1 1/2 dozen single lady fingers

Beat the butter to a cream and work in the sugar, almond extract, and egg yolks. The add the egg whites, whipped stiff, and the copped nut meats, and combine the mixture with the cream, which should be whipped stiff and folded in. Line a three-pint mould with waxed paper, put a layer of macaroons on the bottom, interspersing them, if desired, with whole toasted almond meats, to form a design. Line the sides of the mould with lady fingers, arranging them vertically, put half of the cream mixture in the mould, of this lay the remaining macaroons, adding the balance of the mixture, and set in the coolest part of the refrigerator for twenty-four hours. To serve, unmould and garnish with additional sweetened whipped cream, putting it on by means of the pastry bag and tube."

---Ida Bailey Allen's Modern Cook Book, Ida Baily Allen [Garden City:New York] 1924 (p. 603) [1927]

"Chocolate Ice Box Pudding--No. 98

Put

2 ounces sweet chocolate

2 tablespoons powdered sugar and

2 tablespoons water on top of double boiler. When chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth, add

4 egg yolks slightly beaten, stir, cook and fold in

4 egg whites beaten stiff. Spril

Lady fingers, if double, place a layer in brick mold lined with oiled paper, cover with chocolate mixture, put in another layer of the lady fingers, and chocolate, and continue until mixture is used. Let stand 24 hours in refrigerator, but not in chilling unit. Turn out on platter, and decorate with

Whipped Cream."

---Electric Refrigerator Menus and Recipes: Recipes prepared especially for the General Electric Refrigerator, Miss Alice Bradley [General Electric Co.:Cleveland OH] 5th edition, 1927 (p. 115) [1930]

"Campfire Ice Box Loaf

1/2 lb Campfire Marshmallows

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1/2 cup chopped dates

2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (2 1/2 doz.)

Cut marshmallows in quarters and pour milk over them. Add dates and nuts. Then add cracker crumbs, kneading thorougly. Place in loaf shaped mold and let stand in ice box about 12 hours before serving. Slice and serve with whipped cream. Will keep moist several days."

---How Famous Chefs Use Campfire Marshmallows, Angelus-Campfire Co.:Chicago IL] 1930 (p. 36) [1931]

"Ice Box Cake.

To be made with Lady Fingers, Sponge Cake, or Angel Food and Custard. Line a bowl with wax paper. Place lady fingers (or slices of cake) around the sides and over the bottom. Put part of the custard into the bowl, then a layer of cake, then custard and last cake. Place the bowl in the refrigerator for 12 hours, or more. Invert the contents of the bowl onto a plate, cover the cake with whipped cream and serve it. "Fillings for Ice Box Cakes...

Chocolate Custard:

3/8 pound sweet chocolate

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons water

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

Melt the chocolate, add the sugar, water and egg yolks. Cook this mixture over hot water or over a low flame until it is smooth, stirring it constantly over hot water or over a low flame. Cool the mixture and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites."

---Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer, fascimile 1931 edition [Scribner:New York] 1998 p. 266)

[NOTES: Also contains a recipe for Cocoa Custard filling. The 1953 edition of this book calls this recipe "Refrigerator Cakes. The recipe & fillings are virtually unchanged.] [1932]

"Trick Icebox Cake

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup water

Vanilla Wafers

Melt chocolate in double boiler. Add condensed milk and stir until mixture thickens. Add water. Line long narrow mold with paraffin paper and cover bottom with thin layer of chocolate mixture. Cover with a layer of 'Uneeda Bakers' Vanilla Wafers. Then add a layer of chocolate mixture and another layer of wafers. Repeat until all chocolate is used. Top with wafers. Chill in refrigerator 3-4 hours. Turn out on platter, remove paper and serve in slices, plain or with whipped cream. 6 portions."

---Menu Magic, National Biscuit Company "Uneeda Bakers," 449 West 14th Street, New York, N.Y. 1932 (p. 12)

[NOTE: This booklet offers a recipe for Apricot Icebox Cake, also featuring Vanilla Wafers.] [1935]

"Choco-Mint Icebox Cake

One thin large Brown's chocolate wafers, 1 1/2 cups whipping cream, 3/4 teaspoon mint extract, five drops green coloring, 2 teaspoons powdered sugar, outside of roll, 1/2 cup whipping cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 tablespoon powdered sugar. Whip 1 1/2 cups cream, adding mint exctract, coloring and sugar. Spread 1/4 inch between chocolate wafers, standing them on edge to make a roll. Return to chocolate wafer tin or cover roll with waxed paper and place in refrigerator for five to six hours or overnights. When ready to serve, cover roll with 1/2 cup cream, whipped, to which vanilla and sugar have been added. Pipe outside of roll with colored mint whipped cream. Slice diagonally to show rows of green and brown. Serves 8 to 10. All measurements standard." ---"Try Chocolate-mint Icebook Cake Soon," Mildred Kitchen, San Antonio Light [TX], April 5, 1935 (p. 32) [1937]

"Chocolate Refrigerator Cake

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

1 1/3 cups sweetened condensed milk

1 egg, separated

1/3 cup chopped preserved ginger

2 tablespoons ginger syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Ladyfingers, split

Heavy cream, whipped

Melt chocolate in top part of double boiler, stir in condensed milk and cook until thickened. Stir 2 tablespoons chocolate mixture into beaten egg yolk; then add to remaining chocolate in double boiler and cook 3 minutes longer; cool. Stir in ginger, ginger syrup and vanilla and fold into stiffly beaten egg white. Line bottom and sides of mold or loaf pan with waxed paper, then with ladyfingers, round side out. Fill center with chocolate mixture, and if a loaf pan is used, arrange additional ladyfingers and chocolate mixture over top. Chill in refrigerator at least 4 hours. Unmold, slice and serve with slightly sweetened whipped cream. Approximate yield: 4 to 6 portions."

---America's Cook Book, Compiled by the Home Institute of The New York Herald Tribune [Charles Scribner's Sons:New York] 1937 (p. 710) [1944]

"Chocolate Refrigerator Cake

(For a Party)

1 7 oz pkg. Semi-sweet chocolate

2 tablesp. Granulated sugar

3 tablesp. Cold water

3 eggs, separated

1 c. Heavy cream, whipped

1 teasp. Vanilla extract

1/2 teasp. Peppermint extract (optional)

18 lady fingers, split

Melt chocolate in top of double boiler. Add sugar and water, and mix well. Remove from heat. Stir gradually into egg yolks, and beat smooth with a spoon. Cool. Meat the egg whites stiff, and fold into the cooled chocolate mixture. Fold in the whipped cream and extracts. Arrange some of the lady fingers on the bottom of a loaf pan 10" X 5" X 3", and pour in some of the chocolate and whipped cream mixture. Then alternate layers of lady fingers with the chocolate mixture until the loaf pan is full and all lady fingers and chocolate mixture have been used, having lady fingers on top. Chill in refrigerator for 24 hrs., and serve with or without whipped cream. Serves 12."

---Good Housekeeping Cook Book, Completely Revised 7th Edition [Farrar & Rinehart:New York] 1944 (p. 653)

Japanese Fruit Cake

Popular southern enriched spice layer cake with coconut filling and/or icing, likely descended from 19th century southern-style White Fruitcake. An iced fruitcake promoted by a Kate Brew Vaughn, a popular cookbook author (no coconut).

STANDARD STORIES

"Japanese Fruitcake is an exotically named, typically Southern dessert cake, especially popular in the twentieth century. This same cake was once called Oriental cake, but there is nothing of the Far East about it, except the spices, none of which is Japanese in origin. Like Lane Cake and Lady Baltimore, Japanese Fruitcake is one of the Edwardian dessert extravaganzas with its rich fruit and nut fillings hidden under mounds of fluffy white icing."

---Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie, Bill Neal [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1990 (p. 295)

"Japanese Fruitcake. This marvelous cake was my mother's favorite...While the name is somewhat mysterious (with no Japanese ingredients), the cake is a descendent of the traditional English pound cake and, of course, the giant colonial-era fruitcakes that were the rage through the South."

---Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread & Scuppernong Wine: The Folklore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking, Joseph E. Dabney [Cumberland House:Nashville TN] 1998 (p. 420)

"Japanese Fruitcake. This beloved Southern fruitcake bears little resemblance to the traditional fruitcake. It begins with a yellow cake, the batter is divided, then two-thirds of it is enriched with raisins and spices. I've never encountered Japanese Fruitcake outside the South, in fact rarely out of the Carolinas. And then mostly at Christmastime in the homes of friends. Nor have I ever heard any explanation of its unusual name; certainly there is nothing Japanese about Japanese Fruitcake...While I can't prove it, I feel certain Japanese Fruitcake belongs to the twentieth century. I have rarely seen recipes for it beyond community fund-raiser cookbooks and in these only from the '30s onward."

---American Century Cook Book, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 430) [NOTE: this book contains a recipe from Sunset [magazine] 1990.

KATE BREW VAUGHN'S JAPANESE FRUIT CAKE, circa 1913

The earliest print reference we find to a recipe titled Japanese Fruit Cake is from 1913. It is one of many in the popular culinary repertoire of Kate Brew Vaughn, a travelling home economics specialist, cookbook author, and cooking class demonstrator. She was a native of Nashville, TN. This snippets explain the Japanese connection: "Mrs. Vaughn is going to tell News readers who attend her lecture-demonstrations about a very wonderful cake, the recipe of which was given to her by a former Japanese chef who for years prepared food for the laste Mikado. This cake, which Mrs. Vaughn will bake for Galveston women, has that characteristic charm of the Flowery Kingdom about it. It is rich in fruits and spices. Mrs. Vaughn is going to hold this recipe as a surprise. You will hear more about the famous 'mikado cake' later."---"Mrs. Vaughn to Lecture for News," Galveston Daily News, March 12, 1913 (p. 14) "The final lesson was a fitting climax to the week. Mrs. Vaughn demonstrated the making of her famous Japanese fruit cake. The recipe of this she does not allow to be published but she freely gave it to all present yesterday and also show them how to secure the best results."---"Mrs. Vaughn Ends Cooking Classes Here," San Antonio Light, April 13, 1913 (p. 6) Mrs. Vaughn's recipe appears below. Note: it does not contain coconut.

[1914]

"Mikado Cake (Japanese Fruit Cake)

2 c sugar (sifted)

1 c butter

8 whole eggs

4 c flour

4 t Royal Baking Powder

1 t salt

1 t cinnamon

1 t mace

1 t nutmeg

1 t allspice

1 lb chopped nuts

1 t each orange, vanilla, almond, pistachio, redcherd [sic] extracts

1/2 c rich cream

3/4 c. Tokay wine

1/4 c apricot cordial

1 c strawberry preserves

1 lb crystallized ginger

1/2 lb crystallized cherries

1/2 lb crystallized pineapple

1/4 lb crystallized apricots

1/4 lb crystallized angelique

1/4 lb crystallized limes

1/4 lb crystallized kumquats

Sift dry ingredients cream butter and sugar, add yolks, add preserves. Chop fruits and pour wine and cordial over night before; alternate dry ingredients and fruit, last nuts, fold in beaten whites. Start in hot oven and when the cake is set so fruit will not sink to bottom, reduce heat bake from 1 3/4 to 2 hours. Spread with golden icing flavored with wine and put on top marshmallow icing."

---Culinary Echoes from Dixie, Kate Brew Vaughn [McDonald Press:Cincinnati OH] 1914 (p. 203) COMPARE THIS WHITE FRUIT CAKE WITH THE JAPANESE VERSIONS BELOW [1879]

"White Fruit Cake [superior, tried recipe]

1 pound white sugar

1 pound flour

1/2 pound butter

Whites of 12 eggs

2 pounds citron, cut in thin, long strips

2 pounds almonds, blanched and cut in strips

1 large cocoanut, grated.

Before the flour is sifted, add to it one teaspoonful of soda, two teaspoonfuls cream tartar. Cream the butter as you do for pound cake, add the sugar, and beat it awhile, then add the whites of eggs, and flour; and after beating the batter sufficiently, add about one-third of the fruit, reserving the rest to add in layers, as you put the batter in the cake-mould. Bake slowly and carefully, as you do other fruit cake.--Mrs. W."

---Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Marion Cabell Tyree [John P. Morton and Company:Louisville, KY] 1879 (p. 314) [1926]

"Japanese Fruit Cake

Recipe contributed br Mrs. Geo. W. Ranking, Los Angeles

3 cups Globe "A1" Flour

1 cup butter or substitute

2 cups butter

4 eggs

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1 cup milk

1 cup seeded raisins

1 cup chopped nuts

1/4 teaspoon grated cloves

1/4 teaspn. ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspn. grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspn. vanilla extract

For Filling

1 cup grated cocoanut

1/3 cup lemon juice

2 cups cold water

1/4 teaspoons salt

2 cups sugar

7 tablespoons cornstarch rounded

Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs well beaten. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together three times and add alternately with the milk. Divide into two parts. To one portion add nuts and vanilla; to the other add raisins, chopped fine and spices. Bake in four layers in moderate oven about 30 minutes. Put together with cocoanut filling made by cooking all the filling ingredients together in double boiler 45 minutes."

---display ad, Globe A1 Flour, Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1926 (p. L32) [1930]

"White Fruit Cake.

One pound butter and one pound powdered sugar creamed together. Add beaten yolks of twelve eggs, one pound sifted flour with two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. Mix together one cocoanut grated, one-half pound almonds blanched and sliced, one-half pound citron sliced very thin and the stiffly beaten whites of twelve eggs. Mix this with the flour mixture and bake two hours. Ice with cocoanut icing."

---Old Southern Receipts, Mary D. Pretlow [Robert M. McBride & Company:New York] 1930 (p. 104) [1941]

"Japanese Fruit Cake

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

3 1/4 cups flour

1 scant cup water or milk

4 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

Make as any cake. Divide batter into two parts. Into one part put 1 teaspoon each of cinnamon and allspice, 1/2 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 pound of raisins, chopped fine. Bake in two layers. Bake the white part into two layers. Filling

Juice of 2 lemons

Grated rind of 1 lemon

1 good-sized cocoanut, grated

2 cups sugar

1 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons corn starch

Put all together into saucepan, except corn starch. When the mixture begins to boil, add the cornstarch dissolved in half cup of cold water; continue to cook, stirring constantly until the mixture drops in a lump from the spoon. Cool and spread between the layers. Cover top with a white icing."

---Southern Cooking, Mrs. S.R. Dull [Grosset & Dunlap:New York] 1941 [NOTE: This book also contains a recipe for "Mrs. D's Japanese Cake," a similar product except the filling uses oranges instead of lemons and does not contain the cup of water or corn starch.]

Italian cream cake

The earliest print reference we find for Italian Cream Cake in North American newspapers is 1913. We have no clue what the actual recipe/dish was like. In 1937 we find an actual recipe. It's a far cry from what you find today on the Internet.

[1913]

"Italian Cream Cake, tea or coffee, 20 cents."

---"Tea Room Dainties," Lethbridge Herald [Alberta Canada] May 8, 1913 (p. 9)[NO recipe.} [1925]

"Italian Cream Cake."

---"Taits restaurant menu," Oakland Tribune [CA], December 7, 1925 (p. 13) [NO recipe.] [1937]

"Italian Cream Cake

6 eggs beaten thick and light. Add gradually 2 cups sugar, 4 t lemon juice. Continue beating. Sift and measure 2 cups Snow Queen Flour, 2 t KC baking powder, add to mixture and beat again. Then add 12 T boiling milk, 1 t lemon extract. Bake in an angel cake pan. When cold cut into layers, fill with cream filling and decorate with whipping cream." ---Plano News [TX] September 30, 1937 (p. 7)

[NOTE: t=teaspoon; T=Tablespoon] [1954]

"American cooks who like to serve Italian-style suppers will be interested in the quickly made cream-cake. Ever taste Zuppa Inglese --that Italian sweet with its layers of rum-soaked sponge cake, custard filling and topping of whipped cream and candied fruit? This is a relative of Zuppa Inglese; in typical American fashion it substitutes a special lemon syrup for the rum flavoring and uses an instant pudding mix for the custard filling. Italian-style coffee, for dishes for demitasse, is fine to serve with this cream cake. Italian coffeemakers macchinettas --are widely available; but if you haven't one use the Italian double-roast type of coffee in an ordinary coffeemaker.

"Italian Cream Cake

Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups sugar, 3/4 cup boiling water, 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 1/2 teaspoons aromatic bitter,s 1/2 package vanilla instant pudding mix, 1 cup milk, two 8- or 9-inch sponge-cake layers, 1 cup heavy cream (whipped), sliced citron, candied cherries. Method: Mix sugar and boiling water; stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Cover and boil 1 minute. Uncover and boil 5 minutes without stirring. Add lemon rind, lemon juice and bitters; cool. Add instant pudding to milk; mix according to package directions; chill. When ready to serve, place a sponge-cake layer on serving dish. Drench with lemon syrup. Spread with vanilla pudding mixture. Cover with second sponge-cake layer. Sprinkle lightly with lemon syrup and top with whipped cream. Any remaining syrup may be passed with the dessert or stored in the refrigerator for later use. Garnish with slices of citron and candied cherries."

---"Top Off Italian-Style Supper," The Corsicana Daily News [TX], November 25, 1954 (p. 6) [1977]

"Italian Cream Cake

Ingredients:

1 stick oleo equal to one-half cup

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

2 cups sugar

5 egg yolks

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 small can coconut

1 cup chopped nuts

5 egg whites, beaten stiffly

Frosting ingredients:

1/2 cup soft oleo

1 box confectioner's sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions for cake: Cream the shortening, oleo and sugar. Beat well. Add the egg yokes. Add the dry ingredients with the buttermilk. Mix well. Add the vanilla, coconut and the nuts. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour this mixture into the cake pans. Bake in 350 degree oven for 25 minutes. It may take longer for the larger pan. Directions for the frosting: Cream the oleo and cream cheese until soft. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until creamy and smooth. Spread on cake."

---"Italian Cream Cake," North Hills Now [Warrendale PA] February 19-20 (p. 7)

Kolache

ABOUT KOLACHE

"Kolachy, kolache. A sweet flaky pastry usually made with a cream cheese and butter dough, occasionally with a yeast-risen dough. Kolachys have several traditional fillings, including poppy seed, cream cheese, jam, nuts, and berries or other chopped fresh fruit...Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia."

---International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries, and Confections, Carole Bloom [Hearst Books:New York] 1995 (p. 163)

"The oldest ritual leavened loaf which came into being soon after the Slavs embraced Christianity is shaped in a round, ring or like a cart and is called kolach in Bulgarian and Macedonian or kolac in Serbo-Croat and Slovenian, from the old Slavonic word for wheel, kolo. The term has been disseminated far beyond the Slavic languages; it has becom kulac or kullac in Albanian, kakacs in Hungarian, extended further to mean all types of breads, cakes and yeast cakes. Leavened bread, made from the finest flour, is used by the Orthodox Church for communion."

---The Melting Pot: Balkan Food and Cookery, Jaria Kaneva-Johnson [Prospect Books:Devon] 1999 (p. 231)

"With the records written in Latin, traces of everyday life buried in medieval kitchen refuse, and no extant cookery books from the [Medieval] period written in Polish or even claiming to be Polish, how do we arrive at the Polish table with a firm sense of cultural identity? Surely medieval Poles understood who they were and readily recognized certain foods as peculiarly their own. But perhaps this identity was also an evolving one, just as the Polish language itself was evolving at the time. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Polish was heavily influenced by Czech, from which it borrowed many words and concepts. Was food likewise influenced by this same flow of ideas? The appearance in Polish of the Czech terms like kolace (from Latin collatio) would suggest this."

---Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscoveirng a Cuisine of the Past, Maria Dembinska, revised and adapted by William Woys Weaver, translated by Magdalena Thomas [University of Pennsylvania Press:Philadelphia] 1999 (p. 9)

"The Polish term for flat cakes, plaki, derives from the Latin placenta (cake) and covers a variety of forms without conveying a fixed meaning other than flat shape...Special recipes were prepared for Good Friday in waver irons...They were unleavened and generally eaten on fast days. Special recipes were prepared for Good Friday and stamped with appropriate religious symbols. There were also flat cakes baked with apples, evidently something akin to an apple pizza, and related in for to the kolace of Moravia."

---ibid (p. 117)

ABOUT KOLACHE IN AMERICA

"Kolache. Also "kolach" and "kolacky." A sweet pastry bun filled with cheese, poppyseeds, sausage, or, more commonly, jam or fruits like cherry, apricot, peach, pineapple, or prune, first mentioned in print in Willa Cather's novel My Antonia (1919). It is of Czechoslovak origins (the Czech word is kolace) and, as "kolacky," entered print about 1915. Kolaches are most popular in West Texas, where Czech immigrants settled in 1852."

---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 177)

[NOTE: Recommended reading: Cather's Kitchens: Foodways in Literature and Life, Roger L. and Linda K. Welsch. Sorry, no authentic Cather recipe. "We found no recipes for kolaches in the Cather files, but that isn't surprising: they were a part of the Czech kitchens she visited and described rather than those in which she grew up." (p. 82)]

ABOUT TEXAS-STYLE KOLACHE

If you want to hook in the local angle (is this if a history/sociology class?) you might want to include some background on Czech immigration. Czechs in Texas

"Between 1850 and 1920 thousands of Czechs left their homes in Moravia and Bohemia to come to Texas in search of a better life. Todat you can visit towns like Fayetteville, Praha and Hallettsville where the Czech language is in everyday use...The Czechs who settled in Texas in the middle and late 19th century were known mainly for two things. First, wherever they settled they worked hard and became useful, productive citizens. Second, the Czechs, or Bohemians as they were known, knew how to celebrate...In the 1880s pratically all Czech Texans libed in rural areas. Almost all were farmers who settled in a geographic triangle bound by Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. Some others made their homes in the lower Gulf coast and the Texas panhandle...Czech Texans continnue to celebrate weddings with a magnificent feast...Czech sausage, colaches, potatoes and other traditional favorites are still served...Today a typical menus might include soup, baked pork loin, sauerkraut, boiled potatoes and kolaches for dessert."

---The Melting Pot: Ethnic Cuisine in Texas, Institute of Texas Cultures [University of Texas at San Antonio:San Antonio] 1977 (p. 37-8)

Kolache is also quite popular in Nebraska. Sample pioneer-era recipe:

"Kolaches

Scald one pint of milk, let cool to lukewarm. Dissove one and one-half cakes compressed yeast in one-fourth cup lukewarm water to which one teaspooon of sugar has been added. Let rise while milk cools. Add dissolved yeast to cooled milk and make a sponge. Let rise until light. Cream together one cup sugar one one cup butter. Add three egg yolks and two whole eggs, well beaten, and two teaspoons salt. Add to the sponge and mix well. Stir in nour enough to handle well. Let rise until light and roll out to one-half inch thickness. Cut with a biscuit cutter. Make a depression in the center and fill. Let rise and bake in a quick oven. Any of the following fillings can be used:

Fruit filling: Mash stewed prunes. Add sugar and cinnamon to taste, and sprinkle with coconut or chopped nuts. Apricots, peaches, apples, or any canned fruit may also be used.

Poppy seed filling: bring poppy seed and boil it in just enough water to keep moist. Then add sugar, cinnamon, and maple syurup to taste; raisins; and three or four gingersnaps, ground.

Cottage cheese filling: Combine grated rind of lemon, one-half cup sugar, one tablespoon cream, two egg yolks, and one pint of dry cottage cheese."

---Nebraska Pioneer Cookbook, Compiled by Kay Graber [University of Nebraska Press:Lincoln NE] 1974 (p. 86-7)

Related food? Danish & Kuchen

Kuchen

Apfelkuchen in a German word that literally translates into "apple cake." There are dozens of variations on this simple theme ranging from apple chunks in basic dough to complicated compotes encased in batter cakes. While the title of this particular cake is German, the recipe is also known in other European countries. The central core is generally this: apfelkuchen is a simple recipe, one enjoyed by the 'average' person. Streusel topping is traditional.

Recipes for kuchen of all types were introduced to America by settlers of Northern European descent. Most notably are the Germans, who settled here in great numbers.

"Kuchen can usually be translated as cake (large or of biscuit size)...Although Kuchen often refers to something less fancy than a Torte, one of the most famous Kuchen is very fancy indeed. This is the Baumkuchen...Streuselkuchen (crumble cake) can be a plain rubbed-in cake..with cinnamon-flavoured crumble topping. A more elaborate version, called Apfelstreuselkuchen, has a layer of apple...pure between two layers of crumble."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 802-3)

"Kuchen. The German word for cake or pastry. Kuchen is a cake or pastry made with a sweetened yeast-risen dough that is either topped with a mixture of sugar and spices or nuts or filled with fruit or cheese before baking. Kuchen is the classic coffee cake and is served for both breakfast and dessert."

---The International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries, and Confections, Carole Bloom [Hearst:New York] 1995 (p.167)

"Kuchen, any of several varieties of coffee cake, were the pride of every nineteenth-century immigrant German baker, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Each cook or housewife had a yeast-based "kuchen" dough, which she would shape into rectangular crusts and top with either fruit or cheese, or she would twist with cinnamon and nuts into a streusel or coffee cake, or roll up jelly-roll style in to Schenecken...By the end of the century, baking powder came into use and replaced yeast in many kuchen. Quick breads and cakes gradually replaced the slower yeast-raised doughs. In May 1906, the Ladies' Home Journal ran an article on kuchen by Lola D. Wangner. "There seems to be a steadily-growing fondness among us for the German coffee-cakes or kuchen...They are to be found on many of our breakfast-tables on Sunday morning. These cakes are peculiar to Germany, every part of the Fatherland having its own methods of making them, and there are more than one hundred recipes."

---Jewish Cooking in America, Joan Nathan [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1998 (p. 308)

HISTORIC RECIPES

[1884] Dutch Apple Cake

[1889] Apple Cake (Kuchen)

[1919] Apple Cake (Kuchen)

Related food? Coffeecake (scroll down for notes on crumble & streusel), Kolache & Danish

Tortes

What is torte?

"Torte. The German word for cake. Tortes are usually made with flour, sugar, eggs, and gutter, but often ground nuts or bread crumbs are substituted for some or all of the flour. Tortes have a moist quality that keeps them fresh for several days. A torte may be either a multilayered cake or a dense-textured single-layer cake...Tortes originated in Central Europe."

---International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries and Confections, Carole Bloom [Hearst Books:New York] 1995 (p. 304)

"Torte is a German word which corresponds fairly closely to gateau. Its sister-word, Kuchen, can usually be translated as cake (large or of biscuit size); but in this case the connection see also quiche, by derived term. Torte appears in the title of many celebrated Central European confections, including sachertorte."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 802)

"Nineteenth-century Danubian nations...created the riches and creamiest layer cakes, or torten in Europe. Vienna was the undisputed capital of the confectioner's art."

---Horizon Cookbook and Illustrated History of Eating and Drinking Through the Ages, William Harlan Hale [American Heritage:New York] 1968 (p. 662)

About sponge. Desserts composed of layers of sponge and cream were known in the 16th century. About English trifle.

About Dobos torte "Dobostorte, named after Dobos, a famous Hungarian chef who created it in 1887, is made by building up five or more thick circles of savoy sponge sandwiched with layers of a creamed filling, often flavoured with chocolate. The top layer of cake is covered with a layer of sugar caramel, marked into portions."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 802) "Jozsef C. Dobos, born 1847, was pround of the fact that an ancestor on his father's side was the chef of Count Rakoczi. Toward the end of his life he opened a fabulous food specialty shop in Budapest, where he stocked over sixty different cheeses and twenty-two kinds of champagne and managed to import every rare seasonal delicacy imaginable. Famous far and wide was his showmanship, whether it was a machine of his own invention that projected a clock face on the sidewalk, or his stunt of hollowing out a fifty-kilo cheese, pouring in a magnum of the finest burgundy, leaving it in the shop window until the wine had completely soaked into the cheese, then selling pieces to the passionate epicures who flocked to buy from him. It was in this shop that he created and sold his famous Dobos torta in 1887. He had devised a packaging for sending this delicacy to foreign countries. Soon everybody started to imitate this cake, mostly with very bad results. This prompted him to publish the authentic recipe in 1906, donating it to the Budapest Pastry and Honey-bread Makers Guild. The sensation of the Millennium Exposition in 1896 was the Dobos Pavilion, where guess what was baked and served! One of the four major works he published is his Hungarian-French Cookbook. It sands as a classic. The world remembers thte anniversaries of battles and birthdays of great composers--what what city other than Budapest would stage a full-scale festival to commemorate the seventy-fifth birthday of a torte? In 1962, Dobos torta had this unique honor when the Hungarian Chefs' and Pastry Chefs' Association placed a wreath on Dobos' grave to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the creation of the Dobos Tortae. After this, in the Hungaria Cafe-Restaurant, they held a banquet, reproducing one of his great dinners; and for two days the Vorosmarty Pastry Shop sold only cakes and tortes of his creation. His grandson was presented with a heart made of traditional honey bread, and a six-foot-diameter Dobos torta was paraded by pastry chefs through the avenues of Budapest. Dobos died in 1924."

---The Cuisine of Hungary, George Lang [Atheneum:New York] 1982 (p. 61-3) [NOTE: This book contains a modernized recipe for Dobos Torte.] Related dessert? Smith Island Cake. About Linzertortes

Jindrak, an Austrian company famous for its linzertortes, traces this recipe back to 1696. It attributes this tasty flaky pasty and fruit recipe to a 300 year old cookery book [author/title not cited]. "Nineteenth-century Danubian nations...created the riches and creamiest layer cakes, or torten in Europe. Vienna was the undisputed capital of the confectioner's art...The Linzertorte, whose descent is obscure, could well be the contribution of Linz, the capital of upper Austria which like Vienna and Budapest is located on the banks of the Danube."

---Horizon Cookbook and Ilustrated History of Eating and Drinking through the Ages, William Harlan Hale [American Heritage:New York] 1968 (p. 662) "Another well-known Austrian pastry, the Linzertorte, takes is name from the medieval city of Linz, which, like Vienna, stands beside the Danube and prospered as a trading center. The Linzertorte itself is a raspberry-filled delight that has become increasingly popular here in the United States. It has inspired miniature Linzer Tarts, and, more recently, Linzer Hearts, filled cookies that allow just a bit of raspberry jam to peek through a heart-shaped opening in the center..."

---Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens [Ohio University Press:Athens] 1998 (p. 241-242): American Heritage [magazine] June 1965 attributes the introduction of Linzertortes to America to Franz Holzlhuber:

"In 1856 Holzlhuber, an enterprising young Austrian from the vicinity of Linz, started for America. He had very little money but was equipped with a zither, a sketchbook, some education in the law and in draftsmanship, and the promise of employment in Milwaukee as conductor of an orchestra. Somewhere between New York and Wisconsin, he lost both his luggage and the letter confirming his job, which, it turned out, was no longer available. Nothing daunted, he went to work as a baker-introducing (so he said) the Linzer Torte to America..." [1931]

"Linzer Tart

Time required, 1 1/2 hours

Tender Batter

3 1/2 oz. flour

7 oz. butter

3 1/2 oz. sugar

2 oz. powdered cloves

7 oz. almonds

2 egg yolks

cinnamon

sugar to strew over tart

flowr for tart form

3 1/2 oz. currant jam

white of one egg for brushing

Rub butter with flour and add the peeled and grated almonds, sugar, the powdered cloves, cinnamon, and egg yolks and knead the whole to a good dough. Roll out to about 1/4 of an inch, save a small piece, and put on a floured tart form. Spread currant jam over the top. From the dough reserved, shape a small rim round the tart and cover it with latticed strips of pastry. Brush with the white of an egg and bake for about one hour. Sprrinkle with sugar."

---Two Hundred Famous Viennese Recipes, selected by Madame Melanie Reichelt [Wm. Filene's Sons Company:Boston] 1931 (p. 26) About Sachertorte

Classic folklore surrounding the origin of the Sachertorte here: "Sacher torte. A famous Austrian cake served on festive occasions in German-speaking countries. It is a rich chocolate sponge cake glazed in apricot, and spiced with bittersweet chocolate. It was first produced in 1832 by Franz Sacher, chef to Prince von Metternich, and is reputedly the only cake in the world that was ever the subject of a court case."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 679) [NOTE: This book contains a brief description of the case. It also refers to another book, Festive Baking in Austria, German and Switzerland by Sarah Kelly.] "Sachertorte. A famous Viennese gateau, created at the Congress of Vienna (1814-5) by Franz Sacher, Metternich's chief pastrycook. Sachertorte (literally, Sacher's cake')...For years, Vienna was divided into two camps by the sachertorte controversy. The supporters of the sachertorte as it was served at the Sacher Hotel--two layers separated by jam, the top being iced--were led by the descendants of Franz Sacher, who regarded their version as the only authentic one. On the other side were the customers of the famous Demel patissiere, who based their claim on the rights acquired by Eduard Demel from Sacher's grandson, who authorized the so-called "true" recipe (the cake is simply spread with jam, then covered with icing), as published in Die Wiener Konditore by Hans Skrach. The Sacher Hotel finally won the court case that fascinated Vienna for six years. Demel replied by claiming that his was the Ur Sachertorte (the original cake)."

---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 1010) "The best known of all tortes is the Sachertorte, named for Franz Sacher, chef to Prince Metternich (1773-1859), for whom he created it in 1832. It was one of the earliest chocolate cakes, made apparently only to please a demanding and somewhat iracible nobleman who was always requesting new desserts. For Metternich by this time was an old man, no longer the dashing, youthful price who had dazzled all of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815. But the city has always stood for grandeur and the Sachertorte has become almost a symbol of Vienna and its talent for good living. Eduard Sacher, grandzon of Franz, allowed the recipe to be publsihed and also gave a famous Viennese pastry shop, Demel's, the right to call their version the Genuine Sachertorte. Inevitably, Demel's rivals protested. The Hotel Sacher, run by a distant cousin, sued, and much to the amusement of the Viennese, it took the courts seven years to decide in favor of the hotel. The only difference between the two versions was one extra layer of apricot jam, and not all of Vienna's chefs agreed with the courts."

---Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens [Ohio University Press:Athens OH] 1998 (p. 239) "To appreciate [the Sachertorte] thoroughly, you must put it in its context. It was created in 1832 at the request of Prince Mtternich... Compared with the elaborate architectural cakes of the period, it struck people as marvelously new and simple. Later, about 1870, the Hotel Sacher was built in the Philharmonikerstrasse. It soon became Vienna's most distinguished hotel; it still is. Around 1912 the hotel's most celebrated manager, cigar-smoking Anna Sacher, gave the recipe for the delicious chocolate torte to Olga and Adolph Hess for their Viennese cookbook. The later became Austria's equivalent of the Fannie Farmer anthology. Using the Hess recipe, Mrs. Ruth P Cass-Emellos, the New York Times' home economist, developed the adaptation appearing on these pages today...Demel's is a pastry shop in the Kohlmarkt at No. 14, dating form 1813 and generally considered to be the best in Vienna. In 1934, Demel's concluded a contract with Eduard Sacher, Frau Anna's only son, whereby it gained the right to serve the "original Sachertorte." (many other Austrian restaurants and pastry shops now serve the cake also, it should be noted.)"

---"The Legendary Cakes of Vienna," Jane Nickerson, New York Times, September 16, 1956 (p. SM27) [1931]

"Real Sacher Cake

Ten servings. Time required, 1 1/2 hours.

5 oz. butter

5 oz. sugar

6 egg yolks

5 oz. chocolate

5 oz. flour

6 whites of eggs

Beat butter until very creamy, add egg yolks, nearly melted chocolate, sugar, the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and lastly the flour. Bake in greased cake mould in moderate oven. When cooled, put a very little apricot jam over the top and glaze with chocolate."

---Two Hundred Famous Viennese Recipes, selected by Madame Melanie Reichelt [Wm. Filene's Sons Company:Boston] 1931 (p. 18) [1952]

"Sacher Cake (Sachertorte)

This is the original recipe, obtained through the courtesy of Mrs. Anna Sacher. 3/4 cup butter

6 1/2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

3/4 cup sugar

8 egg yolks

1 cup flour

10 egg whites, stiffly beaten

2 tbls. apricot jam

icing:

1 cup sugar 1/3 cup water

7 oz. semi-sweet chocolate Beat butter until creamy. Melt chocolate. Add sugar and chocolate to butter; stir. Add egg yolks one at a time. Add flour. Fold in egg whites. Grease and butter 8-9" cake tin. Pour mixture in. Bake in 275 degree F. oven about 1 hour. Test with toothpick or straw. Remove to board; cool. Cut top off and turn bottom up. Heat apricot jam slightly and spread over top. Cover with chocolate icing, prepared as follows: Cook sugar and water to thin thread.

Melt chocolate in top of double boiler.

Add sugar graudlly to chocolate.

Stir constantly until icing coats the spoon.

Pour on top of cake

Note: If desired, split cake into 2 or 3 layers. Fill with apricot jam or whipped cream."

---Viennese Cooking, O. & A. Hess, adapted for American use [Crown Publishing:New York] 1952 (p. 229) About tortes (torten). Red Velvet Cake

Baking is both art and science. "Red" cakes may be achieved several ways, including chemical reaction, natural coloring (crushed red fruit--cherries, strawberries, raspberries or red vegetables--beets) and artificial chemical colorants. Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen confirms this "red" chemical reaction occurs when combining alkaline (baking soda/powder) with acid (cocoa, buttermilk, vinegar). "Chemical leavenings have...effects on both flavor and color...Colors are...affected conditions: browning reactions are enhanced, chocolate turns reddish, and blueberries turn green." (p. 534). Red Devil Cakes first surface in the 1930s. Chocolate Beet Cakes graced our tables in the mid-1950s. The earliest recipe we found titled "Red Velvet Cake" was published in 1960. Earlier recipes (Red Velvet Devil Cake, 1951) are not the same. While some people hypothesize the color of this recipe was inspired by tomato soup cakes, our survey of historic does not bear this out. The color in Red Velvet cake is achieved by chemical reaction (soda=alkaline;vinegar=acid) AND the addition of red food dye. Someone, somewhere, apparently decided old-fashioned "red" was not "red" enough. Red Velvet cake was popularized by the Waldorf-Astoria recipe legend and as Armadillo Cake in the movie Steel Magnolias. Coincidentally? The earliest recipe we've identified to date was published in Texas. Armadillo is the official small mammal of Texas. Our survey of historic newspapers confirms this recipe spread like wildfire all over the country the summer of 1960. [1960] "Red Velvet Cake

2 ounces of red food coloring

3 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 cup shortening

2 beaten eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 beaten eggs

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/4 cups cake flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon soda

1 tablespoon vinegar

Mix food coloring with cocoa and set aside. Cream shortening and sugar, add beaten egg, then cocoa-coloring mix. Beat well. Sift flour and salt three times, and along with buttermilk. Add vanilla and beat well again. Remove from mixer and add mixture of vinegar and soda to batter. Mix by hand until blended. Bake in two nine inch pans, greased but not floured, at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Cool, then ice. Icing

1 stick soft butter

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons flour

2/3 cup sweet milk (at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter and shortening with sugar. Add flour, 1 tablespoonful at a time, add sweet milk and vanilla. Beat a long time with mixer until icing is light and fluffy. When cake is frosted, sprinkle with coconut. This cake has a fine flavor and good keeping qualities-- if there's any left to keep. It's best kept in a cool place during the summer. The icing is as light as whipped cream."

---"Recipe of the Week," Mrs. Cagle's Red Velvet Cake," Denton Record-Chronicle [TX], June 16, 1960 (p. 12)

[NOTE: there is no bio note provided for Mrs. Cagle.] "Any time you see a recipe making the rouds among people whom you consider good cooks, you can be pretty sure it is extra good...ran across one the other day which is a favorite of Gladys Stroop and she got it from Dorothy Waggerle...they refer to it simply as red velvet cake...I pan to try it just as soon as quail season sets in, but you want to make a stab at it now, here's the recipe...

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 egs

1/4 cup red food coloring

1 cup buttermilk plus 2 tablespoons (buttermilk)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon soda

Cream shortening and sugar and eggs. Make a paste of coloring and cocoa; add to creamed micture. Add buttermilk alternately with flour. Add soda to vinegar and add to mixture. Bake 350 degrees 24 to 30 minutes in two 8-inch pans...Now the frosting...

2 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups butter

1 1/2 cups sugar 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cook flour and milk until thick, stirring constantly. Cool well. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until very fluffy; add first mixture and mix well consistency of whipped cream."

---"All Around Town," Bette Thompson, Amarillo Globe-Times [TX], June 27, 1960 (p. 16) [1962]

"Red Velvet cake with Ermine Icing sounds like a luxurious suggestion for a Valentine's Day celebration. This must be a favorite cake recipe among Exchange readers, judging by the numbers of copies sent to answer a recent request... Red Velvet Cake.

Ingredients: 1/2 cup shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons cocoa, 2 ounces red food coloring (four 1/4 ounce bottles), 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 cup buttermilk, 2 1/2 cups cake flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons soda, 1 tablespoon vinegar. Cream together the shortening, sugar and eggs. Make a paste with cocoa and food coloring add to creamed mixture. Mix salt and vanilla with buttermilk and add alternately to creamed mixture, alternating with the flour. Mix soda and vinegar and fold into mixture. Do NOT beat. Bake in two 9-inch layer pans for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. The batter is mixed in the same way as any other cake batter, to the point at which the soda and vinegar mixture is added. This is folded in thoroughly.

Ermine Icing.

Ingredients: 5 tablespoons flour, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 cup milk, 1 cup granulated suagr, 1 cup butter or margarine. Cook flour and milk until thick, stirring constantly. Let cool and be sure this mixture becomes cold. Next, beat in the sugar, butter and vanilla. Beat until icing is of spreading consistency. I should be creamy."

---"And Now It's Red Cake!," Reader Exchange, Washington Post, January 28, 1962 (p. F23) [1968]

"These chocolate cakes have unusual twists. Food coloring is repsonsible for the rich red color of an often-requested chocolate cake...

Red Velvet Cake

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1-oz. bottle red food color

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. soda

2 tbsp. cocoa

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vinegar

Cream together shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Beat in vanilla nd food coloring. Sift together flour, salt, soda and cocoa. Add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk and vinegar, mixing well after each addition. Turn batter into 2 greased and floured 9-in. layer pans. Bake at 350 deg. 30 min. or until cake springs back when touched lightly. Cool slightly, then remove from pans to cool on cake racks. Split cooled layers, if wanted. Fill and frost with desired icing."

---"Chocolate Cake With Unusual Twists," Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1968 (p. I20) [1977]

"There is no accounting for the odyssey that some recipe take in traveling from one section of this country to the other. When we printed an old recipe for red velvet cake recently ["Red Devils Cake," Q&A, NYT, March 30, 1977 p. 52], we received numerious replies from readers stating that their recipe was the more accurate. Although the cooking instructions varied in some of them, the ingredients in several were the same. Carolyn A. Knutsen of Kings Point, L.I., was one who wrote, and she noted that hers was, she believed, 'an old Southern standard cake,' one she had obtained from her family in Alabama. She embellishes her cake with a fillign that some other recipes did not include. Red Velvet Cake

The Cake:

1/2 cup white shortening

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 egg

2 to 4 tablespoons cocoa

1/4 cup red food coloring (see note)

1 teaspoon salt

1 buttermilk

2 1/2 cups sifted flour

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

The Filling:

8 tablespoons butter

1 cup sugar

8 egg yolks

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

2 tablespoons bourbon or rum

1 cup raisins 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together the shortening and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat one minute on medium speed.

3. Blend the cooca and red food coloring (the amount of coloring may be reduced but the cake will not have its traditional vivid red color) and make a paste. Add this and the salt to the creamed mixture. Blend the vanilla and buttermilk. Alternately add this and the flour to the creamed mixture, beating constantly. Blend the vinegar and soda and beat this in.

4. Meanwhile, butter and flour two nine-inch cake pans. Shake out the excess flour. Add the cake, batter to each pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes.

5. Remove the cake layers and let cool on a rack. Turn out.

6. For the filling, combine the butter, sugar and egg yolks in a saucepan. Set the saucepan in a skillet of boiling water and beat with a wire whisk until thickened. Add the remaining ingredients and blend. Let cool. As the filling stands it will thicken more. Spread between the cake layers and on top. Yield: 8 or more servings.

Note: This quantity of food coloring sounds excessive. It was the amount listed in several of the recipes. When the recipe was tested recently, we reduced it to about one ounce. If you use the full amount, according to Carolyn Knutsen, 'it is red.'"

---"De Gustibus: Red Velvet Cake Return...," Craig Claiborne, New York Times, April 25, 1977 (p. 57) The Waldorf-Astoria connection?

The Waldorf=Astoria Cookbook/John Harrison & Ellen Silverman contains this hotel's "famous" Red Velvet Cake recipe. Which makes us wonder: if this cake was truly intimately connected with this famous hotel from the 1920s forward, why no reference to it in prior books or newspaper articles? The Waldorf-Astoria Cookbook/Ted James and Rosalind Cole [c. 1981] does not offer this cake (or anything similar). Coincidentally? Mr. Harrison is also the author of the Neiman Marcus Cookbook. Urban food legends unlimited. Remember the one about the $250 cookie recipe? "After years of enduring the myth, Neiman Marcus had some up with a chocolate chip cookie recipe of its own...On the store's Web page...Neiman Marcus traces the tale back to at least the 1930s, when a similar story circulated about the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. That recipe was for Red Velvet Cake, and the reported charge was $100. Jan Harold Brunwald, a folklorist who has written books on urban myths...noted that the Waldorf-Astoria, which did not serve Red Velvet Cake when the stories involving it first circulated, eventually came up with a recipe it distributed, much as Neiman Marcus has done."

---"The $250 Cookie Recipe Exposed," Barbara Whitaker, New York Times, July 2, 1997 (p. C1) [1989]

The most famous of all red velvet cakes is perhaps the groom's Armadillo Cake served in the movie Steel Magnolias (1989). The practice of creating fantastic beasts from various food began was known to ancient Roman cooks. Only the very wealthy could enjoy such items. As time, place, and taste progressed "illusion food" adapted to suit local needs. Medieval lebkuchen (gingerbread) was often molded/decorated in elaborate shapes. 19th and 20th century cooks regularly used cake as a sculpting medium. Advances in cake molds, ovens, and auxillary props facilitated this task. Wedding cakes were the first to receive such attention. After WWII, directions for fancy cakes baked in molds and assembled from sheet cakes proliferated. Perhaps for express the delight of children growing up in new suburbs? Culinary evidence confirms the tradition of serving groom's cake originated in the American south. The first grooms cakes were not clever cake sculptures. Only recently has this tradition become popular throughout the country, assuming (sometimes) the role of "illusion food." Our notes on groom's cake here. Mayonnaise cake

Some food historians tell us Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake is a Depression-era dessert "invented" by Best Foods/Hellmann's to promote their Mayonnaise. Why mayonnaise? According to food historian Jean Anderson, this ingredient provided an economic substitution for butter and milk. Historic sources confirm cakes including thickened dairy products similar to mayonnaise consistency (most notably sour cream, sour milk and buttermilk) were popular at the time. In both culinary contexts, mayonnaise made sense. Was this cake really a "new" invention? No. An examination of early recipes suggest mayonnaise cakes descend from chocolate-infused spice cakes, popular in the early 20th century. Subsequent raisin/nut-free variations were similar to Red Devil cakes. While Hellmann's didn't invent this delicious confection, the company deserves recognition for making it popular. "Since 1937, [Hellman's Mayonnaise] has been a main ingredient in a popular cake recipe invented by the wife of a company salesman called, simply, "Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake."

---The American Century Cookbook:The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 300)

[NOTE: Ms. Anderson's book contains a copy of the original 1937 recipe on p. 444] The earliest print recipe we find titled "Mayonnaise Cake" was published in 1927. It is entirely possible similar recipes including mayonnaise were published earlier under different names.

[1927]

"Mayonnaise Cake.

1 cup of seeded dates, cut up. 1 cup of walnuts broken up coarsely. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of soda over dates and walnuts and add 1 cup of boiling water to this mixture. Let is stand until cool and then add 1 cup of sugar and 2 cup of flour, 3 heaping teaspoons of ground chocolate, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and little salt. Whip 1 egg in 1/2 cup of vegetable oil and add this. Bake in layers or a square sheet."

---"Recipes," Oakland Tribune [CA], March 7, 1927 (p. 24)

[NOTE: recipe does not include oven temperature and cooking time.] [1937]

"Mayonnaise Cake

(submitted by Mrs. Ellen Campbell, LaSalle)

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons ground chocolate

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup dates pitted and cut up fine

1 cup nut meats cut up fine

1/2 cup raisins

1 teaspoon soda

1 cup boiling water

2 cups sifted flour

Dissolve soda in boiling water. Pour over date and nut mixture. Let stand while mixing sugar and chocolate and mayonnaise together. The add nut mixture and last the two cups of four. Mix well and bake in a loaf pan 30 minutes in moderate oven (350 degrees .)"

---"Mrs. Lott is Again Winner Recipe Prize, Greeley Daily Tribune [CO], November 15, 1937 (p. 3)

[NOTE: This contest was sponsored by the newspaper.] [1950]

"Mayonnaise Cake...simple and inexpensive...This recipe was created by a famous food concern that has been in business for more than 22 years. The main ingredient is pure mayonnaise which is a blending of selected spices and fresh eggs; lemon juice is added to give it a piquancy of flvor. It has a firm, yet fluffy body--not pale, thin or runny... "Mayonnaise Cake Diablo

2 cups sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 taspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon soda

4 tablespoons cocoa

1 cup cane sugar

3/4 cup pure mayonnaise

1 cup water

1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Method: Resift flour with other dry ingredients three times. Blend in mayonnaise, water and vanilla. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake at 350 deg. 40 to 50 minutes; or pour into layer cake pans and bake at 350 deg. 30 to 40 minutes."

---"Unusual Cakes Add Party Air to Menu," Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1950 (p. B4)

[NOTE: Diablo=Devil. This recipe screams Red Devil with mayo. About Red Devil's cake.] [1962]

"Raisin Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

1 cup raisins

2 cups sifted flour

4 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Butter and lightly flour 13X9X2-in. loaf pan. Set aside. Chop raisins. Sift flour with cocoa, soda and salt. Cream mayonnaise and sugar thoroughly. Add flour and water alternately in three additions. Stir in raisins. Turn into prepared pan. Bake at 350 deg. 30 to 35 min. Cool and, if wished, frost with penuche or chocolate frosting. Makes 15 servings."

---"Desserts With a Place in the Picnic Basket," Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1962 (p. D13) [1981]

"Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

1 package (18 1/2 oz) devil's food cake mix

3 eggs

1 cup water

1/2 cup Hellmann's or Best Foods Real Mayonnaise

Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) round cake pans. In large bowl with mixer at low speed beat together cake mix, eggs, water and real mayonnaise until blended. With mixer at medium speed at 2 beat 2 minutes. Pour into prepared pans. Bake in 350 degrees F oven 30 to 35 minutes or until cake tester inserted comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks. Frost as desired. Makes 12 to 16 servings."

---Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook, editors of Consumer Guide [Beekman House:New York] 1981 (p. 256) Current Hellmann's recipe here Savour the competition: Kraft's Miracle Whip Cake. [1959] "Miracle Whip Cake

1 cup Miracle Whip salad dressing

2 cups flour

1 cup water

4 Tbsp. chocolate or cocoa

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. baking powder

2 Tbsp. vanilla

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar and chocolate. Add cup of water. Add flavoring. Mix a little water in soda and add to Miracle Whip, but don't beat, until foams. Stir this mixture into chocolate mixture. Pour into two greased 8 or 9 inch layer cake pans and bake at 350 degrees approximately 35 minutes., or until done. For White Cake: Add 4 Tbsp. flour instead of cocoa or chocolate."

---"Savory Subjects: Readers' Recipe Exchange," Mansfield News-Journal [OH], November 30, 1959 (p. 6) Related recipe? Sour Milk Chocolate Cake. Mystery cake (aka Tomato Soup Cake, Tomato Soup Spice Cake)

Food historians generally place the genesis of Mystery Cake (spice cake made with tomato soup) in the 1930s. Articles published in the 1960s & 1970s state this cake was amazingly popular. The earliest reference we find in print is this from 1928: "The opening of the fall season is observed on th menu arranged by Mrs. Mabelle (Chef) Wyman for her demonstrating this afternoon... Under the dessert classification are velvet cake and mystery cake, a culinary idea of Mrs. Wyman's skill."

---"Wyman Starts Classes Today," Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1928 (p. A7)

[NOTE: this snippet is interpreted by some that Mrs. Wyman 'invented' these recipes. We find no print evidence confirming this.] "Mystery cake, Campbell's Soup. Cooking with condensed soups (usually Campbell's but Heinz and Hormel also were popular) had really taken hold in the 1920s, but this recipe was one of the first departures from the sauce/aspic oeuvre."

---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren [MacMillan:New York] 1995 (p. 76) "Mystery cake (Tomato Soup-Spice Cake). Cakes with alien ingredients--sausage meat, an entire bottle of red food coloring--have always intrigued American cooks. But none more so than..."mystery cake," containing a can of Campbell's condensed tomato soup. Even M.F.K. Fisher...liked tomato soup cake. She says in How to Cook a Wolf (1942), "This is a pleasant cake, which keeps well and puzzles people while you are cooking other things, which is always sensible and makes you feel rather noble, in itself a small but valuable pleasure." Fisher's recipe differs from the Campbell's in several respects. For starters, it contains only 3 tablespooons butter and one cup sugar...Even leaner than Fisher's version is cookbook author Jim Fobel's Mystery Cake of 1932...which, he says "is one of the few old recipes that can be precisely dated: It was developed in 1932, during the worst of the Depression. In keeping with the rather desperate circumstances of that time, it contains no eggs and very little butter."

---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 448) "During the first thirty years of its history, Campbell quite sparingly published recipes that used soup as a sauce, and when it did, Tomato Soup was usually called for. One of the most long lasting, though perhaps the oddest, was for Tomato Soup Cake; the ingredients were: "2 tbs shortening; 1 c. sugar; 1 egg (well beaten); 1 can Campbell's Tomato Soup; 2 c. flour; 1 tsp. ground cloves; 1/2 tsp. mace; 1/2 tsp. nutmeg; 1/2 tsp. baking soda; and 1 c. seeded raisins."

---America's Favorite Food: The Story of Campbell Soup Company, Douglas Collins [Harry N. Abrams:New York] 1994 (p. 125) The oldest recipe we found for Mystery Cake/Tomato Soup Cake is this: [1932: Marian Manners] "Mystery Cake

Four tablespoonfuls butter; one cupful sugar; one can tomato soup; one teaspoonful soda; two cupfuls cake flour; two teaspoonfuls baking powder; one-half teaspoonful salt; one teaspoonful cinnamon; three-four teaspoonful cloves; three-fourths teaspoonful allspice; one-half cupful seedless raisins; one-half cupful nut meats. Cream shortening and sugar. Add soda to soup and stir until all signs of action disappear. Add to creamed mixture alternately with flour sifted with baking powder, salt and spices. Add raisins and nuts with last of flour. Pour into greased aluminum loaf cake pan and bake one hour (or more) at 350 deg. Let stand one day before serving."

---"Requested Recipes," Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1932 (p. A6) [1941: Campbell Soup Company] "Tomato Soup Cake

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon mace

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup seeded raisins

2 tablespoons shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg (well beaten)

1 can Campbell's Tomato Soup

Sift the flour, measure; add spices, baking soda, baking powder and sift again. Wash and cut raisins and roll in 2 tablespoons of flour mixture. Cream shortening, add sugar gradually, and cream well. Add beaten egg and mix thoroughly. Then add flour mixture alternately with the soup. Stir until smooth. Fold in the raisins. Bake in a buttered loaf cake pan 8 by 4 inches in a moderate oven (350-375 degrees F.) For 1 hour."

---Easy Ways to Good Meals: 99 Delicious Dishes Made with Campbell's Soups, Campbell Soup Company [Camden NJ] 1941 (p. 36) [1942:M.F.K. Fisher's recipe]

"Tomato Soup Cake

3 tablespoons butter or shortening

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon soda

1 can tomato soup

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg, ginger, cloves mixed

1 1/2 cups raisins, nuts, chopped figs, what you will

Cream butter, add the sugar, and blend thoroughly. Add the soda to the soup, stirring well, and add this alternately to the first mixture with the flour and spices sifted together. Stir well, and bake in a pan or loaf-tin at 325 degrees F."

---How to Cook a Wolf, M.F.K. Fisher (1942) reprinted in The Art of Eating, [Macmillan:New York] 1990 (p. 314) [1964: modern iteration]

"Tomato soup cake was the talk of every city, town and hamlet in the country about 30 years ago. Many modern homemakers still like to bake this moist spice cake studded with raisins. It can be made with a mix, 1960s style, or by the mixed-from-scratch recipe of the 30s. Tomato Soup Cake

2 cups sifted cake flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cloves

1/2 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

10 1/2-oz. can tomato soup

1 cup chopped nuts

1 cup raisins

Sift together flour, baking pwoder, dosa, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Set aside. Cream shortening and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Add sifted dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with soup, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat well after each addition. Beat 1 min. longer, then fold in nuts and raisins. Turn into two 8-inch round layer pans whick have been greased and lined on the bottom with paper. Bake at 375 deg. 30 min. Cool 10 min. oin pans, then remove to wire rack to cool thoroughly. Fill and frost with 7-min. or any favorite white frosting. "Shortcut Tomato Soup Cake

Prepare a package of spice cake mix as directed on package, but using a 10 1/2-oz can tomato soup plus 1/4 cup water instead of the liquid called for on the mix packages. Stir in 1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup nuts. Bake in two prepared 8-in. round layer pans at 350 deg. 30 to 40 min."

---"Tomato Soup Cake--the Dessert That was the Sensation of the 30s," Los Angeles Times, June 4, 1964 (p. D7) Related cakes? Red Devil, Red Velvet & Chocolate Beet Cake. How much did a can of condensed tomato soup cost in the USA? Sponge cake

Opera cake, Madeleines, Lady fingers, Genoise, Mary Anns & Diet bread

Food historians generally agree that sponge cake (as we know it today) was probably a European recipe invented in the early 19th century. Prior to this there were recipes for 'biscuit bread' or 'sponge fingers' which would have produced a similar product. Sponge [spunge] cake and it's many variations were used ingredients a several popular Renaissance-era desserts such as English trifle and fooles. Gervase Markham, Robert May, and Elizabeth Raffald [early 17th century English cookbook writers] included recipes for "Fine bread," "Bisquite du Roy," and "Common biscuits," that are close to sponge cake.

"Sponge cake.

a light cake made by the whisking method in which egg yolks are beaten with sugar, then flour and other ingredients added...The term 'sponge cake' probably came into use during the 18th century, although the Oxford English Dictionary has no reference earlier than a letter Jane Austen wrote in 1808 (she evidently like sponge cakes)...Towards the end of the 19th century something called a 'sponge-cake pudding' began to appear, but then became simply sponge pudding."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 748)

"Savoy, a type of sponge cake...The Savoy biscuit arrived in England early in the 18th century. However it did not arrive alone. Other similar 'biscuits', named according to their supposed origins--Naples, Lisbon, or Spanish biscuit--also became popular in England at that time, and the differences between them, if differences there were, no doubt perplexed people then as they do now. When Mrs. Mary Eales gave a recipe for 'spunge biscuits' in her Receipts (1718), the situation became clearer, since this phrase conveys to British ears the correct impression, whereas terms such as 'Savoy biscuit' suggests something different. Morever, Mrs. Eales specified that the biscuits should be baked 'in little long pans', which corresponds to the shape of modern sponge fingers (or Boudoir biscuits)"

---Oxford (p. 702)

OPERA CAKE L'Opera cake/gateau is a 20th century recipe with Ancient roots. Not unlike Tiramasu. The practice of layering cakes with sweet substances (honey), intoxicating liquors (wine) and accented with nut flavorings (almonds) was a particular favorite of ancient middle-eastern cooks. The Romans adopted/adapted this recipe and took it with them when they conquered Europe. It is no accident that 16th century English cooks created "trifle." Chocolate and coffee were introduced to Europe in the 16th-17th centuries but (due to economics) were not incorporated into recipes until the 19th century. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson (p. 748) sponge cake was also created in the 19th century. Also related to L'Opera gateau are Genoise (almond-flavored sponge with various decorations and fillings) and Savoy (sponge made by beating egg yolks and whites beaten separately). About sponge cake. "Opera gateau is an elaborate almond sponge cake with a coffee and chocolate filling and icing."

---Larousse Gastronomique, completely revised and updated, [Clarkson Potter:2001] (p. 814) "A classic for the past twenty years, the Opera was created for those who unabashedly choose chocolate and butter cream over fruit desserts. What makes this low, flat cake more modern than any of its predecessors is its shape (usually square or rectangular), and its undecorated sides that show all the layers. L'Opera is traditionally composed of layers of Biscuit Joconde, an almond sponge, that have been thoroughly soaked with coffee syrup...Some pastry shops decorate the top with the word Opera, written in panach with all the swirls that the French love so much..."

---New French Baker, Sheila Linderman [William Morrow:New York] 1998 (p. 66) "Opera cake. This is a classic chocolate-coffee cake that I believe was first made in the 1930s for an important French-American reception held at the Paris Opera."

---La Nouvelle Patisserie, Jean-Yves Duperret [Viking:New York] 1988 (p. 155) MADELEINES (sponge recipe)

The food historians haven't quite determined the exact origin of the Madeleine as of yet. Their connection to Marcel Proust is his reference to them in the opening lines of his autobiography Remembrances of Things Past. Proust's original text. "In culinary lore, Madeleines are always associated with Marcel Proust, whose autobiographical novel, Remembrance of Things Past, begins as his mother serves him tea and "those short, plump little cakes called petits madeleines, which look as though they had been molded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell." The narrator dips a corner of a little cake into the tea and then is overwhelmed by memories; he realizes that the Madeleines bore "in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast tructure of recollection." ...But Madeleines had existed long before Proust's boyhood. Numerous stories, none very convincing, attribute their invention to a host of different pastry cooks, each of whom supposedly named them for some particular young woman. Only three things are known for sure. One is that Madeleine is a French form of Magdalen (Mary Magdalen, a disciple of Jesus, is mentioned in all four gospels). Another is that Madeleines are always associated with the little French town of Commercy, whose bakers were said to have once, long ago, paid a "very large sum" for the recipe and sold the little cakes packed in oval boxes as a specialty in the area. Finally, it is alow known that nuns in eighteenth-century France frequently supported themselves and their schools by making and selling a particular sweet...Commercy once had a convent dedicated to St. Mary Magdelen, and the nuns, probably when all the convents and monastaries of France were abolished during the French Revolution, sold their recipe to the bakers for an amount that grew larger with each telling."

---Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens [Ohio University Press:Athens] 1998 (p. 178) "Madeleine, a small French cake associated with the town of Commercy in Lorraine...Legends about the origin of the name are critically discussed by Claudine Brecourt-Villars [Mots de table, mots de bouche, Paris:Stock 1996]. Madeleines have earned themselves an immortal place in literature, as the taste on one dipped in limeflower tisane provided the basis for Marcel Proust's celebrated reference to them, and the phrase a madeleine of Proust...The name madeleine has also been applied, for reasons which are obscure, to an English product: a small individual sponge cake in the shape of a truncated cone, covered in jam and dessicated coconut, and surmounted with a glace cherry."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 468) "Madeleine...The origin of this seashell cake so strictly pleated outside and so sensual inside" (Marcel Proust) is the subject of much discussion. It has been attributed to Avice, chef to Tallyrand, the French statesman, who had the idea of baking a pound-cake mixture in aspic moulds. Other authorities, however, believe that the recipe is much older and originated in the French town of Commercy, which was then a duchy under the rule of Stansilaw Leszczynski. It is said that during a visit to the castle in 1755 the duke was very taken with a cake made by a peasant girl named Madeleine. This started the fashion for madeleines (as they were named by the duke), which were then launched in Versailles by his daughter Marie, who was married to Louis XV. The attribution of the cake to Madeleine Paumier, cordon-bleu to a rich burgher of Commercy, seems doubtful."

---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely Revised and Updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 709) "Madeleine...A chronicler of the history of pastry-making ways that the great pastry-cook, Avice, when he was working for Prince Talleyrand, invented the madeleine. He had the idea of using tot-fait or quatre-quarts mixture for little cakes baked in an aspic mould. M. Boucher and Careme approved of the idea. He gave the name of madeleines to these cakes.' (Lacam, Memorial de la patisserie.). Other authorities, however, hold that far from having been invented by Avice, these little cakes were known in France long before his time. They believe that they were first made at Commercy, and were brought into fashion about 1730, first at Versailles and then in Paris, by Stanislas Leczinski, father-in-law of Louis XV, who was very partial to them. The recipe for Madeleines remained a secret from a very long time. It is said that it was sold for a very large sum to the pastry-makers of Commercy who made of this great delicacy one of the finest gastronomic specialties of their own."

---Larousse Gastronomique, Prosper Montagne, edited by Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud [Crown:New York] 1961 (p. 603-4) Recipes for madeleines have changed over time: [1890's]

"1290. Madeleines

These are made with the same kind of batter as Genoese cakes, to which currants, dried cherries, candied peel or angelica may be added. When the batter is ready, let it be poured into a sufficient number of small fluted or plain dariole or madeleine moulds (previously buttered inside); these must be placed on a baking-sheet spread with some charcoal ashes, to the depth of half an inch, and then baked in an oven of a moderate heat. When they are done, turn them out of the moulds, and dish them up in a pyramid form. These cakes may also be partially emptied, then filled up with some kind of preserve, and the small circular piece, removed previously to taking out the crumb, should be replaced."

---Francatelli's Modern Cook, Charles Elme Francatelli [David Mckay:Philadelphia] 1890s (p. 442) [1941]

"French Madeleine

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

1 1/2 cups butter, melted

Rum, if desired

Vanilla extract or lemond rind

Work the eggs and sugar in a double boiler until creamy and lukewarm. Remove from the fire and beat until cold. Add the flour gradually, mixing with a wooden spoon, the butter and the rum, if desired, vanilla extract or grated lemon rind. Butter and flour the Madeleine molds, fill them 2/3 full. Bake in a hot oven about 450 degrees F. Yields 24 to 30 small Madeleines."

---Cooking a la Ritz, Louis Diat [J.B. Lippincott Company:Philadelphia] 1941 (p. 424-5)

[NOTE: Mr. Diat also offers a recipe for "Viennese Madeleine," which includes marzipan, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, melted butter and cornstarch.] About sponge. Lady Baltimore Cake

Lady Baltimore cake descends from the light egg-white tradition of lady cakes. Delicate, smooth, and creamily iced, they were popular from the mid-19th century forwards. As one might suspect, there are several recipe variations. Although the name suggests this is a traditional Maryland confection, evidence strongly suggests the cake originated in Charleston, South Carolina. Lord Baltimore cake is an egg-yolk rich counterpart of questionable origin. What is a Lady Baltimore Cake?

"Lady Baltimore Cake. A moist, pure white, three-layer cake made with a filing of chopped pecans, raisins, and other dried fruit, such as figs, and a billowy white frosting, usually made with boiled icing. The cake, which uses egg whites only, not yolks, in the batter, has a delicate fine-grained texture. Lady Baltimore cake is a traditional cake that was originally a specialty of the city of Charleston, South Carolina."

---International Dictionary of Desserts, Pastries, and Confections, Carole Bloom [Hearst Books:New York] 1995 (p. 169) For whom was it named?

"Lady Baltimore Cake...A legendary dessert, famous throughout the South. This cake is said to have originated with the first Lord Baltimore's wife, for serving at afternoon teas."

--- Chesapeake Bay Cookbook: Rediscovering the Pleasures of a Great Regional Cuisine, John Shields [Aris Books:Berkeley CA] 1990 (p. 59) Where did it originate?

"Lady Baltimore Cake. A white cake filled with nuts and raisins and covered with a vanilla-and-egg-white frosting. There are several stories of how the cake was named, but he most accepted version concerns a cake by this name baked by a Charleston, South Carolina, belle named Alicia Rhett Mayberry for novelist Owen Wister, who not only described the confection in his 