19 Healthy First Birthday Cakes (That Are Totally Smashable!)

About cake
The history of cake dates back to ancient times. The first cakes were very different from what we eat today. They were more bread-like and sweetened with honey. Nuts and dried fruits were often added. According to the food historians, the ancient Egyptians were the first culture to show evidence of advanced baking skills. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the English word cake back to the 13th century. It is a derivation of 'kaka', an Old Norse word. Medieval European bakers often made fruitcakes and gingerbread. These foods could last for many months.

According to the food historians, the precursors of modern cakes (round ones with icing) were first baked in Europe sometime in the mid-17th century. This is due to primarily to advances in technology (more reliable ovens, manufacture/availability of food molds) and ingredient availability (refined sugar). At that time cake hoops--round molds for shaping cakes that were placed on flat baking trays--were popular. They could be made of metal, wood or paper. Some were adjustable. Cake pans were sometimes used. The first icing were usually a boiled composition of the finest available sugar, egg whites and [sometimes] flavorings. This icing was poured on the cake. The cake was then returned to the oven for a while. When removed the icing cooled quickly to form a hard, glossy [ice-like] covering. Many cakes made at this time still contained dried fruits (raisins, currants, citrons).

It was not until the middle of the 19th century that cake as we know it today (made with extra refined white flour and baking powder instead of yeast) arrived on the scene. A brief history of baking powder. The Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book [London, 1894] contains a recipe for layer cake, American (p. 1031). Butter-cream frostings (using butter, cream, confectioners [powdered] sugar and flavorings) began replacing traditional boiled icings in first few decades 20th century. In France, Antonin Careme [1784-1833] is considered THE premier historic chef of the modern pastry/cake world. You will find references to him in French culinary history books.

Cake recipes, Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cook Book [1918]

What is the difference between cake, gateau and torte?
Gateaux is a French word for cake. It generally denotes items made with delicate ingredients which are best consumed soon after the confection is made (gateaux des roi). Cakes can last much longer, some even improving with age (fruit cake). Torte is the German word for cake, with similar properties. When tortes are multilayerd and fancifully decorated they are closer to gateaux EXCEPT for the fact they can last quite nicely for several days.

Cake & gateau: definitions & examples

"Cakes and gateaux. Although both terms can be used for savoury preparations (meat cakes or vegetable gateaux) their main use is for sweet baked goods. Cakes can be large or small, plain of fancy, light or rich. Gateau is generally used for fancy, but light or rich, often with fresh decoration, such as fresh fruit or whipped cream. Whereas a cake may remain fresh for several days after baking or even improve with keeping, a gateau usually includes fresh decoration or ingredients that do not keep well, such as fresh fruit or whipped cream. In France, the word 'gateau' designates various patisserie items based on puff pastry, shortcrust pastry (basic pie dough), sweet pastry, pate saglee, choux pastry, Genoese and whisked sponges and meringue...The word 'gateau' is derived from the Old French wastel, meaning 'food'. The first gateau were simply flat round cakes made with flour and water, but over the centuries these were enriched with honey, eggs, spices, butter, cream and milk. From the very earliest items, a large number of French provinces have produced cakes for which they are noted. Thus Artois had gateau razis, and Bournonnais the ancient tartes de fromage broye, de creme et de moyeau d'oeulz. Hearth cakes are still made in Normandy, Picardy, Poitou and in some provinces in the south of France. They are variously called fouaces, fouaches, fouees or fouyasses, according to the district...Among the many pastries which were in high favor from the 12th to the 15th centuries in Paris and other cities were: echaudes, of which two variants, the falgeols and the gobets, were especially prized by the people of Paris; and darioles, small tartlets covered with narrow strips of pastry...Casse-museau is a hard dry pastry still made today'...petits choux and gateaux feuilletes are mentioned in a charter by Robert, Bishop of Amiens in 1311."
---Larousse Gastronomique, completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 198-199)

"Cake. The original dividing line between cake and bread was fairly thin: Roman times eggs and butter were often added to basic bread dough to give a consistency we would recognize as cakelike, and this was frequently sweetened with honey. Terminologically, too, the earliest English cakes were virtually bread, their main distinguishing characteristics being their shape--round and flat--and the fact that they were hard on both sides from being turned over during baking...in England the shape and contents of cakes were graudally converging toward our present understanding of the term. In medieval and Elizabethan times they were usually quite small...Cake is a Viking contribution to the English language; it was borrowed from Old Norse kaka, which is related to a range of Germanic words, including modern English cook." ---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 52)

"Gateau. English borrowed gateau from French in the mid-nineteenth century, and at first used it fairly indiscriminately for any sort of cake, pudding, or cake-like pie...Since the Second World War, however, usage of the term has honed in on an elaborate 'cream cake': the cake element, generally a fairly unremarkable sponge, is in most cases simply an excuse for lavish layers of cream, and baroque cream and fruit ornamentation...The word gateau is the modern French descendant of Old French guastel, 'fine bread'; which is probably of Germanic origin. In its northeastern Old French dialect from wasel it as borrowed into English in the thirteenth century, where it survived until the seventeenth century." ---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 138)

"The word 'gateau' crossed the Channel to England in the early 19th century...In Victorian England cookery writers used 'gateau' initially to denote puddings such as rice baked in a mould, and moulded baked dishes of fish or meat; during the second part of the century it was also applied to highly decorated layer cakes. Judging by the amount of space given to directions for making these in bakers' manuals of the time, they were tremendously popular...Most were probably rather sickly, made from cheap sponge filled with 'buttercream'...and coated with fondant icing. Elaborate piped decoration was added. Many fanciful shapes were made...The primary meaning of the word 'gateau' is now a rich and elaborate cake filled with whipped cream and fruit, nuts, or chocolate. French gateau are richer than the products of British bakers. They involve thin layers of sponge, usually genoise, or meringue; some are based on choux pastry. Fruit or flavoured creams are used as fillings. The later are rarely dairy cream; instead creme patissiere (confectioner's custard--milk, sugar, egg yolks, and a little flour) or creme au buerre (a rich concoction of egg yolks creamed with sugar syrup and softened butter) are used. Gateau has wider applications in French, just as 'cake' does in English...it can mean a savoury cake, a sweet or savoury tart, or a thin pancake." ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 332)

Related foods? Choux/ puff paste, sponge, French cremes, Gateau St. Honore, Gateau des roi

Why are cakes round?
Excellent question! Food historians offer several theories. Each depends upon period, culture and cuisine. Generally, the round cakes we know today descended from ancient bread. Ancient breads and cakes were made by hand. They were typically fashioned into round balls and baked on hearthstones, griddles, or in low, shallow pans. These products naturally relaxed into rounded shapes. By the 17th century, cake hoops (fashioned from metal or wood) were placed on flat pans to effect the shape. As time progressed, baking pans in various shapes and sizes, became readily available to the general public. Moulded cakes (and fancy ices) reached their zenith in Victorian times.

"For the cakes of the seventeenth century onwards tin or iron hoops were increasingly used and are mentioned with great frequency in the cookery books. These hoops were similar to our modern flan rings but much deeper...The hoop was placed on an iron or tin sheet, and a layer or two of paper, floured, was put at the bottom. The sides of the hoop were buttered, These or similar directions offer over and over again in E. Smith's The Compleat Housewife, first published in 1727, which gives recipes for forty cakes, the large ones nearly all being yeast-leavened. In her preface this author says that her book was the fruit of upwards of thirty years' experience, so her recipes and methods must often date well back into the previous century, for quite often the reader is directed to bake the cake in a 'paper hoop'--and paper was a feature of the kitchens of those days. Wooden hoops were also fairly common. Some cooks, the seventeenth-century Sir Kenelm Digby among others, evidently preferred them to tin, perhaps because they didn't rust, and so were easier to store. Probably they would have been rather like the frames of our present-day drum sieves. Writing a century after Digby, Elizabeth Raffald calls them 'garths' and advises her readers that for large cakes they are better than 'pot or tin', in which the cakes, so Mrs. Raffald found, were liable to burn more easily. Alternatively, spice cakes were baked like bread, without moulds."
---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David, American edition with notes from Karen Hess [Penguin:Middlesex] 1979 (p. 212)

What do cakes mean?
Ancient breads and cakes were sometimes used in religious ceremonies. These were purposely fashioned into specific shapes, according to the observance. Round & circle shapes generally symbolize the cyclical nature of life. Most specifically, the sun and moon. Cakes baked in molds could be shaped and decorated to look like animals (Easter lambs), castles & crowns (Bundt & Turk's head) or fancy jewels. Enriched yeast breads share the same place at holiday tables. Think: Kulich (Russia, Easter), Colomba (Italy, Easter) and Twelfth Night Cake (England & France, Christmas--Mardi Gras)

On the human level? Cakes are served at special occasions (birthdays, weddings, holidays, funerals) because they represent our best culinary offering honoring our most loved people. In "olden times" when refined sugar, spices, nuts, and dried fruit were expensive, it was an honor to be honored with cake. Today cake isn't super expensive and we have many choices (store bought, box mix, scratch, bakery special order) but the message remains constant. Cake says: you're important and we love you.

"People have consumed cakes of all kinds throughout history and at all sorts of ceremonial occasions. In today's world, people traditionally serve cakes at holidays, birthdays, weddings, funerals, and baptisms--in short, at all significant times in the cycle of life. The tradition of eating cake on ceremonial occaisions has its basis in ancient ritual. Cakes, in the ancient world, had ties with the annual cycle, and people used them as offerings to the gods and spirits who exercised their powers at particular times of the year...The Chinese made cakes at harvest time to honor their moon goddess, Heng O. They recognized that the moon played a crucial role in the seasonal cycle, so they made round cakes shaped like the moon to reward the lunar goddess, with an image of the illustrious Heng O stamped on top... "The Russians traditionally pay their respects in spring to a deity named Maslenitsa by making blini, thin pancakes they call sun cakes...The pagan Slavs were not the only people to make round cakes to celebrate the spring sun. The ancient Celts, who celebrated Beltane on the first day of spring, baked and ate Beltane cakes as a important part of their celebration...At the Beltane festival, the ancient Celts also rolled the cakes down a hill to imitate solar movement. Rolling the cakes, they hoped, would ensure the continued motion of the sun. This activity also served as a form of divination: If the cake broke when it reached the bottom of the hill, the Celts believed that whoever rolled it would die within a year's time; but if the cake remained intact, they believed that person would reap a year's good fortune...Agricultural peoples around the globe made offerings of cakes prepared from the grains and fruits that arose from the soil. The types of ingredients used to make these cakes contributed to their symbolism...The cake's size and shape were equally symbolic of its ritual purpose...round cakes symbolized the sun or the moon...All of these cakes had definative links to the myths the people embraced."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 52-54)

Ring-shaped cakes, such as Twelfth Night cakes (aka King Cakes), are also full of history and symbolism.

Recommended reading

Cake: A Global History, Nicola Humble...Basic overview with footnotes. Popular read.
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Solomon H. Katz editor, William Woys Weaver, associate editor..."Cake and pancakes," (p. 288+)
English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David..."Regional and Festival Yeast Cakes and Fruit bread," (p. 424-472)
The History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat (p. 223-246)..."History of bread and cakes," includes baking methods, symbolism, and special cakes (holidays/religion/ethnic cuisine).
Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews (p.52-54)...The history of cake as religious offering
The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson (p. 122-124)....Short history from ancient times to the present. Separate entries for specific kinds of cakes (chiffon, devil's food, fruitcake, gingerbread etc.) are most helpful.
Cake mixes
Dry baking mixes of all sorts were a product of the Industrial Revolution. They were promoted by companies as convenience foods. The first dry mixes (custard powders) were produced in England in the 1840s. Packaged mixes for gelatin (Jell-O, Royal, Knox) were introduced in the late 19th century. Pancake mixes (Aunt Jemima) were available in the 1890s. Our sources indicate packaged mixes for cake were introduced in 1920's. Packaged mixes for biscuits (Bisquick/General Mills) were introduced in the 1930s. Betty Crocker/General Mills made them famous in the late 1940s. Now we have mixes for Tiramasu, Pineapple-Upside-Down-Cake and even more complicated items.

Betty Crocker (brand)
Duff (brand)
Duncan Hines (brand & man)
Py-O-My (brand)
Consumer reaction [1944-1953]
Market data & demographics [1956]
High altitude cake mixes
Angel cake mix
Snackin Cake
Soapy cake mixes?
Baking "from scratch"
Betty Crocker
"General Mills, firmly rooted in grain products--Gold Medal Flour, Bisquick, Softasilk, Wheaties, and Cheerios--embraced cake mixes, but Betty was a late arrival to the party. O. Duff and Sons, a molasses company, pioneered the "quick mix" filled by marketing the first boxed cake mix in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Continental Mills, the Hills Brothers Company under the Dromedary label, Pillsbury, Occident, Ward Baking Company, and the Doughnut Corporation all produced versions of cake mixes before World War II. But problems of spoilage and packaging abounded, keeping mixes from widespread consumption and acceptance. In November 1947, after four years of cake mix research and development, General Mills' test markets were exposed to the "Just Add Water and Mix!" campaign for Betty Crocker's Ginger Cake. After a final assurance from the corporate chemists that the boxed ingredients would indeed perform as advertised, the mix was made available for limited distribution on the West Coast. Within a year it made a national debut that excluded the South (presumably, product testing there proved futile). While Ginger Cake required a nine-inch-square pan, designers projected that the PartyCake line, already in development, would offer home bakers a choice of using either two square pans or one 9-inch-by-13-inch rectangular pan, a size and shape that were becoming popular. As layer cakes are a uniquely American creation, they seemed a fitting choice for PartyCake, the next wave of Betty Crocker mixes. The layered butter PartyCake mixes--in Spice, Yellow, and White cake varieties--and Devils Food Cake Mix were priced at $.35 to $.37 per red-and-white box. "High impact" colors were essential to entice "the ladies who trundle their little shopping wagons among the shelves and tables" of the supermarket...The postwar quest for cake mix supremacy unfolded much like the flour wars of the 1920s. In 1948 Pillsbury was the first to introduce a chocolate cake mix. Duncan Hines stormed the market in 1951 with "Three Star Surprise Mix," a three-flavor wonder in that in three weeks captured a 48 percent share."
---Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food, Susan Marks [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2005 (p. 166-8)
[NOTE: more information on Duncan Hines brand mix.]

"Betty Crocker had always stood for quality in the minds of consumers, but during the first half of the twentieth century, convenience foods were not associated with good eating. All that changed in 1947, when the first Betty Crocker cake mixes hit America's shelves. The debut mix was labled Ginger Cake but would soon evolved into Gingerbread Cake and Cookie Mix. Devil's Food Layer Cake and Party Layer Cake Mix-products that offered an alternative to the time-consuming process of baking a cake from scratch-soon followed. The early mixes bearing the Betty Crocker label eventually yielded more than 130 cooking and baking products."
---Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, Janice Jorgensen, editor, [St. James Press:Detroit MI] 1994, Volume 1: Consumable Brands "Betty Crocker" (p. 53-56)
[NOTE: The Betty Crocker trade name is owned by General Mills]

Duff brand
The earliest print evidence we find for a Duff brand baking mix is from 1932:
"Duff's Ginger Bread Mix, delicious, ready to bake, 14 oz tin....21 cents."
Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1932 (p. A2).

The oldest print reference we find for a commercially prepared item titled "cake mix" is this Dromedary ad published the same year :
"Dromedary Brand Dixie Mix, Southern Fruit Cake Mixture, 35 cents/pkg"
---New York Times, December 21, 1932 (p. 12)

Who invented Duncan Hines brand cake mixes?
Mr. Arlee Andre, food chemist, 1952. Notes here:

"Arlee Andre, creator of the original Duncan Hines cake mixes, died Monday. He was 89 years old...Mr. Andre was a cereal chemist testing flour for Nebraska Consolidated Mills in Omaha in 1952 when he decided to develop a cake mix with better flavor and uniformity than the two mixes then available. He researched the best ways to make yellow cake, white cake, chocolate cake and angel food cake. When the mixes were ready to be marketed, Nebraska Consolidated Mills paid Duncan Hines, the food and drink connoisseur, a penny a box to use his name. The mixes quickly became popular and were sold to the Proctor & Gamble Company in 1956. Mr. Andre also moved to Procter & Gamble and retired in the mid 1960s."
---"Arlee Andre, 89, Dies; Creator of Cake Mixes," New York Times, September 9, 1989 (p. 9)

"A few weeks ago local newspapers carried full page color ads announcing that Duncan Hines cake-mixes were being introduced to the Chicago market. Simultaneously, on tables in restaurants throughout the city, there appeared small placards which read, "Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Hines." Dunring the week, the gentleman himself, known to American travelers as the author of "Adventures in Good Eating," appeared on 13 radio and TV broadcasts here, and one evening he entertained 400 retailers at supper in the plush Mayfair room of the Hotel Blackstone. Members of the flour-milling industry might well cock an eye at such ballyhoo and goings-on. Per capita flour consumption in the U.S. is 133 pounds, and has hovered at that low point for the past three years. In view of such statistics, many a miller would give his eye teeth to hit on a success formula like the one now setting sales records for Nebraska Consolidated Milling Co....Sixteen months ago, this Omaha milling company was just another of the many medium-sized companies in the industry, struggling to maintain sales. At the end of its fiscal year in June, 1951, the company had sales of $26 million. My the next fiscal-year-end, June 1952, it had chalked up sales of $20 million, of which over $3 million were in cake-mixes alone. Currently, it's selling about $9.5 million a har in cake-mixes. Furthermore, it's nipping at the heels of the "big three" in the cake mix field, Pillsbury, General Mills and General Foods, which combined do almost 90% of the business. Consolidated now ranks fourth, doing most of the remaining 10%, although it sells in only 30 states. J. Allan Mactier, Consolidated's 30-year-old vice-president...explains the management's success formula thus: 'Make sure you have a good product, pick a sure-fire brand name, and pour on the merchandising.' Consolidated chose the Duncan Hines label which is uses through a a franchise with Hines Park Foods, Inc. of Ithaca N.Y. because it felt it would be a sure-fire' seller. Mr. Hines himself makes his headquarters in Bowling Green, Ky. The company believed Mr. Hines' already established reputation as a connoisseur of good food would do the trick... What usually results is a flood of publicity which supplements the company's own concentrated advertising in the local market...Consolidated literally blitzes a town when it moves in. Color ads, so necessary in food promotion, are splashed on billboards and in local papers. Many radio and TV spots are used, as well as redemption coupons. Consolidated uses its quality claim as part of its selling technique. Unlike many cake mixes which contain powdered eggs in this mix, Duncan Hines mixes call for the additon of two fresh eggs. Mr. Hines insisted on this, stating it would make a better cake and would pay off in the long run. Duncan Hines brand mixes sell at competitive prices with other mixes, and the firm tries to turn the added expense of two fresh eggs to a selling advantage by telling the housewife 'this will make a better cake,' because Mr. Hines, the food authority, says so... The company is shooting for national distribution sometime next year."
---"Adventures in Good Selling--or Ballyhoo Blitz for a Cake-Mix," Felicia Anthenelli, Wall Street Journal, December 17, 1952 (p. 1)

"The Duncan Hines line of prepared mixes includes a variety of cake mixes, a pancake mix, a muffin mix, brownie mix and several other mix products. They are among the sales leaders in the 30 midwestern and Pacific Coast states where they are now sold...Mr. Hines, who edits the guidebooks bearing his nane and has concerned himnself primarily with quality standards of the licensed products, will continue in his present capacity."
---"Proctor-Gamble To Market Mix Products Soon," Newark Advocate [Newark OH], August 23, 1956 (p. 22)

Who was Duncan Hines?
Salesman, connosieur, entrepreneur, author, critic, philanthropist, culinary personna extroadinare! He did not, however, invent the cake mixes that bear his name. He and his wife were not professional cooks, but they did try out many of the recipes they were given. What was Duncan Hines favorite food and did he look like?

"Two or three times a week during the tourist season, travelers pull up in front of a neat, Colonial house on the edge of [Bowling Green, Kentucky] and inquire. 'How soon will dinner be ready?' They're attracted by a sign on the lawn: 'Home Office, Duncan Hines.' Mr. Hines who has built a nationwide reputation by telling people where to dine, doesn't serve any meals at his combination office and home here. But he concedes it is flattering that people think of him when they are hungry. 'Every day in this country, more than 70 million people eat out,' he explains. Helping them decide which restaurants to choose is the foundation for a prospering enterprise that first started in 1936. In that year, Mr. Hines compiled his first directory of recommended restaurants throughout the U.S., 'Adventures in Good Eating.' Since then the book has become a sort of Baedeker of American Cuisine. Through the years Mr. Hines has added three other guides--'Lodging for a Night," "Adventures in Good Cooking," and 'Vacation Guide.'...Much of his time is spent in updating the guides to eliminate establishments that have fallen below his standards. He adds new discoveries when he runs across them. To help him keep track of the 2,500 eateries...on his recommended list, he enlists a corps of 600 friends scattered across the country. When a place changes hands, they report whether it still qualifies for a Hines approval. So far, Mr. Hines hasn't found any eating place in his native Bowling Green that he can recommend. He hasn't endeared himself to fellow Kentuckians by his comment that much of the locality is cursed with 'greese cooking.'...A public eating place, to get on the Hines list, must pass a rigorous inspection. He admires well-polished silver and white table cloths in the dining room. Often he insists on visitng the kitchen to inspect garbage disposal and dishwashing. Mr. Hines got to know the good and bad of roadside hashing when he was a salesman of printing and advertising for Rogers & Co., of Chicago. Friends began asking him for recommendations. Mr. Hines mailed out a printed list of his favorites as a gift before he realized the project might have commercial possibilities. Books are only a part of the present-day enterprise. Perhaps the biggest moneymaker is a line of 150 foods which bear his name. Hines-Park Food, Inc., of Ithaca, N.Y., packages the victuals. Mr. Hines receives a royalty on each package sold. He's looking for sales of around 24 million packages of Duncan Hines cake mix this year and will collect one-half cent royalty on each. Under a separate agreement, some 94 firms make Duncan Hines ice cream. Mr. Hines maintains a testing laboratory at Bowling Green to keep it up to specification...The money from all his books goes into the Duncan Hines Foundation which provides scholarships for seniors taking courses in restaurant and hotel management at Cornell University and Michigan State College. The National Sanitation Foundation also shares in book profits."
---"Duncan Hines' Love of Good Food Becomes Publishing, Cake Mix, Ice Cream Business," James Garst, Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1952 (p. 7)
[NOTES: (1)"Baedeker" was a popular hotel/travel rating guide. (2) FoodTimeline library owns a copy of Adventures in Good Cooking.]

In Mr. Hines' own words:
"My interest in Wayside inns is not the expression of a gourmand's appetite for fine foods but the result of a recreational impulse to do something 'different,' to play a new game that would intrigue my wife and give me her companionship in my hours of relaxation from a strenuous and exacting business. Upon purchasing our first car, we decided to see as much of America as possible, to test its outstanding food, to met interesting people along the way and bring home with us from each trip a lot of pleasant memories that we could keep stored away in our minds to feast on in later years. The idea appealed to Mrs. Hines for she apparently liked to 'go places' with her husband better than anything else...My first discovery was that the highways were crowded with gasoline pilgrims whose main interest seemed to be the relative merits of inns. They fairly oozed informatino about the places we ought not to miss. Of course, I took careful notes on this information--that being a part of the game we were playing for our own amusement. Most of these tourists produced private lists of 'best places' and nearly all of them remarked that there ought to be a reliable directory of the most desirable inns available to discriminating motorist. This idea intrigued me. After years of travel over the highways I found I had the names of several hundred inns, scattered over the country, the desirablility of which was enthusiastically vouched for by those who had patronized them. So we set out to visit as many as possible to check up on reports given us, for you know there is not accounting for tastes in food any more than there is in clothing, printing or marriage."
---Adventures in Good Eating, A Duncan Hines Book [Adventures in Good Eating Inc.:Bowling Green KY] 1939 (p. vii)

Did Duncan Hines and his wife also cook?
Yes! Several of their recipes appear in Adventures in Good Cooking and the Art of Carving in the Home: Tested Recipes of Unusual Dishes from America's Favorite Eating Places. Sample here:

520. Fudge Squares.
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2 oz. bitter chocolate
or
1/3 cup cocoa plus
1 tablespoon butter...Melt Butter and chocolate
1/2 cup cake flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt...Sift twice and add to above

3 eggs--beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)...Stir into mixture and bake in 350 F. to 375 F. oven for 25 minutes.
---Duncan Hines, Bowling Green Kentucky, Adventures in Good Cooking and the Art of Carving in the Home, Duncan Hines, recipes from the original 1933 edition edited by Louis Hatchett [Mercer University Press:Macon, GA] 2002 (unpaginated).

What was Duncan Hines' favorite food?
"What is my favorite food? Well I think that my day-in, day-out favorite is ice cream which I sometimes enjoy for breakfast as well as lunch and dinner. There are times, of course, when I much prefer other good things to eat, but over the long run, ice cream remains my all-time preference."
---Duncan Hines' Food Odyssey, Duncan Hines [Thomas Y. Crowell Co.:New York] 1955 (p. 252)
[NOTE: Mr. Hines does not express his favorite flavor or type of ice cream dish in this book.]

"The best meal I ever ate was an order of ham and egs in a frontier cafe where the click of the roulette wheel in the back mingled with the clatter of dishes at the front counter. That was in Cheyenne Wyoming, about 1899, and no gustatory experience that I have had since that time has dislodged that platter of ham and eggs from its secure position as my best remembered dinner."
---ibid, (p. 1)
[NOTES: (1) The restaurant serving this meal was Harry Hynds's Restaurant. (2) The story behind this meal is a great read. Happy to scan/send upon request.]

The Food Timeline library owns these books authored by Duncan Hines. Happy to share recipes; let us know what you need.

Adventures in Good Cooking, facsimile 1933 edition (2002), original 1939 & 1952 editions
The Duncan Hines Dessert Book (1955)
Duncan Hines' Food Odyssey (1955)..autobiography with selected recipes. Fun read!
Py-O-My brand baking mixes
According to the records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Py-OMy brand baking mixes were introduced to the American public by Kitchen Art Foods [Chicago,IL], December 9, 1936. Record here:

Word Mark PY-O-MY Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S: BAKING MIXES FOR MAKING [ PIE CRUST, HOT ROLLS, ] COFFEE CAKE, [ COOKIES, TARTS, TURNOVERS, COBBLERS, MEAT PIES, CHEESE STRAWS ] AND CAKES. FIRST USE: 19361209. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19361209 Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM Design Search Code Serial Number 71532463 Filing Date August 26, 1947 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Change In Registration CHANGE IN REGISTRATION HAS OCCURRED Registration Number 0558182 Registration Date April 29, 1952 Owner (REGISTRANT) KITCHEN ART FOODS, INC. CORPORATION DELAWARE 2320 NORTH DAMEN AVENUE CHICAGO ILLINOIS (LAST LISTED OWNER) GILSTER-MARY LEE CORPORATION CORPORATION ASSIGNEE OF MISSOURI 1037 STATE STREET CHESTER ILLINOIS 62233 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Attorney of Record SIMOR L. MOSKOWITZ Prior Registrations 0351946 Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL-2(F) Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECTION 8(10-YR) 20010922. Renewal 3RD RENEWAL 20010922 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Gilster-Mary Lee Corporation is still in business. They still sell PY-O-My coffee cake mix (only)

Our survey of ads placed in major US papers identifies these Py-O-My brand products:
Cake Mixes (white, yellow, Devil's food)
Ice Box Pie Mix (lemon chiffon, lemon, chocolate, strawberry & butterscotch)
Pie Crust Mix
Puddin' Cake Mix (vanilla, chocolate, caramel pecan & lemon)
Rice Feast (Spanish Rice Dinner)
Apple Thins
Brownie Mix
Blueberry Muffin Mix (promoted by large company ads, mostly in the 1950s)
Pineapple Upside Down Cake Mix
Coffee Cake Mix
Pudding Mix (vanilla, chocolate & caramel)
Frosting Mixes (chocolate & white)
Instant Potato Mix
Pancake Mix

Selected snippets from company ads & articles:
"Blueberry Muffins! Bake'Em Quick! Py-O-My Bluebery Muffin Mix includes a can of blueberries and a set of paper baking cups and a sealed bag of muffin mix. Makes about 10 large delicious muffins--up to 16 small ones. ..So simple and economical to make...just ad water, one egg, then bake! Nothing adds mroe to a meal, a snack, or dessert--than mouth-watering blueberry muffins. The can of blueberries, right in the package, has plenty of berries...New Py-O-My Pineapple Upside Down Cake Mix includes a can of perfectly blended pineapple, brown sugar and cherries."
---Display ad, Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1951 (p. G4)

"My Magic Fornula for making best-you-ever-had Blueberry Muffins is simple...I just use Py-O-My Blueberry Muffin Mix. It takes only 3 1/2 minutes from package to oven, too...for each package contains a can of juicy blueberries, a bag of specially blended mix and a set of handy baking cups! And they taste simply heavenly...thanks to a treasured old New England recipe 'charmed' with the tempting, tangy-sweet flavor of choice northern berries. That's why these luscious muffins are wonderful for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner...and why Py-O-My Blueberry Muffin Mix also makes delicious loaf cake, pancakes, scones and the like. Try it...soon!"
---"Buy-Lines," Nancy Sasser, Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1953 (p. B3)

"A new dessert-mix called Py-O-My pudding is being introduced by Kitchen Arts Foods of Chicago in chain stores here, including Bohacks, King Kullen and Peter Reeves. Requiring no more than thirty minutes for preparation, including cooking time, the packaged product comes in three flavors, vanilla, chocolate and caramel. Such convenience, of course, means some sacrifice in quality. The pudding is a bit too coarse-grained to meet the standards of really fine cookery. But the flavor is pleasing, especially in the caramel and chocolate puddings. Topped with whipped cream, the dessert is exceedingly appetizing. And the preparation is easy. Contents of the larger of two paper bags are emptied into a bowl. A third of a cup of milk is added, the mixture is beaten for one minute and poured into a casserole or other baking dish. After sprinkling the dry 'sauce' of the smaller bag over the batter, one and one-quarter cups of water are poured over the mixture. No further stirring is necessary; the dish goes immediately into a 450-degree oven. Directions on the package suggest baking for twenty minutes, but in The New York Times' test kitchen we got better results by allowing another five minutes of cooking."
---"News of Food: dessert mix is offered," New York Times, April 27, 1954 (p. 34)

"Meet the family of Py-O-My mixes. You'll enjoy all five as much as those you've tried...Blueberry Muffin Mix makes naturally sweet blueberry muffins. A can of blueberries and paper baking cups right in the package! 'Round-the-clock favorite...Coffee Cake Mix makes so many things. Makes two 9-inch rings! Makes pecan rolls and raised doughnuts. Also cinnamon rolls, stollen and kuchen...Ice Box Pie Mix makes a complete chiffon ice box pie without baking! Graham cracker crust and chiffon filling in the package. Four popular year 'round flavors: lemon, chocolate, strawberry, butterscotch...Puddin'Cake Mix brings you this new dessert idea. Cake with sauce--baked together! Four favorite flavors...vanilla, chocolate, caramel pecan and lemon. Kids love 'em!... Brownie Mix comes in the handy aluminum baking pan! They're tops with youngsters to make and eat--anytime!"
---Display ad (large, with pictures of the products), Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1956 (p. N49)

"Another excellent label is the Py-O-My lemon chiffon ice-box pie. On the front side, the one you face as it stands on the market shelf is the information that it contains two bags--in one is the graham cracker crust mix and in the other the filling mix-'no baking is required, just mix and chill. Add only milk or water.' A glance at the label answers your questions about what it is and how to use it. Clear, concise directions for preparing the pie are printed on the back. Further evidence of the integrity of the label is the important hint printed below the label, 'mix contains fresh milk so be sure to refrigerate leftovers.'"
---"Read the Label: It Tells You What You're Getting for Your Money," Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1957 (p. A8)

"This Message Made a Million Friends! Dear Friend, May we ask you a big favor? If you enjoy this quality product as much as we believe you will, won't you tell 3 of your friends about it and where you bought it? After all, there's nothing better than an enthusiastic customer's recommendation to her friends. We will appreciate this favor. Cordially yours, Py-O-My. Printed on the bag inside every package of Py-O-My Baking Mixes is the message above. Many Py-O-My users write they have shared their discovery with 3 friends--and more! Share their discovery too! Please try Py-O-My Baking Mixes including these. Blueberry Muffin Mix. Package contains can of juicy wild blueberries, mix, and paper baking cups. So many uses, including Sunday breakfast! Apple Thins Mix. Includes can of juicy, spiced apples, crunchy crust, and tempting butter crumb topping. So easy to fix-you don't even mix!"
---Display ad, Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1958 (p. K36)

Consumer reaction
According to the food historians, early baking mixes were not readily accepted. Why? Two reasons: (1) They were not reliable and they produced inconsistent results. (2) Home cooks had a difficult time reconciling modern convenience with traditional expectations. When food companies make things too simple their products are summarily rejected. Even in today's culture of ultra-convenience, this holds true. The "Snack'n Cake" lesson.

What Pillsbury/Betty Crocker hoped to achieve after World War II initally backfired because home cooks felt compelled/obligated to return to the way things were. Like mom used to cook. They say good salesmen don't take "no" for an answer. America's largest food concerns obviously hired these men. Despite the fact that early mixes often produced less than satisfactory results and invoke a complicated set of psycho-social baggage, they prevailed. Eventually mixes were accepted. Today? Most people who make cakes for people they love regularly employ mixes (universally perceived as home-made, as in "made in the home") instead of buying a premade "cake in the box." The real "scratch cake" is very nearly lost.

"The very marketable premise behind cake mixes was, and still is, the ability to have a fresh, "home-made" cake with very little time and effort. Though Betty Crocker--like her competitors--promised that cake mixes offered freshness, ease, and flavor in a box, the market was slow to mature. Puzzled, marketers reiterated the message that homemakers need only drop this scientific marvel into a bowl, add water, mix, and bake. But that was still a little too good to be true for Mrs. Comsumer America. Certainly, cake mixes sold, but--compared with the early performance of Bisquick or Aunt Jemima pancake mix--not up to industry expecations. The "quick mix"...industry, eager to correct the shortfall, conducted research even as the development of new mixes continued. General Mills considered the market research of the business psychologists Dr. Burleigh Gardner and Dr. Ernest Dichter to explain the mediocre sales of cake mixes. The problem, according to the psychologists, was eggs. Dichter, in particular, believed that powdered eggs, often used in cake mixes, should be left out, so women could add a few fresh eggs into the batter, giving them a sense of creative contribution. He believed...that baking a cake was an act of love on the woman's part; a cake mix that only needed water cheapened that love. Whether the psychologists were right, or whether cakes made with fresh eggs simply taste better than cakes made with dried eggs, General Mills decided to play up the fact that Betty Crocker's cake mixes did not contain...dried eggs of any kind...Before long, cake mix started to gain some acceptance and notoriety; even Mamie Eisenhower instructed her cooking staff to use this novel invention at the White House."
---Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food, Susan Marks [Simon & Schuster:New York] 2005 (p. 168, 170)

What did Consumer Reports think of these early mixes?
[1944]
"Three types of cake mixes were found by CU's shoppers: two brands of devil's food, two lemon-flavored yellow cakes and a spice cake. All four included vegetable shortening, sugar, powdered egg, powdered skim milk, salt, baking powder (or soda and phosphate) and flavoring in their ingredients. The devil's food types added cocoa, and the spice cake, various spices and cocoa. Helen's Red-E Devil Food Mix, which received the highest rating, was made with enriched wheat flour and oat flour. The Spiced Cake Mix of the same brand, considered fairly good, contained some soya flour. The cake mixes were tested for rising quality, color of crust and crumb, grain, texture, flavor and aroma. The last three, considered together as a palatability, were the chief factors in the ratings."

Cake Mixes Acceptable (In estimated order of quality)
Helen's Red-E Devil Food Mix (Gann Prod. Co.). 30 cents for 16 oz. (30 cents). Enriched wheat flour and oat flour. Excellent flavor. Available in California, Oregon and Nevada.
X-Pert Devil's Food Mix (Modern Foods, Inc.). 18 cents for 14 1/4 oz. (19.9 cents). Excellent flavor. Grain rather coarse, but probably normal for this type of cake. Available East of the Mississippi.
Helen's Red-E Yellow Cake Mix (Gann Prod. Co.). 30 cents for 1 lb. (30 cents). Wheat, cottonseed and oat flour. Excellent flavor, slightly lemon. Available in California, Oregon and Nevada.
Joy Golden Layer Cake (Cramer Products Co., NYC). 20 cents for 14 oz. (33.1 cents). Very good flavor, slightly lemon. Available nationally.
Helen's Red-E Spiced Cake Mix (Gann Prod. C.). 30 cents for 1 lb. (30 cents). Wheat flour and soya flour. Good flavor, nutmeg mace. Available in California, Oregon and Nevada."
---"Baking Mixes," Consumer Reports, July 1944 (p. 179-180)

[1948]
"Delectable-looking cakes, biscuits, muffins, rolls, pies and other baked goods peer forth these days, not only from the baker's showcase, but from the paper labels on the grocer's shelves. They are "come on's" for the prepared flour mixes now appearing in ever greater numbers and variety. When CU's shoppers throughout the nation had bought all of the types and brands of mixes containing flour (except pancake mixes) which they found on the market, they had 76--more than three times as many as were available in 1944 when CU last tested these products. How good are they? The value of any mix to a housewife is based on the quality of the finished product--how good it is to eat--plus ease and convenience of preparation, and cost. CU consultants subjected all products to actual baking tests, following the directions given on the packages. The scores for cake, gingerbread, biscuit, muffin and hot roll mixes were based on flavor, volume or the amount of rise, texture, or tenderness of crumb to feel and taste, aroma while warm from baking, grain or physical structure of the crumb and color of crust and crumb...CU found some mixes that were good, many that were satisfactory, and only two that were "Not Acceptable." Many brands were neither consistently good nor consistently poor...The preparation of mostt of these mixes calls for the addition only of water or milk, and they can be stirred up so simply that, if directions are followed, there is little danger of their being spoiled. The time required is negligable compared to that for mixing a cake from the basic ingredients. They are particularly useful for emergencies, for youngsters just trying their culinary wings, or for the gang of teen-agers who what to take over the kitchen for an evening. Cost varied considerably among different brands of the same type of mix, and while in some cases it was greater than the comparable homemade product, in many cases, it was not more, or even less.
---"Flour Mixes: Almost all are "Acceptable," but some taste better and cost less than others," Consumer Reports, August 1948 (p. 355-7)

[1951]
"CU's consultants tested 20 bands of prepared cake mix--gingerbread, white cake, and devil's food. In the opinion of the home economists who sampled them for taste and other qualities, none were as good as "mother used to bake." However, the best of the mixes made cakes nearly as good as those obtained with standard recipes. While they fall short of the best products of the baker's art, ready mixes do have a number of advantages which may decide you to keep them on your pantry shelf. They are time savers. In CU's tests the time saved by making a cake from prepared mix rather than a recipe, was about 15 minutes. Counting wash-up and put-away time of utensils, the mixes have an even greater edge. They are work savers. Use of a prepared mix eliminates many of the steps necesary with standard recipes, such as the sifting of flour and the measuring of ingredients. Only one bowl is required. However, too little or too much mixing, or incorrect oven temperature, may still result in an unsuccessful cake. They are economical. The average cost of a two-layer devil's food cake (eight-inch layers) made from a ready mix was 38c, including the cost of milk and eggs when their addition was required. This was appreciably less than the cost of a standard recipe devil's food cake, which was 47c at the time of the tests in late January 1951. On the white cake and ginger cake, however, the saving was less--only 2c in each case, on the average. Convenience, more than price, favors the use of the prepared mix. With ready mixes, you are saved the necessity of storing ingredients used only occasionally...or remembering to buy ingredients not normally used...In many cakes, you do not even have to have milk or eggs on hand to bake a cake. Ten of the 20 mixes tested--all of the ginger cakes and several of the others--required the addition of water only. Occident Devils Food Cake Mix required the addition of one egg; Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake Mix and white cake, each required the addition of two eggs...Mixing directions are given for both hand beating and for the use of an electric mixer in most cases. A few brands even carry directions for use in high altitude regions. Swans Down, and some others, provide a "special formula" mix for high altitude baking. Packaging also carry instructions for making cookies, cup cakes, or glamorized versions of the basic cake for which the mix was intended. It is apparent that there are good reasons for the growing popularity of the mixes. However, if you have the skill to bake a really fine cake, and your taste or the occasion demands the best, you should follow your own prized recipe."
---"Cake Mixes: CU Tested 20 Brands of Prepared Cake Mixes and Foundy Many Good Ones," Consumer Reports, June 1951(p. 261-2)

[1953]
"Not so very long ago, the housewife who went to the bakery store to get her family's dessert, instead of producing it from her own oven, was looked at askance by her more industrious neighbors. Today there seems to be at least a fair prospect that the situation will be reversed. For the grocery store shelves are replete with ready-mix-cake packages in great variety, and the description of their preparation sounds so simple as to make a trip to the bakery store, by comparison, a major chore. In an attempt to answer the question of whether or not the ready-mix cakes are indeed as easy to prepare as package instructions indicate, and whether the end products are of such quality as to justify their use, CU surved the field of prepared mixes for white cake, yellow cake, devil's food cake, and gingergread. Eight brands of devil's food mix, seven brands of white and of yellow cake mix, and three brands of gingerbread were tested. Four samples of each mix were stirred up and baked, two operators preparing two samples of each. These were submitted, without band identification, independently to each of three judges, along with a piece of cake of similar character made from home-mixed batter. Judgement was passed on each piece about two hours after its removal from the oven, and again (to determine keeping qualities) a day later. The judges, who are trained home economists, used a score system to rate flavor, texture, appearance, grain, color, and shape of the cakes; in addition, they expressed an overall opinion of each cake's quality. There was suprisingly little disagreement, among the individual judges, as to the visible characteristics of the various products, but in flavor preference they often did not agree, which is hardly surprising. However, in the extremes of taste-- cakes rated either oudstandingly good or very poor--there was little dispute among them. In terms of general quality, many of the the cakes made from the packaged mixes competed successfully against the home-made cakes, which were carefully prepared from well- tested recipes. (The recipes were for cakes of average richness in the selected types. This is not to say that your own favorite recipe won't produce a cake finer than any mix on the market!). Most of the ready-mix cakes were a pleasing in shape, volume, and general appearance as the home-made cakes, and mnay had very good texture and fine grain-structure, too. It was in flavor that the home-made cakes outranked most--but not all--of the mixes. As for the preparation of the mix-made cakes, it's almost as simple as the advertisiments claim. For most of the mixes, the housewife need only add a measured amount (usually a cupful, more or less) of milk or water to the solid ingredients in the box, stir the two together, pour the mixture into greased pans, and bake in a preheated oven. For a few, an egg or two, or some flavoring, is required in addition. Only one brand, Betty Crocker, received a Good rating in all four of the varieties tested...None of the others were consistently superior, though there were individual cake types of other brands which were at least equal of Betty Crocker."
---"Cake Mixes: CU's consultants tasted and examined ready-mix cakes to find which brands were best," Consumer Reports, September 1953 (p. 385-7)

Cake mix market & demographics [1956]
"Cake mix makers are finding that a popualr new product, a helping of fast-rising sales and a quick stir do not always make a recipe for sweet profits. When cake mixes were introduced after World War II, they caught on immediately and fit right into the parade toward ever-greater consumer convenience--along with frozen foods, automatic washers, automatic car shcifts and power lawn mowers. Sales soard twelvefold in the past eight years, turing the easy mixes into a $225 million a year business. But this success story has taken a rather unhappy turn for the cake mix makers. New mixes, and new manufacturers rushed into the suddenly expanding field. The result: Feverish competition, marked by price cutting and big promotion outlays,--and sharly pared profit margins. 'I don't see how any of them are making any money,' says the president of a concern that dropped out of cake mix competition. 'They are just hoping for future profits.' National Biscuit Co.'s Dromedary Mix division advertising director...agrees, and calls the mix business generally 'now a loss operation.' Pillsbury Mills., Inc., with one-third of the cake mix business, concedes profits declined last year because of price wars and the cost of 'extraordinary heavy advertising and promotional programs.' Nebraska Consolidated Millls Co. which had the Duncan Hines brand of mixes and an estimated 11% of cake mix sales, recently sold out its mix line after five years because...other milling activities were more profitable. Two other mix makers, General Foods Corp., with the Swans Down brand and giant General Mills, Inc., with about one-third of the market, refuse to discuss the finances of their cake mix lines. ...Zooming sales leave little doubt the housewife has made cake mxies a permanent addition to her kitchen shelf. Sales totaled about 568 million packages in the year ended last June 1, compared with only 50 million packages in the 1947-1948 year. Mix executives figure 80% of all homes now use at least one mix cake each year. Slightly over half of all cakes baked, they reckon, use the mixes, and General Mills statistician...predicts the toal eventually will reach 66%, possibly even 70% or 75%. 'When an elderly woman dies,' comments one mix executive, 'the flour and shortening business loses a customer. When a young girl marries, the mix business gains a customer.'...New flavors are almonst constantly being tested or brough out by cake mix makers. In addition to the common white, yellow, and chocoalte mixes, such delights as orange, caramel, spice, burnt sugar marble, confetti angel food, butterscotch, apple chip and sponge cake mixes are available...Cake sizes are bing tailored nowadays to suit individual needs. Smaller type cakes have been designed for the two or three-person family. Called an 'Answer Cake' by General Mills (because it 'answered letter demands for a smaller cake') and the 'Kit Cake' by Pillsbury,t ehse mixes include regular mix, frosting mix and a foil pan all in one carton. Chelsea Milling Co. of Chelsea, Mich., puts out an almost pocket sized box of mix selling for 10 cents that makes a small one-layer cake...Historically, mixes aren't new. The granddaddy proabaly is the pancake mix, developed in the early 1920's and produced shortly after then by Quaker Oats with its Aunt Jemima brand. Next development was the biscuit mix, brought out in the ealry 1930's by General Mills with its 'Bisquick' mix. Shortly before World War II broke out, the gingerbread mix was introduced. But it wasn't until after the war that cake mixes made theri entrance. Housewives who insist on baking home made cakes get little consolation when comparing costs with a ready mix cake. A General Mills statistician calculates that a common white, yellow or devils food cake costs from 47 to 51 cents using ordinary flour, six cents more using special cake flour (not a mix) and dix cents more if butter shortening is used."
---"Cake Mix Fix: Sales Rise Fast But Competition Batters Producers' Profits," Jerry M. Flint, Wall Street Journal, October 26, 1956 (p. 1)

Snackin Cake
Snackin'Cake was an all-in-one box kit, including an aluminum pan for baking the product. This product took cake mix convenience to the next level, because the cake was mixed in the pan and that pan could be discarded. No messy bowl or cake pan to clean.

According to the records of the US Patent & Trademark Office, Snackin' Cake brand mix was introduced by General Mills (think: Betty Crocker) January 5, 1971:
"Word Mark SNACKIN' CAKE Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S: CAKES MIXES. FIRST USE: 19710105. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19710105 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 72394440 Filing Date June 10, 1971 Current Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Registration Number 0940014 Registration Date August 1, 1972 Owner (REGISTRANT) GENERAL MILLS, INC. CORPORATION DELAWARE NUMBER ONE GENERAL MILLS BOULEVARD MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA 55426 Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR). SECTION 8(10-YR) 20020405. Renewal 2ND RENEWAL 20020405 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE"

"Cake mixes have reached the ultimate in convenience with new Snackin' Cake from Betty Crocker. You add water and vinegar [it makes the cake rise] and mix the batter right in the pan. We tried banaana walnut and found it moist, rich, and good. The other two varieties are coconut pecan and chocolate almond. These cakes [49 cents each] are ideal for lunch boxes, but not between-meal snacking as the company suggests."
---"New Products on the Shelves," Fran Zell, Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1972 (p. N-A20)

Soapy cake mixes?

"Use of soap in baking cake has been developed by the Proctor & Gamble Company of Cincinnati, it has revealed in a patent (No. 2,123,880)...Soap added to the baking mix, the inventors say, will prevent the cake from falling or turning out flat. The final product is described as fluffier and lighter than other cake. Addition of the soap also permits the use of more sugar in the mix, so that the cake may have more sugar than flour. As little as twenty-five one-thousandths of 1 per cent of soap is added to the mixture, This small quantity does not adversley affect the flavor of the cake, it is asserted. The soap is mixed in with the batter. Any soap may be used."
---"New Baking Recipe Puts Soap in Cake," New York Times, July 24, 1938 (p. 28)

When did oil become a standard ingredient?
Excellent question with no exact answer. The ealiest print reference we find suggesting oil be used in cake mixes is this:

"In quick-mix cakes, vegetable shortening was recommended, and in using oil in cakes, it was strongly suggested that one employ a recipe worked out with oil in mind and not try to adapt a standard formula. Commerical cake mixes must be used stricly in accordance with package directions. It would be better, panel authorities felt, to standardize labels to eliminate such confusions as "white cake mix" and "silver cake mix," which are the same type."
---"News of Food: U.S. Housewife Baffles Cookery Experts Except for Two Things: Flavor, Desserts," Jane Nickerson, New York Times, November 8, 1952 (p. 14)

Twenty years later, this advertisement suggests the practice is still considered "novel":

"Try These Delicious Easy Recipe Ideas made with Duncan Hines Cake Mixes...'Lemon Pound Cake (makes 12 to 16 servings). 1 package Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme Deluxe Cake Mix, 1 package lemon instant pudding mix (4 serving size), 1/2 cup Crisco Oil, 1 cup water, 4 eggs. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.. Blend all ingredients in a large bowl; beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Bake in a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan at 350 degrees for about 45-55 minutes, until center springs back when touched lightly. Cool right side up for about 25 minutes, then remove from pan. Glaze: Blend 1 cup confectioners sugar with either 2 tablespoons milk or 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Drizzle over cake...Be sure to use Crisco Oil as some other oils may cause the cake to fall."
---Display ad, Duncan Hines, New York Times, June 29, 1972 (p. 45)
[NOTE: recipes for oil-ingredient Double Upside Down Cake and Neapolitan Refrigerator Sheet Cake, Double Chocolate Nugget, Peanut Butter Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies are also included in this ad.]

High Altitude Cake Mixes
Long before commercial cake mixes, mountain cooks adjusted traditional recipes for high altitudes. Caroline Trask Norton's Rocky Mountain Cook Book [1903] is considered one of the first texts specifically addressing high altitude cookery. Our survey of historic newspapers confirms Pillsbury conducted high altitude testing in 1949, using a WWII era high altitude simulator. Betty Crocker appears to be the first major commercial brand to feature high altitude directions on mix packages. Both brands are owned by General Mills.

[1949]
This article appeared in several newspapers in 1949. It provides additional details regarding Pillsbury's pioneering efforts to create fail-proof high altitude baking mixes. Would love to see a picture of this kitchen!!!

"It's getting so a housewife won't have a single alibi left if her cake turns out a flop. The experts are using aviation science to wipe out one excuse that a lot of tough-luck bakers maybe even thought of. That's atmospheric pressure. It seems there's a lot of difference between baking a cake in Herkimer, N.Y. and whipping one up in Denver, Colo. This is particularly true with the packaged cake mixes now so popular with grandma, bride and the professional baker. Adjustments must be made in baking recipes to allow for the low air pressure of high places and accompanying variations in moisture content. A recipe providing a perfect light cake in Herkimer might result in something as flat as a cold omelet in high altitude Denver. One of the nation's big millers (Pillsbury) worked out the problem through aviation science. Cakes were baked in a 'flying kitchen' that went up to 7,000 feet without leaving the ground. The aerial kitchen in a pressure chamber used by the U.S. army air force at Rochester, Minn., to conduct altitude tests on humans during the last war. The company formerly spent considerable time and money sending food researchers to high altitude cities to determine variations needed in cake mix formulas. When the pressure chamber idea jelled, all that had to be done was check the elevation of a city. Then a couple of girls from the company's research and development department 'took off' with their mixing bowls to turn out a test cake. 'Captain' of the cake mix flight missions was Miss Mary Kimball. Her crew consisted of one inside helper on each 'flight.' The pressure chamber, which still has man of its air force fittings--earphones, microphones, oxygen masks and gauges--is equipped with a small electric stove, large enough to bake one cake. The chamber, a large steel tank anchored horizontally on a solid foundation, is divided into two compartments separated by an air lock. A vault-like door seals the chamber during an experiment. before the girls took off for an experiment they baked a control cake on the ground. The ascent was made at the rate of 1,000 feet a minute. When they reached a previously determined altitude the cake mix was turned on and the weighing, measuring and baking started. They were up about four hours on each flight. While the testers were in the air, technicians outside the chamber watched gauges to maintain proper pressure. Other home economists peered through glassed portholes to observe the flying bakers. When the test cake came out of the oven, Miss Kimball seized a microphone to announce the baking mission completed and the oven ready to land. Miss Kimball and her crew members have baked about 200 cakes in 64 'logged flights.' The aerial cakes are measured and judged against known standards first as they come out of the oven and later in Minneapolis laboratories. So if you want to bake a cake on top of a 29,000 foot Mt. Everest, don't guess at the recipe. Try it in a pressure chamber first."
---"If Your Cake Turns Out Flat It Might Be Because You Live in High Country, 'Airplane' Tests Indicate," Independent Record [Helena, MT], April 7, 1949 (p. 2)

"High Altitude Cooking. The prepared mix which a Manhattan housewife makes a perfect cake would yield one as flat as a pancake if it were cooked in a city 10,000 feet above sea level. The effect of altitude on baking has posed a problem for manufacturers who distribute such mixes on a nation-wide scale. They've had to change the formulas for the products they sell in areas of high elevation. One of the most interesting procedures for testing these recipes is that employed by Pillsbury Mills. Pillsbury's home economists do their experimental work on the various formulas in a 'flying kitchen' This laboratory never actually leaves the ground, for it is a low-pressure chamber, once used by the Army Air Force to conduct high altitude tests. In this way the research can be done right at the plant in Rochester, Minn.--a less expensive undertaking than sending workers and equipment out in the field to cities of different elevations. At 'flight' time the home economists enter the chamber which they've fixed into a tiny kitchen. They give a signal and the door of their kitchen is locked, A technician at the controls outside regulates the pressure so that the kitchen 'climbs' at the rate of about a thousand feet per minute...Chewing gum and sipping water to relive the pressure on their ears, the home economists begin their tests. The higher the altitude, the lower the temperature inside the cake while it is baking. This weakens the structural strength derived from the flour and eggs in the batter. To counteract this, it's necessary to use less leavening and more liquid. But when the housewife buys a package of cake mix at the corner grocery, whether it be in this city or in mile-high Denver, Col., she's not likely to be aware of all this. The home economists at Pillsbury's have worked out a special formula for the mixes sold in cities with an elevation of more than 3,000 feet. Directions on the packages for areas with an altitude up to 3,000 feet call for more liquid than those sold in sea-level cities. But all three types of mixes come in the same sort of containers with only slight variations in the wording on the labels. The company gives to the distributors and the grocers the responsibility for seeing that a housewife gets the kind of mix designed for 'baking at the altitude at which she lives."
---"News of Food," New York Times, November 17, 1949 (p. 39)

High altitude cake mix [1949]
Manufacturers offered special formulations to homemakers living in high altitudes. This article does not reference a particular company or brand.

"High Altitude Mix. A special package in which the mix has been adjusted for successful high-altitude baking will be on sale in areas where the altitude is 3500 feet and higher. This package will be identified easily by a prominent label. Make two light-as-down layers, white or yellow, or a spicy square from a package of the new instant cake mix..."
---"Bakers' Miracle: New Magic Mix Makes Many Different Cakes," Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1949 (p. B4) Betty Crocker

[1948]
"Betty Crocker's Ginger Cake...special instructions for high altitude baking on recipe insert in every package."
---display ad, Ogden Standard-Examiner [UT], October 15, 1948 (p. 20)

[1950]
"High Altitude No Problem With Betty Crocker Cake Mixes! Larger, lighter, more luscious cakes when you follow easy high altitude directions on package. Glowing reports of success are pouring in from women in high altitudes, telling of cakes high as mountains, light as clouds, made from these sensational new mixes. And there's a reason! Betty Crocker developed special high altitude baking directions to go on every one of her cake mix packages, so that success would be sure for the homemakers whofollowed them."
---Display ad, Reno Evening Gazette [NV], March 2, 1950 (p. 18)
[NOTE: three cake mixes are featured in this ad, Party Cake (White, Spice or Yellow), Devils Food and Ginger Cake and Cooky Mix.]

About cooking "from scratch"
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word "scratch" has several meanings. The phrase "from scratch" is derived from this:

5b. "The starting-point in a handicap of a competitor who recieves no odds; sometimes colloq. used ellipt. for such a competitor. From scratch, from a position of no advantage, knowledge, influence, etc., from nothing."

As this applies to food, it means the item was made without the aid of prepared items; all primary ingredients.

Who coined this phrase and when?
Good question. The OED does not offer a first print use for this term as it applies to food. Our phrase books sometimes list these words but only define them. Our food history books do not include the term. The oldest references we find for this phrase (New York Times historic database) date to the 1940s. These articles are promoting making cakes from mixes rather than "from scratch."

Angel food

The classic story behind the name "angel food cake" is that this dessert is so white, light, and fluffy it must be fit for angels. Who thought up this name? No one knows. We do know [from the study of old cookbooks] that cake recipes with the name "angel food" began showing up in American cookbooks sometime in the late nineteenth century, about the same time as mass-produced bakeware hit the popular market. Devils Food, dense chocolately rich and "sinful," answered Angel Food decades later in the 20th century.

Some food historians speculate the Pennsylvania Dutch were probably the original makers and namers of angel food, though this connection has not been fully documented. In support of the theory, one of many culinary traditions introduced to America by the Pennsyvania Dutch was the cake mold, a special metal pan for creating festive cakes in unusual shapes. A recipe for "Amanda's Angel Food Cake" is included in the Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book of Time Old Recipes, Culinary Arts Press [1936] (p. 39) but not listed in Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery, J. George Frederick [1935]. Angel food cake mixes debuted in 1942.

"Angel-food cake...Also "angel cake." A very light, puffy cake, perhaps of Pennsylvania-Dutch heritage, without yeast and with several beaten egg whites. The egg whites give it a texture so airy that the confection supposedly has the sublimity of angels. Angel-food cake was known by the 1870s in America (the word appeared in print in the 1880s) and served as a sensible usage of leftover egg whites."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 6)

"...angel (or angel food) cakes, which some believe evolved as the result of numerous egg whites left over after the making of noodles, may or may not be the brainchild of thrifty Pennsylvania cooks who considered it sinful to waste anything."
---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones [Vintage Books:New York] 1981, 2nd ed. (p. 93)

"Angel Food Cake...Name given to a variety of very light spongy cakes originating from America. This type of confection was first introduced to England in 1934. There were many failures in its manufacture in the earlier days, det to the fact that a special soft flour was required to ensure lightness and soft eating qualities."
---Master Dictionary of Food & Cookery, Henry Smith {Philospohical Library:New York] 1952 (p. 8)

A survey of late 19th century cookbooks attests to the introduction of a cake named "angel food" sometime in the 1880s. This is a typical recipe from a popular cookbook:

[1884]
"Angel Cake
One cup of flour, measured after one sifting, and then mixed with one teaspoonful of cream of tartar and sifted four times. Beat the whites of eleven eggs, with a wire beater or perforated spoon, until stiff and flaky. Add one cup and a half of the fine granulated sugar, and beat again; add one teaspoonful of vanilla or almond, then mix in the flour quickly and lightly. Line the bottom and funnel of a cake pan with paper not greased, pour in the mixture, and bake about forty minutes. When done, loosen the cake around the edge, and turn out at once. Some persons have been more successful with this cake by mixing the sugar with the flour and cream of tartar, and adding all at aonce to the beaten egg."
---The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln [1884] (p. 374)
[1940s]
Eleanor Roosevelt's Angel Food Cake

Recipes for cakes similar to angel food [calling only for egg whites] were known by different names:
[1871]
"Snow-drift cake
Three cupsful of flour, two cupsful of sugar, one-half a cupful of butter, one cupful of sweet milk, the whites of five eggs beaten to a stiff froth, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, one-half a teaspoonful of soda; sift the flour, and do not pack it when measuring it."
---Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M. E. Porter [1871] (p. 223)
[NOTE: the lack of baking instructions!]

[1881]
"Silver cake
The whites of one dozen eggs beaten very light, one pound of butter, one pound of powdered sugar; rub the butter and sugar together until creamed very light, then add the beaten whites of the eggs, and beat all together until very light; two teaspoonfuls of the best yeast powder sifted with one pound of flour, then add the flour to the eggs, sugar and butter, also add one-half teacupful of sweet milk; mix quickly, and beat till very light; flavor with two teaspoonfuls of the extract of almond or peach, put in when you beat the cake the last time. Put to bake in any shape pan you like, but grease the pan well before you put the cake batter in it. Have the stove moderately hot, so as the cake will bake gradually, and arrange the damper of stove so as send heat to the bottom of the cake first. This instruction of baking applies to all cakes except tea cakes."
---What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking, [1881] (p. 28-9)

Angel food cake mix
The earliest print evidence we find for commercial angel food cake mix in the USA is 1942. The company? Blair Inc., Atchison Kansas. The brand? EZY Angel Cake Mix [Jefferson City Post-Tribune, Missouri, December 16, 1942 (p. 2)]. No price provided. In 1949 a full-page ad promoting this product was published in the Atchison Daily Globe [Kansas], October 13, 1949 (p. 11). The following year this mix penetrated the southern California market. Advertisements worked hard to convince home cooks this product was an acceptable substitute for home made. The last ad we have for EZY Angel mix was published in the Biddeford Journal [Maine], February 28, 1959 (p. 11). The 8-egg, 10-oz. mix cost 29 cents.

"Angel food cake, always a favorite in every home, but forever a headache to the homemaker, finally has caught up with the crowd. It's become as simple to prepare as mashed potatoes. After years of experimentation, a company in Atchison, Kan. comes up with an ingenious angel food cake mix that produces a cake pure white in color, fluffy and delicious as a home-baked cake. All you have to do is add water...For ease in preparation, the ingredients have been divided into two separate plastic bags. One contains the mix of egg whites, flavoring slice, salt and sugar; the other contains the special flour mixture. Contents of the first bag, with the addition of water, are beaten to the proper stiffness and the contents of the second bag are then folded into the mixture. The batter is poured into a tube pan and baked in a hot oven. It's just that simple!...Results have proven to be uniform in all cases, enabling anyone to make an angel food cake of such airy, snowy goodness that it delights the most particular tastes. The mix comes in two sizes--a large 14-egg package and a medium-sized 8-egg package. Once you have tried it, you won't want to be without it. Your family will love it..."
---"Problems Solved: Simple Angel Food Cake Mix Invented," Mary Ellen Wickes, Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1950 (p. B3)

"Angel food cake is the summertime favorite...Recently, an excellent packaged angel food cake mix was introduced in local stores. It has won wide approval of Los Angeles homemakers. Everyone who tries it is surprised by the cake's delicate flavor and good texture...There's a 14-egg package and a medium 8-egg one. The egg whites and all essential ingredients are scientifically measured and proportions into two little transparent paper bags contained in each box. The dry ingredients are beaten several minutes with a cupful of cold water and the other batter is read! many inquiries have come to this department about the product. We tested several samples for its quality, ease of preparation and cost. Our verdict is favorable on all counts...Unfortunately, the mix is not yet available in all food markets, but city-wide distribution is under way, and we recommend that you ask for it at your store when next you shop. Most grocers appreciate requests for new products from customers."
---"Angel Cake Makes Heavenly Desserts," Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1950 (p. B2)

"Ezy Angel Mix. Delicious Prizewinner. Every Angel Food Cake you make with EZY ANGEL MIX, Anybody can do it! 2 sizes: 14-Egg and 8-Egg...A complete 8-egg Angel Food Cake Mix, just add water, 9-oz Pkg....42 cents."
---display ad, Los Angeles Times, August 31, 1950 (p. 6)

Chocolate cake
In the beginning, chocolate was a precious substance used for religions ceremonies. When chocolate was introduced to Europe, other possibilities were explored. Confections, icings, puddings and baked goods embraced chocolate flavor.

What is chocolate cake? Excellent question with no simple answer. In the first half of the 19th century the typical chocolate cake was a yellow or spice cake meant to accompany a chocolate beverage. In the second quarter of the 19th century the typical chocolate cake was either a white or yellow cake with chocolate icing. It is not until the middle of the 19th century we begin to see chocolate as an ingredient in baked goods (cookies, cakes). Progress was slow. By the beginning of the 20th century chocolate cakes, as we know them today, proliferate. Why? Consumer economics, product availability and serious corporate marketing.

The oldest print reference we find for baked goods with chocolate ingredient is 1779. In this letter sent from prison, the notorious Marquis De Sade complains bitterly to his wife about the "care" package she sent him.

Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade, primarily known for 'other activities,' nevertheless, mentioned chocolate in a series of letters written form prison addressed to his wife. In a most interesting letter dated May 16, 1779, he tersely complained of the quality of a food package she previously sent to him and enumerated his complaints. 'This sponge cake is not at all what I asked for: 1) I wanted it iced everywhere, both on top and underneath, with the same icing used on the little cookies; 2) I wanted it to be chocolate inside, of which it contains not the slightest hint; they have colored it with some sort of dark herb, but there is not what one could call the slightest suspicion of chocolate. The next time you send me a package, please have it made for me, and try to have some trustworthy person there to see for themselves that some chocolate is put inside. The cookies must smell of chocolate, as if one were biting into a chocolate bar.' This specific de Sade letter reveals several important pieces of information. First, the letter hints that the so-called chocolate cookies were prepared from adulterated chocolate...Second, the concluding sentence suggests that bars of chocolate for eating pleasure were available in Paris nearly 50 years before Van Houten's invention of the cocoa press, an invention that some have interpreted as a necessary 'tipping-point' required before the development of confectionary chocolate. In 18th century Europe and elsewhere, consumers did not 'bite into' standard chocolate tablets. These tablets whether circular, rectangular, or appearing as 'globs' were not eaten like 20th and 21st century candy bars; these tablets were grated and used to prepare chocolate beverages. Thus, the phrase 'biting into' reveals the probability that bars of confectionary chocolate circulated in France by this early date."
---Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage, edited by Louis Evan Grivetti [John Wiley & Sons:Hoboken NJ] 2009 (p. 746)
[NOTES: (1) Source for De Sade quote: de Sade, A.F. (Marquis de Sade). Letters from Prison. Translated by R. Seaver. New York:Arcade Publishing, 1999. Letter to his wife, dated May 16, 1779. (2) The chocolate tablets not have been "eating chocolate," as we know it today.]

The earliest baked good recipe we find (so far)with chocolate as ingredient is from 1847. While it confirms the use of chocolate in this capacity, it by no means indicates this was a common practice in the day.

[1847]
Chocolate Puffs
---Ladies Receipt Book, Eliza Leslie [Philadelphia]
Devil's food
Recipes for rich, chocolate cakes similar to devil's food were fairly common in late 19th century cookbooks, but they were not named such. They were typically listed under the generic name "chocolate cake." Recipes titled devil's food proliferated, sometimes with interesting and creative twists) in the first decades of the 20th century. Red Devil appears in the 1930s.

"Devil's food. A cake, muffin, or cookie made with dark chocolate, so called because it is supposedly so rich and delicious that it must be somewhat sinful, although the association is clearly made with humor. Its dark color contrasted with the snowy white of angel-food cake, an earlier confection. The first devil's food recipe appeared in 1900, after which recipes and references became frequent in cookbooks. The "red devil's food cake," given a reddish-brown color by the mixture of cocoa and baking soda, is post-World War II version of the standard devil's food cake."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 111)

Angel food belongs to the nineteenth century but devil's food to the twentieth. How this chocolate cake came to be called devil's food no one knows although it may have been a play on opposites: it was as dark and rich as angel food was light an airy...In the early 1900s there were a number of bizarre variations on Devils Food Cake. Once called for mashed potatoes and a number for ground cinnamon and cloves in addition to chocolate..."
---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 452-3)

Some food historians believe this might be the first mention of Devil's food. It appears in a memoir written by Caroline King's of her childhood in 1880s Chicago. Ms. King was a popular food writer in the 1920s-1930s.

"Devil's Food, though a new cake in our household, had made its dashing appearance in Chicago in the middle eighties, and by the time it reached our quiet little community, was quite the rage. Maud's receipt was the original one, and made a large, dark, rich cake. Here it is:
Devil's Food
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups flour
1 scant teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Anna melted the chocolate over hot water while Maude creamed the butter and added the sugar gradually; then she whipped in the slightly beaten yolks of the eggs and the melted chocolate and vanilla. I was permitted to sift and measure the flour and then sift it again with the baking powder and soda. When this was done, Maude alternately added the flour mixture and the sour cream to the egg-sugar-butter-chocolate combination. Last of all, she folded in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and turned the delicious-smelling brown batter into three layer-cake pans which Anna had buttered and floured. The baking, in a very moderate oven, was carefully watched. According to a time-honored custom in our family, the cakes were tested with a clean broomstraw and when finished were turned, beautifully brown and entrancingly fragrant, from the pans onto a clean towel. Now came the next important part, the icing and filling. The Watermans' receipt called for a thick boiled icing made pleasantly piquant with a few drops of citric acid. But citric acid sounded dangerous to Maud, and besides, as Anna explained, we had no such article in our supply closet. Even Emily's stock of special flavorings refused to yield it, so Maud used lemon juice, sparingly and judiciously, and the result was perfect. Altogether it was a noble cake, nobly made."
---Victorian Cakes: A Reminiscence With Recipes, Caroline B. King, with an introduction by Jill Gardner [Aris/Berkeley:1986] (p. 35-6)
There is no recipe for Devil's food in Favorite Dishes: A Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book, a collection of recipes contributed by prominent Chicago women in 1893. This book, originally compiled by Carrie V. Shuman, was recently reissued by the University Press, Chicago [2001].

What is the difference between chocolate cake and devil's food?
This simple question has many answers, depending upon the period and cookbook. As noted above, the first 19th century American chocolate cake recipes were white/yellow cakes with chocolate icing. The addition of chocolate to the batter increased as the price of this ingredient declined, thus creating "chocolate cake" as we know it today. 20th century cookbooks often list chocolate cake and devils food on the same page. The most predominant difference between the two? Devil's food usually contains a greater proportion of chocolate. Fannie Farmer [1923] doubles the amount of chocolate required for her devil's food (4 ounces compared to 2 ounces for "regular" chocolate cake.). Irma S. Rombauer confirms: "When the larger amount of chocolate is used, it is a black, rich Devil's Food." (Joy of Cooking, 1931 p. 236)

Compare this chocolate cake recipe [1894] with Mrs. Rorer's [1902] & Good Housekeeping's [1903] devil's food recipes (below):
Chocolate Cake, No. 3
One and a half cups of sugar, half cup of butter, three-quarters cup of milk, three eggs and yolk of another, two cups of flour, two teaspoons baking powder, one full cup of Baker's chocolate. Break up the chocolate and put in a cup over the tea kettle until it melts. This will make four layers, and use the following recipe for boiled icing between the layers.
Boiled icing
One cup of sugar (granulated), quarter cup of water (cold), one egg (only white, beaten stiff). Put water on sugar in a saucepan and let it boil until it threads. Then remove from fire and pour over the stiff white, beaten until it thickens. Put on the cake at once."
---The Oracle: Receipts Rare, Rich and Reliable, The Woman's Parish Aid Society of Christ Church, [Tarrytown:New York] 1894 (p. 88)

The earliest recipe we have for Devil's Food printed in an American cookbook is dated 1902:

"Devil's Food
1/2 cup of milk
4 ounces of chocolate
1/2 cup butter
3 cups pastry flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder
Put in a double boiler four ounces of chocolate and a half pint of milk; cook until smooth and thick, and stand aside to cool. Beat a half cup of butter to a cream; add gradually one and a half cups of sugar and the yolks of four eggs; beat until light and smooth. Then add the cool chocolate mixture and three cups of pastry flour, with which you have sifted two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Beat thoroughly for at least five minutes; then stir in the well beaten whites of the eggs. Bake in three or four layers. Put the layers together with soft icing, to which you have added a cup of chopped nuts. The success of this cake depends upon the flour used."
---Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book, Sarah Tyson Rorer [Philadelphia: 1902] (p. 619)
[NOTE: Mrs. Rorer's chocolate loaf cake recipe (p. 615) calls for 2 ounces of chocolate]
Devil's Food Cake
Two and a half cups of sifted flour, two cups of sugar, one-half cup of butter, one-half cup of sour milk, one-half cup of hot water, two eggs, one-half or one-fourth cake of chocolate, one teaspoon of vanilla, one teaspoon of soda. Grate chocolate and dissolved with the soda in hot water. Use white icing."
---Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book, Isabel Gordon Curtis, [Phelps Publishing:New York] 1903 (p. 50); recipe attributed to Mrs. Nelson Ruggles.
[NOTE: This book's recipe for chocolate cake (p. 50) is white cake with chocolate filling]

By 1913, devils food and devils cake were all the rage. How do we know? Anna Clair Vangalder's Modern Women of America Cookbook [Modern Woodman Press:Rock Island] lists no less than 23 recipes! Some are simple, others are complicated. Sour milk and brown sugar seem to be the standard ingredients, though some recipes specified white sugar and sweet milk cut with boiling water. Melted/grated unsweetened chocolate (cake, bakers) was the norm, though some recipes used cocoa. Some cakes were layered, others were baked in simple loaf pans. About half of the early devils cakes were iced.

Recipes for devil's food cake have changed over the years. Duncan Hines Dessert Book [New York:1955] lists three recipes for Devil's Food Cake, and one each for Cocoa Devil's Food Cake, Party Devil's Food Cake, and Sour Cream Devil's Food Cake (p. 37-41). Jean Anderson's American Century Cookbook (p. 452-3) does a good job outlining the evolution of this particular cake.

Red Devil's Food
What makes this cake red? Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen tells us this 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 cakes can be achieved several ways.

Recipes for Red Devil's Cake begin to appear in North American newspapers and cookbooks during the 1930s. Some are specifically called "red devil," others are simply called devil and are undistinguishable unless the cook examined the ingredients.

[1929]
"This afternoon at 2:00. An interesting lecture ad practical demonstration on the preparation and cooking of foods suitable for use in every household under the direction of Mrs. Maabel (Chef) Wyman, whose enus and recipes appear as a daily feature in the Los Angles Times. Nothing to buy and no fees of any kind. Comfortable chairs for all... Ask for free copies of all recipes demonstrated. Friday, December 13, 1929...Red Devil's Food Cake..."
---display ad, Los Angeles Times, December 13, 1929 (p. A3)
[1930]
"There is one cake to which most men are susceptible--devil's food. Whenn women are left to choose, they usually seect the lighter colored varieties. Today we are giving a recipe for red devil's food a dark cake that will appeal to all...The cause of the desirable red color in some devil's food is a question with food chemists. Housewives have believed for a long time that only those cakes that contain soda arae red. ome chemists, however, do not agree with this theory. Whaatever the cause may be we do know that it usually results when sour milk and soda are used. Our recipe includes both. The usual buttermilk sold by the dairymen or your grocery man is sufficently uniform in acidity to produce good results.
"Red Devil's Food Cake
2 cups pastry flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 cup fat [half butter]
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour milk
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
12 cup boiling water
Sift four, then measure. Resift with cocoa twice. Cream fat until plastic. The add sugar gradually, creaming thoroughly. Add well beated eggs and beat hard one minute. Ad flour-cocoa mixture alternately with the sour milk in which soda has been dissolved, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Add vanilla and beat vigorously one-half minute. Add boiling water [water must be boiling to make cake red]. Stir until batter is smooth. Turn into layer or loaf pans that have been oiled and lined with paraffin paper. Bake in a moderate oven [350 degrees Fahrenheit] about 35 minutes. Yield: One loaf or 2 layers. One serving: Total 249 calories; Protent, 16 calories; fat, 103 calories; carbohydrate, 130 calories."
---"Three Meals a Day: From the Tribune Cook Book," Meta Given, Chicago Daily Tribune, June 12, 1930 (p. 32)

[1936]
"Devil's Food Cake (Red)
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour milk 1 heaping teaspoon soda
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
2/3 cup Watkins Cocoa dissolved in 1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Watkins Vanilla
Cream butter, slowly add sugar, cream thoroughly. Add well-beaten eggs and soda dissloved in little hot water, also Watkins Cocoa mixed with little hot water. Alternately add sour milk and flour. Mix to smooth batter, add Watkins Vanilla, bake in moderate oven 35 to 40 minutes."
---Watkins Cook Book [J.R. Watkins Company:Winona MN] 1936 (p. 98)

[1938]
"Red Devil's Food
Cook one cup brown sugar, two-thirds cup cocoa, two-thirds cup buttermilk and one egg yolk five minutes, stirring constantly. Beat and cool. Cream one-half cup vegetable shortening and one cup granulated usgar, add cooked custard alternately with two and one-fourth cups flour which have been sifted with one teaspoon each soda and baking powder and one-fourth teaspoon salt. Beat two eggs and add with one-half cup water and one teaspoon vanilla. Pour in two layer-cake pans which have been lined with waxed paper. Bake twenty-five minutes in 375 deg. F. oven. Cool and frost."
---"Devil's Food Cake Wins Plaudits," Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1938 (p. A6)

[1946]
"Red Devil's Food
Generally popular--but not with me, which is not to be taken as a criterion.
Measure:
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
Resift with:
1 1/2 teaspoon tartrate phosphate baking powder or 1 teaspoon combination type
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
Cream until light and fluffy:
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
Add one at a time and beat well:
2 eggs
Melt: 2 ounces chocolate in 1/2 cup boiling water
Cool slightly, then stir these ingredients into the egg mixture. Add the dry ingredients in about three parts alternately with:
1/2 cup sour milk
Add: 1 teaspoon vanilla
Stir the batter after each addition until it is well blended. Bake it in two greased 9 inch layer pans in a moderate oven 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Spread the cake with Seven Minute Morocco Icing."
---Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer [Bobbs-Merrill:Indianapolis] 1946 (p. 542)

[1951]
"Red Velvet Devil's Food
Mix well
1/2 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons bking soda
1/2 cup very hot water
Set this mixture aside until the rest of the cake is mixed
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten separately
1/4 cup shortening
2 1/2 cups flour (sifted 2 times)
1/2 cup sour milk
1/4 teaspon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream shortening until light. Add sugar. Continue to cream until well blended. Add well-beaten egg yellows. Beat a few strokes to blend. Add alternately sour milk and flour with salt beating after each addition. Add cocoa mixture and blend well by beating. Add vanilla and well-beaten egg whites, folding carefuly to prevent breaking down whites. Bake at 350 degrees for about 60 minutes in greased, flowered cake tube pan. Turn out on cooling rack. Ice with:
Caramel icing
2 cups brown sugar
Scant 1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons cream
Heat until above mixture boils up to heavy froth. Take from fire. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. If too thin for spreading, add powdered sugar. If too thick, add a bit of cream."
---"Prize-Winning Recipe," San Antonio Light [TX], March 23, 1951 (p. 4B)
[NOTE: This recipe is not the same as Red Velvet Cake.]

[1956]
"Real Red Devils Food Cake
A rich, moist cake...made with cocoa. Developed by Lorraine Kilgren of our staff...

Grease and flour: 2 8" or 9" layer pans or 13 X 9" oblong pan
Sift together into bowl: 1 3/4 cups Softasilk flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/4 tsp. soda, 1 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup cocoa
Add: 1/2 cup soft shortening, 2/3 cup milk
Beat 2 min.
Add: another 1/3 cup milk, 2 eggs (1/3 to 1/2 cup), 1 tsp. vanilla
Beat 2 more min.
Pour into prepared pans. Bake until cake tests done. Cool. Finish with White Mountain or Satiny Beige Frosting or with Chocolate Butter Icing. Temperature: 350 degrees F (mod. oven).
Time: Bake 8" layers 35 to 40 min., 9" layers 30 to 35 min., oblong 45 to 50 min."
---Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, Revised and Enlarged, second edition [McGraw-Hill:New York] 1956 (p. 151)
[NOTE: We can supply the icing recipe of your choice.]

Related cakes? Red Velvet Cake, Chocolate Beet Cake & Tomato Soup (aka Mystery) Cake.]
Apple sauce cakes
Culinary evidence places apple sauce cake (cookies, muffins, breads) in the twentieth century. Why? They are cakes of convenience rather than tradition. Presumably, applesauce cake is a direct descendant of light (baking soda) 19th century spiced fruit cakes made with fresh or dried apples. These cakes, in turn, descended from traditional Medieval European fruitcake recipes. Apple sauce dates to the Middle Ages. Cake is ancient. Where & when did these two collide? Modern times. World War I era apple sauce cakes were promoted as patriotic (less butter, sugar, eggs). Primary evidence confims this recipe's economy. A leftover cookbook circa 1911 gives the home cook permission to use chicken or rendered beef fat in lieu of butter. These early recipes employed applesauce for flavor and texture. Apple sauce cookies happened during WWII. A logical convenient iteration of grandma's cake.
Post-war homemakers viewed applesauce cakes as reminders of hard times and grandma's kitchen. They moved on. Family cook book pages, splattered with ingredients, stuck together. Recipes closed? Not exactly. In the late 20th century, applesauce cakes were repurposed as healthy (less cholesterol, low-fat) alternatives to traditional cakes. Like an old friend, apple sauce cake tolerates new ideas and quirky innovations. Oatmeal, dried fruits, nuts, refined sugar substitutes and chocolate (cocoa, chips) are common variations celebrating a central theme.

"Nineteenth-century cookbooks brim with fruitcakes. There's the occasional apple cake, too, usually made with dried apples but sometimes with chopped fresh apples...In my battered copy of Larkin Housewives' Cook Book (1915), there are two applesauce cakes: Apple Sauce Birthday Cake, which is loaded with chopped citron, candied lemon, and orange rind as well as applesauce, and Eggless Apple Sauce Cake, which contains cocoa in addition to cinnamon and cloves. During World War I, applesauce cakes became the patriotic way to cut down on eggs, sugar, and butter...Applesauce cakes grew in popularity throughout the '20s and '30s, took something of a hiatus, then returned full force in the 60s. In the health-conscious 1990s, Mott's discovered that applesauce could be substituted for shortening in certain sturdy butter cakes without mishap, gave "applesauce cake" whole new meaning...the applesauce cake most of us know and love is the spicy loaf strewn with raisins and nuts--no stinting on shortening, eggs, or sugar."
---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 436)

American apple sauce cake sampler

[1911]
"Apple-Sauce Cake
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup apple sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoonful soda
1 3/4 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoonful each mace, clove, and cinnamon
Put sugar and shortening in mixing bowl, add apple sauce, then dry ingredients already mixed and sifted. Beat well, turn into deep pan, and bake in moderate oven about one hour. If liked, one cup of floured raisins may be added with dry ingredients. Butter alone may be used for shortening, or part chicken or rendered beef fat."
---The Cook Book of Left-Overs, Helen Carroll Clarke and Phoebe Deyo Rulon [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1911(p. 198-199)
[1913]
"Apple Sauce Cake.
Cream together one cupful sugar, one-half cupful shortening, add one teaspoonful cinnamon, one-half teaspoonful cloves (use ground spices), pinch of salt, a little grated nutmeg, and a cupful of raisins. Dissolve one teaspoonful soda in a bit of warm water. Stir into cupful of unsweetened apple sauce, letting it foam over the ingredients in bowl. Beat altogether thoroughly. Add one and three-fourths cupfuls four. Bake in a loaf pan in a slow oven."
---Modern Women of America Cook Book, Anna Claire Vangalder [Modern Woodman Press:Rock Island IL] 1913 (p. 34)
[NOTE: This book contains seven recipes for apple sauce cake. This is the only one that decribes the foaming/bubbling action you described. None of these use cocoa; one suggests chocolate frosting.]

[1915]
"Apple Sauce Birthday Cake
Put through the food-chopper (using coarse knife), one-fourth pound each of citron, candied lemon and orange peel, also one pound raisins. Sift together, four cups flour, two teaspoons each nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, and one teaspoon each of soda and salt. Cream together, one cup butter and two cups brown sugar. Add all ingredients with two and one-half cups unsweetened apple sauce. Line cake-pan with waxed paper and bake in slow oven for one and one-quarter hours. Will keep fresh six weeks or more if tightly covered."

"Eggless Apple Sauce Cake
Cream one-half cup butter or other shortening, add one cup brown sugar. Sift one and one-half cups flour with one teaspoon each of soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves and cocoa. Mix with one cup unsweetened apple sauce; bake in moderate oven forty-five minutes. One cup of raisins may be added to this."
---Larkin Housewives Cook Book [Larkin Co. Chicago] 1915 (p. 77)

[1924]
"Apple-Sauce Cake--No. 1
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1 cup melted butter or butter substitute
2 tablespoons grated chocolate
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup chopped raisins.
Sift the flour, sugar, soda and spices together. Mix the apple sauce, melted butter or butter substitute and melted chocolate and add to dry ingredients; then add the nuts and raisins, slightly floured. Put the mixture into a loaf pan and bake in a slow oven for about one and one-half hour."
---The New Butterick Cook Book, Flora Rose, Revised and Enlarged [Butterick Publishing Company:New York] 1924 (p. 490)
[NOTE: Earliest reference we find for adding chocolate to applesauce cake.]

[1931]
"Apple Sauce Cake.
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg beaten until light
1 cup raisins
1 cup currants or nuts
1 3/4 cups cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 cup thick sweet apple sauce.
Four the nuts and raisins with part of the flour. Cream the butter and the sugar, add the egg and the nuts and the raisins. Sift the flour with the soda and spices and add them to the first mixture. Last add the apple sauce, which has been heated. Bake the cake in a tube pan lined with paper in a moderate oven 350 degrees F. For about 1 hour."
---The Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer, facsimile 1931 edition published by Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis IN [Scribner:New York] 1998 (p. 238)
[NOTE: This calls for heated applesauce.]

[1935]
"Apple Sauce Cake
by Mrs. Inez Smith
Apple and cake? Truly a regal dish, and one that is even more so when combined to make that old favorite, Applesauce cake. This recipe as prepared by Mrs. Inez Smith of Rochester, is not only good, but practical as well, in that it requires no eggs and serves as an excellent substitute for fruit cake.
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cups shortening
2 cups cold applesauce
1 teaspoon soda
4 cups flour
1 cup seedless raisins
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
2-3 cup walnut meats
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Cream shortening and sugar: add applesauce mixed with soda. Mix flour, raisins, walnuts, spices and baking powder and add to first mixture. Bake in slow oven 1 1/2 hours. This cake may be iced or not, as desired. Mrs. Smith uses a caramel frosting when she ices this cake."
--"Home Tested Recipes," Logansport Press [IN], November 2, 1935 (p. 3)
[NOTE: According to My Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book, 5th edition, 1930, a "slow" oven is 250-325 degrees F.]

[1936]
"Applesauce Cake
One-third cup shortening, three-fourths cup honey, one cup applesauce, one-fourth teaspoon cloves, one-half teaspoon nutmeg, one-half teaspoon cinnamon, one-fourth teaspoon salt, two cups flour, one cup raisins (seeded), one-fourth cup walnuts, one teaspoon soda dissolved in one tablespoon hot water. Cream shortening and honey well, add applesauce, then flour, spices and salt sifted together. Raisins can be added now before flour is mixed in thereby flouring them. Add walnuts, and finally the soda dissolved in hot water. Beat well and bake one hour in moderately hot oven."
---"Apples Are Used in These Pastry Recipes," Hammond Times [IN], December 7, 1936 (p. 10)
[NOTE: According to My Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book, 5th edition, 1930, a "moderately hot" oven is 375-400 degrees F.]

[1946]
"Applesauce Cake.
Sift: 1 cup sugar (white or closely packed brown)
Beat until soft: 1/2 cup butter.
Add the sugar gradually. Blend these ingredients until they are very light and creamy. Beat in:
1 egg.
Sift before measuring: 1 3/4 cups cake flour.
Sift a little of the flour over: 1 cup raisins, 1 cup nut meats or currants
Resift the remainder with: 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon cloves.
Stir the sifted ingredients gradually into the butter mixture until the butter is smooth. Add the raisins and nut meats. Heat: 1 cup thick lightly sweetened applesauce.
Beat into the batter. Bake the cake in a greased 9 inch tube pan in a moderate oven 350 degrees F. For about 40 minutes.
Spread it with: Caramel icing.
The flavoring may be varied by adding: 2 tablespoons cocoa.
In that case deduct the same amount of flour."
---The Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer [Bobbs-Merrill:Indianapolis] 1946 (p. 546)

What about applesauce cookies?
Our survey of American cookbooks indicates these first surfaced the early 1940s. Descriptions in early recipes indicate they were an offshoot from applesauce cake. Ingredients confirm:

[1942]
"Applesauce Cookies.
1/2 c. Shortening
1 c. Sugar
1 c. Applesauce
2 1/4 c. Flour
1 tsp. Soda
2 tsp. Baking powder
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Cloves
1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg
Make as Butter Cake...Drop on greased tins."
---Granddaughter's Inglenook Cookbook [Brethern Publishing House:Elgin IL] 1942 (p. 49)
[NOTE: No temperature or time is provided in this recipe. "Butter Cake" recipe on page 38 also has apple spice variation.]
[1942]
"Applesauce Cookies
Flour, 2 cups
Cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon
Nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon
Cloves, 1/2 teaspoon
Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
Raisins, chopped, 1 cup
Nuts, chopped, 1 cup
Shortening, 1/2 cup
Sugar, 1 cup
Applesauce, 1 cup
Soda, 1 teaspoon
Egg, well beaten, 1
Sift flour; measure; add salt and spices; sift again. Add chopped nuts and raisins. Cream shortening; add sugar gradually and continue to beat until light. Stir the soda into the applesauce. Add well-beaten egg; combine with the creamed mixture. Add the dry ingredients. Drop by teaspoonfuls 2 or 3 inches apart onto a greased baking sheet. Bake in a moderate oven (375 degrees F.) 15 to 20 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen cookies."
---Woman's Home Companion Cook Book, Willa Roberts [P.F. Collier & Son:New York] 1942 (p. 807)

Baba
Baba (aka babka) is not one recipe, but several. According to the food historians baba doughs range from simple yeast-based mixtures to complicated alcohol-drenched pastry. The origin of this item (while sketchy) is generally attributed to Slavic peoples. Plenty of legends surround the introduction/invention of "Baba au Rhum." Not so for basic baba. Notes here:
"Babas, cakes, and pastries were adopted by the Russians only in the eighteenth century, although yeast had been used in Russia since ancient times. German and Polish influences are particularly strong in this type of baking. It is perhaps not surprising that Americans are unfamiliar with the variety of babas and kuliches that were well known to Molokhovets [Russian cookbook author, 1861]--Russian cookbooks for Americans rarely contain more than a single recipe for each kind of yeast cake. But Russian cooks also are in danger of losing this aspect of their culianry heritage, which now appears mostly in specialized books on baking. In part, the nomenclature has changed (pirogi has broadened in meaning), but mostly altered tastes and circumstances have diminished the interest in baking."
---Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets' A Gift to Young Housewives, translated and introduced by Joyce Toomre [Indiana University Press:Bloomington] 1992 (p. 398)
[NOTE: This book contains several recipes for mid-19th century babas. Your librarian can help you obtain a copy.]

"Baba. A sweetened bread or cake made from a rich dough, baked in tall, cylindrical moulds. The shape is Slavic in origin, and of great antiquity. The 12th-century Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus describes a Baltic pagan harvest-festival bread as a 'cake, prepared with mead, round in form and standing nearly as high as a person'. The word means 'old woman' or 'grandmother' and refers to the vertical form, and anthopomorphic usage similar to the derivation of pretzel and bracelli, because the twist of dough resembles folded arms...If the shape is Slavic in origin, the same may not be true of the actual recipe--it has been suggested by Lesley Chamberlain...that this came from Italy: "The recipe for it probably came to Poland from Italy in the sixteenth century via Queen Bona, as a transplant of the Milanese panettone. Since then much ritual has surrounded the baking of this fragile masterpiece. Precious pastrycooks declared it needed to rest on an eiderdown before it went in the oven, after which baking took place in an atmosphere of maternity. Men were forbidden to center the kitchen and no one was allowed to speak above a whisper."...there are rival claims from the Ukraine. Savella Stechishin...says that baba or babka is one of the most distinctive of all Ukranian breads, traditionally served at Easter. The name 'baba' is the colloquial Ukranian word for woman or grandma, while 'babka' is a diminutive of the same word. (The name 'babka' is more commonly used, as the modern loaves are smaller and the name sounds dantier.)...Stechishin speculates that the baba-bread may have originated in prehistoric times when a matriarchal system existed in the Ukraine...the baba's homeland is generally regarded as being W. Russia and Poland. It is related to other Russian festive breads of cakes, such as Easter kulich...or the krendal which is baked in a figure-of-eight shape to celebrate name days. They, however, are fortified with dried fruits and nuts, while the baba was originaly plain. Polish and Ukranian recipes commonly include other flavors (from ingredients such as saffron, almond, cheese, raisins). Other additions, noticeable in the Baba au rhum and other versions which are now part of the international repertoire, consist in adding dried fruits and...soaking the cake in an alcoholic syrup...after it has been made. These changes seem to have been made in France after the baba emigrated westwards to Alsace and Lorraine. This had happened in 1767 (when the term first appears as a French word) and the baba eventaully became a well-known French confection...To make a baba, yeast is mixed to a liquid batter with flour, eggs, and milk; this is allowed to rise, and then melted butter is beaten in. As for other yeast-risen cakes, much beating is necessary to impart air to the mixture. More eggs are used than in a brioche dough...and the recipe delays the addition of butter until after the first rise to enable the yeast to work to its full effect."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 46-7)

"A baba is an open-textured, yeast-leavened cake, sometimes including raisins, and moistened with rum and sugar syrup. The first reference to it in English is by L.E. Ude, in French Cook (1828). Its origins, which are Polish, have been richly embroidered. It is said to have been invented by King Stanislas Leczinski, whose favorite reading was the Thousand and One Nights, and who consequently named his creation after the character Ali Baba. Less apocryphal, perhaps, is the story that it was introduced into Western Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the Parisian pastrycook Sthorer, who encountered it amongst members of the Polish court then visiting France. However that may be, the word itself represents Polish baba, literally 'old woman'..."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 14)

"Baba au Rhum (Romovaya baba). Although the romovaya baba has been adopted into the classical French cuisine, its roots are Slavic, as it was created at the court of the deposed Polish king Stanislaw Leszczynski. The word baba is a pejorative term for "old lady" (the original shape of the cake was said to resemble an old woman in skirts), but the dessert's whimsical moniker belies its true elegance."
---A Taste of Russia: Traditional Recipes from Russia, Darra Goldstein [Robert Hale:London] 1985 (p. 93)

[1828] Ude's recipe
"Baba.
Dilute this paste the same as the brioche. Take eight grains of saffron, which infuse in a little water, and then pour out this water into the paste; add two glasses of Madeira, some currants, raisins, and a little sugar; then make the cakes as you do the brioches. You must butter the mould when you put them in; the oven must be moderately hot, as the babas must remain a long time in; after one hour you must look at them, and preserve the colour by putting some paper over them."
---The French Cook, Louis Eustache Ude, photoreprint of the 1828 ed. published by Carey, Lea and Carey, Philadelphia, [Arco Publishing:New York] 1978 (p. 406)
What is the relationship between baba and savarin?
"Savarin...is essentially an enriched yeast dough baked in a ring mould. A syrup with kirsch or rum is used to soak it whe cool, and the central hole may be filled with fruit or cream. There is also a solid, holeless form, mazarin, which is split and filled with cream. The savarin derived from the E. European baba, as naturalized in Alsace in the 18th century. What happened was that in the mid-or late 1840s one of the brothers Julien, Parisian patissiers, experimented with the baba in a slightly different form. He used the same dough, but removed the dried fruits and soaked the savarin in his own 'secret' syrup. He named his new confection in honour of the famous gastronomic writer Brillat-Savarin, although the name for it does not seem to have been recorded until the 1860s."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 697)

Who was http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/part1.html"> Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and what did he write?

[1869]
"Savarin.
Put 1 lb of sifted flour in basin;
Make a hole in the middle, and put in 1/2 oz. of German yeast, and 1/4 gill of warm milk; mix it with the flour immediately surrounding it, about one quarter of the whole quantity, to make the sponge, and stand the basin in a warm place;
When the sponge has risen to twice its original size, add 1 gill of warm milk and 2 eggs; work the contents of the basin with a spoon, and mix in another egg; then add 3/4 lb. of worked butter, 14 oz. salt, 1/2 oz. of sugar, and 1/2 gill more warm milk; continue working with a spoon, and adding one egg at a time, until 5 eggs have been used;
Cut 2 oz. of candied orange peel in very small dice, and mix it in the paste;
Butter a fluted cylinder-mould; strew a tablespoonful of chopped almonds on the butter, and half fill the mould with the paste; let it stand, and when it has risen to the top of the mould, put the savarin to bake in a moderate oven;
When done, turn it out of the mould; let it cool for twenty minutes; pour over it some syrup, flavoured with Anisette; and serve."
---The Royal Cookery Book, Jules Gouffe, translated from the French and Adapted for English by Alphonse Gouffe [Sampson, Low, Son, and Marston:London] 1869 (p. 503-4)
[1874]
"Savarin Cake.
Put one pound of dried and sifted flour into a pan, and make a hollow in the centre. Dissolve half an ounce of German yeast in a small quantitiy of warm milk, and set the sponge by pouring this into the hollow, and beating into it with the fingers about a quarter of the flour. Sprinkle four over the batter thus made, put the basin in a warm place, and let the sponge rise slowly to twice its size. Work into it with a spoon or with the right hand a quarter of a pint of warm milk and two eggs, and add gradually three-quarters of a pound of butter beaten to a cream, half an ounce of salt dissolved in a little warm water, two ounces of powdered sugar, the eighth of a pint additional milk, and three more eggs. Lastly, add two ounces of candied peel cut small. The additions should be made very gradually, the eggs being put in one at a time, and the preparation being beaten well until it leaves the sides of the bowl easily. Butter the inside of a fluted mould rather thickly, and sprinkle a table-spoonful of blanched and chopped almonds on the butter. Beat the paste up again, and half fill the mould with it; let it stand in a warm place till it has risen level with the top of the mould. Tie a broad band of buttered paper round the top of the mould, to keep the paste from running over the sides, and bake the cake in a moderate oven. When done enough, turn it out carefully, run a skewer into several parts of it, and our over and into it a thick syrup flavoured with curacoa or any other suitable liquer. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the surface, and send to the table warm. Time to bake, one hour or more. Probable cost, 3s., exclusive of the liqueur. Sufficient for five or six persons."
---Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery with Numerous Illustrations [Cassell, Petter, Galpin:London] 1874 (p. 837)

[1919]
French Coffee Cake (Savarin)

Related items? Bundt cake & gugelhopf, kulich, brioche & Sally Lunn.

Banana bread
Bananas have been around since the beginning of time. Sweet nut breads and cakes were eaten by the ancient Roman and Greeks. Who decided to combine these two foods? According to the food historians banana bread, as we know it today, is a relatively is a recent USA phenomenon.
American banana recipes date to the late 19th century. These generally included salads, pies, fritters, and gelatin combinations. Recipes proliferate in the 20th century, a direct result of product availability. The earliest recipe we find titled "Banana bread" is dated 1849. It describes a product of West Indian culinary tradition. Early 20th century "banana cakes" were composed with sliced banana as either decoration or filling.

Banana recipes began showing up in popular American Cookbooks in the 1880s. It is apparent that trendy Americans cooks were eager to include this new fruit in their meals. Most of the banana concoctions were simple adaptions of existing recipes. Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book, Sarah Tyson Rorer [1902] contains instructions for fried bananas, baked bananas, sliced bananas, banana pudding and banana cake in a special section titled "Hawaiian Recipes." Other cookbooks contain recipes for banana ice cream, bananas en surprise (mashed bananas with strawberries), fruit salads with bananas and, of course, Jell-O molds with bananas inside. The banana split was invented in 1904.

Banana nut bread eventually became a mainstream staple item [ie included in many popular American cookbooks] by the 1920s. This coincided somewhat with the mass marketing of baking powder/soda, ingredients used to create "quick breads" [breads that did not require yeast]. Food companies deluged American consumers recipes to promote the use of their flour and baking soda products. Eventually these companies manufactured boxed mixes [Baking mixes were introduced in the late 1940s] for banana nut bread/muffins.

Modern banana bread recipes, featuring mashed bananas, first surfaced in the 1930s. They assumed traditional forms (layer cakes, muffins, loaves) and were classified as quick bread, tea cake, or dessert. Some food historians theorize this recipe was "invented" by thrifty housewives who didn't want to throw out over-ripe bananas. Our evidence suggests the recipe was probably developed in corporate kitchens to promote the star ingredient. In the 1950s banana bread was actively promoted in nationally syndicated television cooking shows. 1960s health food activist Carlton Fredericks included banana-bran muffins in his ground-breaking cookbook. one full decade later this quick bread was actively promoted to the American public as health food. Think: Carrot cake and Zucchini bread.
[1849]
Banana Bread--is made of the fruit of the banana tree. This fruit is about four or five inches long, of the shape of a cucumber, and of a highly grateful flavour. They grow in bunches that weigh twelve pounds and upwards. The pulp of the banana tree is softer than that of the plantain tree, and of a more luscious taste. When ripe it is a very pleasant food, either undressed, or fried in slices like fritters. All classes of people in the West Indies are very fond of it. When preparing for a voyage, they take the ripe fruit and squeeze it through a sieve; then form the mass into loaves, which are dried in the sun, or baked on hot ashes, having been previously wrapped up in leaves."
---Complete Confectioner, Eleanor Parkinson
[1902]
"Banana Cake
Beat to a cream a quarter of a cup of butter, add a half cup of sugar and one egg; when very light, stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet and line a square, shallow baking pan. Peel five good, ripe bananas, and chop them very fine; put them over the crust in a pan, sprinkle over a half cup of sugar, the pulp of five tamarinds soaked in a quarter of a cup of warm water; squeeze over the juice of two Japanese oranges, put over a tablespoonful of butter cut into pieces, a saltspoonful of mace, and two tablespoonfuls of thick cream. Grate over the top two small crackers, bake in a moderate oven a half hour, and cut into narrow strips to serve."
---Mrs. Rorer's New Cook Book, Sara Tyson Rorer [Arnold and Company:Phildadelphia] 1902 (p. 697)

[1930]
"Banana-Nut Bread
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 beaten egg
1 cup bran
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped nut meats
Cream shortening and sugar until smooth; add egg, then bran, and mix [sic] thoroly. Mix water with banana and add alternately with flour which has been sifted with baking powder, salt, and soda. Mix thoroly and add vanilla and nut meats. Place in greased 1-pound loaf pan and let stand 30 minutes. Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees) about 1 hour. This is delicious sliced thin and served with soft cream cheese."
---My New Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book [Meredith Publishing:Des Moines IA] 5th edition, 1930 (p. 10)

[1931]
"Banana Cake
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sour milk
1 cup mashed bananas (2 or 3 bananas)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cream, whipped and sweetened
2 bananas sliced
Cream shortening and add sugar gradually. Stir in the well-beaten eggs. Sift flour, baking powder, soda and salt together, and add alternately wtih the sour milk and bananas, which have been mashed through a sieve. Flavor, pour into greased and floured layer cake pans, and bake thirty minutes in a moderate oven, 375 degrees F. When layers are cold, put together with whipped cream and sliced bananas, and spread whipped cream over top of cake. Garnish with slices of banana. Banana frosting may be used instead of the whipped cream."
---The New Banana, United Fruit Company [Fruit Dispatch Co.:New York] 1931 (p. 15)
[NOTE: This booklet also offers recipes for Banana Tea Cake, Banana Muffins and Banana Bran Muffins. None of these use mashed bananas.]

[1933]
Banana nut bread
Recipe makes 1 large loaf, 8X4X2
Temperature: 350 degrees F.; Time: about 1 1/4 hours
2 cups Pillsbury's Best flour
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup chopped nutmeats
1/2 cup Pillsbury's Wheat Bran
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons thick sour cream
1 1/2 cup mashed bananas
1. Sift flour, soda, salt and baking powder together; stir in nut meats and wheat bran.
2. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
3. Combine mashed bananas and sour cream; add alternately with flour to first mixture.
4. Bake in a greased loaf pan lines with waxed paper, in a moderate oven."
---Balanced Recipes, Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, Minneapolis, MN [1933] (breads, recipe #3)

[1942]
Banana tea bread
1 3/4 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 bananas)
Sift together flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Beat shortening until creamy in mixing bowl. Add sugar gradually and continue beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Add flour mixture alternately with bananas, a small about at a time, beating after each addition until smooth. Turn into a well-greased bread pan (8 1/2 X 4 1/2 X 3 inches) and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) About 1 hour 10 minutes or until bread is done. Makes 1 loaf.
---Bananas...how to serve them, Home Economics Dept. Fruits Dispatch Company United Fruit Company, Distributors of United Fruit Company Bananas, Pier 3, North River, New York [1942] (Recipe 11, p. 14)

"Banana Bran Nut Bread
1 egg, well beaten
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (4-5 bananas)
1/4 cup melted shortening
1 cup bran
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup broken nuts
Use fully ripe or all-yellow bananas
Comnbine egg, bananas, shortening and bran. Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt and sugar. Add nut meats and mix well. Add to banana mixture, mixing only enough to dampen all flour. Turn into a well-greased bread pan (8 1/2 X 4 1/2 X 3 inches) and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) about 1 hour 10 minutes or until bread is done. Makes 1 loaf."
---ibid (Recipe 12, p. 14)
[NOTES: (1)This corporate cooking booklet also offers recipes for Banana Raisin Tea Bread, Banana Nut Tea Bread, Banana Date Tea Bread, Banana Dutch Coffee Cake, Banana Tea Muffins, Banana Bran Muffins, Banana Spice Layer Cake, Banana Shortcake, Banana Nut Cake, Banana Cup Cakes, Banana Doughnuts, banana Drop Cookies, Banana Oatmeal Cookies, & Banana Upside-Down Cake. (2) Most of these recipes were reprinted in this booklet: Chiquita Banana's Recipe Book, Home Economics Department, United Fruit Company [United Fruit Company:New York] 1950(p. 22).]

[1944]
"Banana Tea Bread
1 3/4 c. sifted all-purpose flour
2 teasp. baking powder
1/4 teasp. baking soda
1/2 teasp. salt
1/3 c. shortening
2/3 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs, well-beaten
1 c. mashed, ripe bananas (2-3 bananas)
Sift together flour, baking powder, soda, salt. Work shortening with a spoon until fluffy and creamy, then add sugar gradually while continuing to work with a spoon, until light. Add eggs and beat well with a spoon. Add flour mixture alternately with the bananas, a small amount at a time, beating smooth with a spoon, after each addition. Turn into a greased or oiled loaf pan about 9" X 5" X 3". Bake in a moderate oven of 350 degrees F. for 1 hour 10 min., or until done. 1/2 c. chopped walnuts, or 1 c. chopped dates may be added."
---Good Housekeeping Cook Book, completely revised edition [Farrar & Rinehart:New York] 1942, 1944 (p. 482)

[1957]
"Holiday Banana Bread
1 3/4 cups flour
2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 or 4 ripe bananas
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup seedless raisins
1 cup mixed candied fruit
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Beat shortening until creamy. Add sugar and eggs to shortening and beat for 1 minute at medium speed. Add 3 or 4 ripe bananas to the egg mixture and mix until blended. Add chopped nuts, raisins and mixed candied fruit. Now add the flour mixture and blend at a low speed for 30 seconds. Do not overbeat. Place in a well-greased loaf pan and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until bread is done."
---Cooking at Home, television show hosted by Nancyann Graham and Chef Phillip, NBC-TV [Dell Publishing:New York] 1957 (p. 109)

[1960]
"Banana-Bran Muffins
1 cup sifted whole-wheat, unbleached, or enriched flour
2 tablespoons skim-milk solids
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole bran
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons dark molasses
2 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1 cup mashed ripe banana
2 tablespoons oil or melted shortening
Sift together the flour, baking powder, milk solids, and salt. Stir in bran and distribute well. Combine egg, molasses, milk, banana, and shortening, add all at once to dry ingredients. Stir briskly to blend. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full and bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. Makes 12 to 15."
---The Carlton Fredericks Cook Book For Good Nutrition, Carlton Fredericks, PH.D. [J.B. Lippincott Company:Philadelphia] 1960 (p. 203-204)

[1971]
"Banana Tea Bread
1 3/4 whole-wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder (any kind that does not contain aluminum)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup oil or butter
2 tablespoons yogurt
2/3 cup honey
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (approximately 3)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix dry ingredients. Cream oil, yogurt, and hone together. Add dry ingredients to the oil-honey mixture alternately with mashed bananas. Beat after each addition until smooth. Pour into oiled bread pan. Bake 1 hour. Let cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove from pan. Cool 30 minutes on wire rack. Slice and serve. Yield: 1 loaf."
---The Peter Max New Age Organic Vegetarian Cook Book, Peter Max and Ronwen Vathsala Proust [Pyramid Books:New York] 1971 (p. 86)

[1973]
"Banana Bread
a 5" X 9" loaf of 12 slices
1 slice=approx. 4 grams of usable protein
9% to 11% of average daily protein need
This is a rich loaf, and delicious served warm. Cut it carefully and spread with ricotta or cream cheese. And if there's any let over, toast it for breakfast.
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup honey
*3 eggs, beaten
1 cup mashed banana pulp (from about 3 small bananas)
1/3 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
*1/4 cup milk powder (1/3 cup instant)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
*2 cups whole wheat flour
(walnuts and raisins-optional)
(1) Cream the butter and honey (with an electric mixer, if possible) until light; beat in the eggs, banana pulp, water, and vanilla.
(2) Stir together the dry ingredients; stir them into the first mixture, blending with as few strokes as possible.
(3) Stir in 1 cup walnuts and 1/2 to 1 cup raisins, if desired.
(4) Turn the batter into an oiled loaf lan; bake at 325 degrees F. for about 1 hour, until well browned and a tester comes out clean.
---Recipes for a Small Planet, Ellen Buchman Ewald [Ballantine Books:New York] 1973(p. 253-254)

[1975]
"Banana Nut Bread
Another extremely popular baking-soda fruit bread, rich in flavor and rather tight in texture, this is more banana-y than the one that follows. It is extraordinarily good for small sandwiches or as a breakfast or luncheon bread, and it makes excellent toast. The top may crack during baking, but that is of no great consequence.
[1 large loaf]
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (3 heavy ones should do it)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sliced nuts, almonds or your choice
Cream the butter with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar and honey and beat till creamy and light. Add the eggs, one at a time, then thoroughly mix in the bananas. Sift together the flour, soda, and salt and blend thoroughly into the mixture. Finally fold in the nuts. Butter a 12 X 4 1/2 X 2 1/2-inch loaf tin and pour in the batter. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven 1 hour, or until knife inserted in the center comes out clean."
---Beard on Bread, James Beard [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1975 (p. 170)
[NOTE: Banana Bread recipe on p. 171 is, according the headnote, "lighter and perhaps more flavorful..."]

Related foods? Cranberry bread, Pumpkin bread, Zucchini bread & Carrot cake.

Beet cake (aka Chocolate beet cake)
A few weeks ago we published our notes on Red Devils Food Cake (what makes it red) and a reader responded "the beets!" Our survey of recipes published in historic newspapers and cookbooks confirms WWII-era cake recipes sometimes substituted beet sugar for rationed white granules. The earliest print recipe we find combining beets and chocolate cake is from 1965. We find no evidence in our Russian/Ukrainian/Central European cookbooks supporting this recipe originated in those cuisines. It seems to be a purely American invention. Print evidence suggests it originated in the Midwest area, in the heart of beet growing region. Makes perfect sense, yes? Below please find selected recipes through time. If you have an older recipe, please let us know!.
[1965]
A Chocolate Beet Cake
1 1/2 cups beets, cooked and mash-ed and put through sieve and measured
3 eggs
1 cup salad oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
2 squares melted chocolate
1 1/2 teaspoons soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 tablespoon vanilla
Sift dry Ingredients together. Add all other Ingredients and mix thoroughly. Bake In layers or loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until done. (Note: This is a very moist cake and actually tastes better the second day.) "
---"Magic Valley Favorites," Mrs. G. L. Schroeder, Twins Falls Times News [Twins Falls ID], May 5, 1965 (p. 10)
[1971]
"DEAR NAN: Here is my "Red Beet Chocolate Cake" for the lady who wanted one that didn't call for food coloring. This one is a pretty red and so moist. Cream 1 1/2 cups sugar with 3 eggs. Add 1 cup salad oil, 3/4 cups sieved beets and 2 squares of chocolate, melted. (I blend beets with oil for easier mixing.) Sift together 1 3/4 cups flour, 1 1/2 teasp. soda and 1/2 teasp. salt. Add that, then 1 teasp. vanilla. Bake in two layers in a 350 oven for 20-25 minutes.-Mrs. Lloyd B. Carlyle."
---"Unusual Red Beet Cake a Surprise," Nan Wiley, Ogden Standard-Examiner [UT], July 11, 1971 (p. 15C)

[1978]
Red Beet Chocolate Cake
Makes 16 servings
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour (try using half wholewheat
flour and half white flour!)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups beets, mashed or puréed
6 Tablespoons powdered cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
Confectioner's sugar (optional)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Oil or spray a 13- x 9-inch baking pan (or whatever size is available).
3. In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt.
4. In another mixing bowl, combine sugar, eggs, and oil. Beat until smooth.
5. Add beets and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
6. Gradually add dry ingredients, beating well after each addition.
7. Pour into oiled or sprayed baking pan.
8. Bake for 25 minutes (until a knife inserted comes out clean)
9. Cool in pan.
10. Optional: Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar."
Source: Farm Journal's Choice Chocolate Recipes, Elise W. Manning, Farm Journal, Inc., Philadelphia, PA, 1978

[1979]
"Unknown to me, although I try to keep up with cooking trends, chocolate cake recipes calling for beets--yes, beets--have been making the rounds. My first encounter with such a recipe was about a month ago in a book just off the press,'Farm Journal's Choice Chocolate Recipes,' Edited by Farm Journal's Food Editor, Elise Manning, and published by Doubleday. A few weeks later I came across a chocolate beet cake recipe again, this time a prize-winner in a collection of favorite recipes submitted by newspaper readers. Curious about the origin of the idea, I phoned my friend Elise in Philadelphia to ask her what she know about it. Her's what she told me: 'In 1978 we ran a request in Farm Journal for our readers' favorite chocolate recipes. The response for such a special subject was great--between 18,000 and 20,000 entries. In the cake category, at least 15 of the recipes were for chocolate beet cakes. When I tested the best recipes for our chocolate book, I found a Red Beet Chocolate Cake form a Missouri woman deserved to be included.' The idea of a cake with beets in it sounded like fun to me, a mystery cake to serve to friends and ask them to guess its secret ingredient. So I worked out a version without chocolate--a beet spice cake.

'Beet Spice Cake
1 3/4 cup fork-stirred all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup corn oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup lightly packed shredded canned whole beets, Note follows
1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup chopped (medium-fine) walnuts
Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and allspice. Beat together sugar, oil and vanilla until blended; beat in eggs, one at a time, until blended. Stir in flour mixture, in several additions, until smooth each time.Stir in beets, currants and walnuts. Turn into an oiled 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 by 2 1/2 -inch loaf pan; bake in a preheated 350-degree oven until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean--1 hour. Loosen edges and turn out on a rack. Cake will have a crack on top and crust will be crisp. To soften crust, place in a plastic bag; secure tightly; let stand overnight at room temperature."
---"Beets Turn Up in Mystery Spice Cake, Cecily V. Brownstone, Associated Press Food Editor, Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1979 (p. I44)

[1983--Harvard Beet Cake]
"Chocolate cake made with Harvard beets? May sound unusual, but this recipe turns out a moist, delicious cake that retains its freshness. For a striking note, bake the cake in layers and fill with canned cherry pie filling, then finish with snowy cream cheese.

Harvard Beet Cake
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
2/3 cup canned Harvard beets, drained
1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling
Cream sugar and butter. Beat eggs and vanilla and add to creamed mixture. Fine chop the beets and stir into batter. Pour into two eight-inch layer pans or one 9X13 pan, lightly greased and floured. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. As a layer cake, fill with cherry pie filling and frost top and sides with cream cheese frosting. Chill before serving.
Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
1 box powdered sugar
Cream cheese and butter. Add sugar, gradually, beating until creamy."
---"Neat Feat: Beet Treat," Philadelphia Tribune, May 3, 1983 (p. 19)

[1996]
"The name of this recipe should be "quizzical cake ." That's the look most people give after finding out that the main ingredient in Vicky Schmitz's chocolate cake is pureed beets . Beets lend moisture and sweetness to Schmitz's dense chocolate cake with hints of cinnamon and clove. Schmitz first baked the cake nine years ago for her birthday. "The recipe sounded so unusual, but it's the best thing I've ever baked, and it's foolproof," she said. Schmitz, a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity (a nonprofit group that builds and renovates low-income housing), recently served her spiced chocolate - beet cake dripping with bittersweet chocolate sauce to a volunteer construction crew on the West Side. Most of the volunteers were surprised to learn about the cake 's secret ingredient. And Schmitz went home with an empty plate. Irene Bogdan also likes to see the surprised expressions on her guests' faces when she serves her chocolate - beet cake . "I usually wait until someone asks for seconds before I tell them they are eating beets ," Bogdan said. Published in Who's Cooking What in Illinois (1978), Bogdan's recipe calls for fresh beets , but canned can be substituted when fresh aren't available. E.B., who requested a recipe for chocolate cake made with beets , should be pleased with either version....

Spiced chocolate beet cake
MAKES 14 SERVINGS
4 (16-ounce) cans beets , drained
3 1/2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 eggs
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
5 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate , melted and cooled
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Chocolate glaze:
6 ounces semisweet baking chocolate
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash of salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1. To prepare cake : Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan and set aside. Finely puree beets in a food processor or blender; set aside.
2. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cloves and cinnamon; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs with an electric mixer until pale and frothy, about 5 minutes. Gradually beat in sugar, brown sugar and oil.
4. Stir pureed beets into the egg mixture. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing until thoroughly combined. Fold in melted chocolate and vanilla, stirring until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake on the middle rack of a preheated 350-degree oven until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 1/2 hours.
6. Turn cake upside down onto a wire rack and let cool completely in the pan, about 2 hours.
7. Make the glaze: Melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Stir in butter and corn syrup. Gradually stir in cream. Continue stirring over simmering water until well-blended, about 1 minute. Add vanilla, salt and cinnamon.
8. Turn cake right side up and loosen from pan with a knife. Turn upside down and release. Return cake , right side up, to the wire rack. Slide wax paper under the rack and pour glaze over cake . Chill cake until glaze is set, about 30 minutes. Vicky Schmitz, Brookfield

Chocolate - beet cake
Makes 12 servings
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups pureed cooked beets
2 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Confectioners' sugar or icing
1. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add oil, pureed beets and melted chocolate; mix until combined.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to egg mixture. Stir in vanilla and mix until combined.
3. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9-inch tube pan. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 50 to 60 minutes.
4. Let cake cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners' sugar or frost with your favorite icing. Irene Bogdan, Libertyville."
---"Very up beet - Rich chocolate cake holds a sweet surprise," Lezli Bitterman, Chicago Sun-Times, August 28, 1996

Related cakes? Red Devil, Tomato Soup (aka Mystery), Red Velvet & Armadillo (grooms cake).
Birthday cake
Cakes were eaten to celebrate birthdays long before they were called "birthday cakes." Food historians confirm ancient bakers made cakes (and specially shaped breads) to mark births, weddings, funerals, harvest celebrations, religious observances, and other significant events. Recipes varied according to era, culture, and cuisine. Cakes were usually saved for special occasions because they were made with finest, most expensive ingredients available to the cook. The wealthier one was, the more likely one might consume cake on a more frequent basis.
The birthday cakes we enjoy today are inventions of the 19th century. These were enjoyed by middle and upper classes. People with less money and poorly stocked larders also made birthday cakes. Their were not quite the light, fluffy iced concoctions served by their wealthier contemporaries. In all places and times, cooks blessed with creativity and "make do" spirit generated some pretty fine foods in the name of love. This was also true in War time.

The practice of eating cake on a regular basis by "average people" became possible in the 19th century. Why? The Industrial Revolution made many baking ingredients more affordable (mass-production) and readily available (railroads). It also introduced modern leavening agents, (baking soda, baking powder), a variety of cheaper substitutions (corn syrup for sugar; margarine for butter), and more reliable ovens.

Cake history expert Simon R. Charlsey makes this observation:

"Birthday cakes might still in the nineteenth century be of the same kind [as wedding cakes], but as their use spread, their composition became typically simpler. For preference of the child or other person celebrating, or of the cook, or whatever the confectioner had used for a decorated shop cake."
---Wedding Cakes and Cultural History, Simon R. Charsley [Routledge:London] 1992 (p. 61)
"The dominant English culture in America shaped birthday patterns for some time. Colonial birthdays were enjoyed by privileged adults, who feasted well, or at the very least, shared a glass of wine and a small slice of fruitcake with friends. Children's parties echoed the adult formats...In the new age of democracy, birthdays did not remain class-limited. As the nineteenth century progressed, a number of factors reshaped the events. The growth of industry, elevated urban material standards, and emering middle class culture amde more elaborate birthday celebrations increasingly attractive. Changing notions of the nature of childhood stimulated a new style of young people's parties...Ice cream and cake became defining elements, whether after a meal or as the centerpiece of a party...Although fruitcakes and rich, yeasted cakes were the traditional English festive cakes, the modern form of birthday cake originated in American kitchens in the mid-nineteenth century. In contrast to their European counterparts, American women were active home bakers, largely because of the abundance of oven fuel in the New World and the sparsity of professional bakers. By the late 1800s, home bakers were spurred further by several innovations. The cast-iron kitchen stove, complete with its own quickly heated oven, became standard equipment in urban middle-class homes. Women in towns had more discretionary time, compared to farm-women, and they had an expanding social life that required formal and informal hospitality. Sugar, butter, spice, and flour costs were dropping. Improved chemical leavening agents, baking powder among them, enabled simpler and faster baking and produced a cake of entirely different flavor and texture. A cake constructed in layers, filled and frosted, became the image of the standard birthday cake. One observer of the early 1900s compared bubbly soap lather to "the fluffiness of a birthday cake" and snowy, frost covered hills to iced birthday cakes...Writing on birthday cakes began with professional bakers and caterers, who were proliferating in growing cities. The cakes of the late 1800s were decorated with inscriptions like "Many Happy Returns of the Day" and the celebrant's name, a tradition that continues into the twenty-first century. Sometimes the cake was home-baked but then decorated by a specialist...The phrase "Happy Birthday" did not appear on birthday cake messages until the popularization of the now-ubiquitous song "Happy Birthday to You" (1910). Cookbook authors began to recommend decorating with birth dates and names and offered instruction on how to make colored frostings...By 1958, A.H. Vogel had begun to manufacture preformed cake decorations. Inexpensive letters, numbers, and pictorial images, such as flowers or bow, with matching candleholders were standard supermarket offerings."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 99-100)
"Small, colored candles became an integral part of the American birthday cake. An American style guide of 1889 directed, "At birthday parties, the birthday cake, with as many tiny colored candles set about its edge as the child is years old, is, of course, of special importance." The modern use of candles on a special cake may be connected to the German tradition of Kinderfest, dating from the fifteenth century, a time when people believed that on birthdays children were particularly susceptible to evil spirits. Friends and family gathered around protectively, keeping the cake's candles lit all day until after the evening meal, when the cake was served. The candles were thought to carry one's wished up to God. This German observance was brought to colonial Pennsylvania and was later reinforced by the influence of British-German fashions from Queen Victoria's court."
---ibid (p. 99)

American cookbooks bear this out. In the last quarter of the 19th century, we find a veritable explosion of simple cake recipes. Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book [1871] contains several of these items. Many have inventive names. Curiously? None of them are called "birthday cake." The recipes provided by Mrs. Porter that are most like today's birthday cakes are: "Silver cake," "Gold cake," and "Little Folks' Joys."

[1871]
"Little Folks' Joys
One cupful of white sugar, one cupful of rich sour cream, one egg, two cupsful of flour, half a teaspoonful of soda, and flavor to taste; bake about half an hour; nicest eaten fresh and warm."
---Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M.E. Porter, 1871 , [Promentory Press:New York] 1974 (p. 242)
[1878]
"Birthday Cakes
Into a pound of dried flour, put four oucnes of butter, flour ounces of sugar, one egg, a tea-spoonful of baking powder, and sufficient milk to wet to a paste. Put in currants, and cut in cakes. Sprinkle colored caraway seeds on top, and bake them a light brown."
---Jennie June's American Cookery Book, Mrs. J. C. Croly [Aemrican New Company:New York] 1878 (p. 203)
[1906]
"Birthday Cakes for Children.
One and one-half cups of sugar, a half-cup of butter or clarified drippings, two eggs, one cup of milk, two cups flour, one teaspoon baking powder, one-half teaspoonful of vanilla. Beat together the butter and sugar, add the eggs, then the flour, baking-powder and nutmeg sifted together. Place in small well-greased tins and just before putting into the oven drop a few seeded raisins on top of each cake. Spread on the top a few drops of boiled icing and on top of these some colored candies or cinnamon drops, as they are favorites with the little folks. Aunt Mary."
---The Blue Ribbon Cook Book, Annie R. Gregory [Monarch Book Company:Chicago] 1906 (p. 258)

[1911]
Fannie Merritt Farmer's Catering for Special Occasions devotes an entire chapter to "Birthday feasting." Adult menus do not include cake. Child menus do. Ms. Farmer suggests children's parties include Angel Birthday Cake and Sunshine Birthday Cake. Both are simple, iced angel cakes. The difference? Sunshine cake is a little richer. This recipe includes yolks and almond extract. Recipes here:
Angel cake
Whites 5 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup bread flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat whites of eggs until stiff and dry and add gradually, while beating constantly, sugar (fine granulated) mixed and sifted with cream of tartar. Sift flour into mixture, add vanilla, and cut and fold until blended. Turn into a buttered and floured angel-cake pan and bake in a moderate oven. Remove from pan, cover with White Mountain Frosting, and ornament with small candles placed in flower cases. The little cases may be bought of first-class city grocers or dealers in confectioners' supplies."
---Catering for Special Occasions, Fannie Merritt Farmer [David McKay:Philadelphia] 1911 (p. 222)
[NOTE: Ms. Farmer's the candle decoration notes suggest this practice was primarily enjoyed by wealthy people in 1911. Many middle/laboring-class families and isolated farm cooks could not afford to purchase goods from first-class city grocers or specialty suppliers.]

Sunshine Birthday Cake
Whites 5 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
Yolks 3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup pastry flour

Add salt to whites of eggs and beat until light. Sift in cream of tartar and beat until stiff. Beat yolks of eggs until thick and lemon colored and add two heaping beaten whites. To remaining whites add gradually sugar measured after five siftings. Add almond extract and combine mixtures. Cut and fold in flour measured after five siftings. Bake in angel-cake pan, first dipped in cold water, in a slow oven one hour. Have a pan of hot water in oven during the baking, Remove from pan, frost and decorate, same as Angel Birthday Cake."
---Catering for Special Occasions, (p. 228-9)

White Mountain Frosting
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
Whites 2 eggs
Put sugar and water in saucepan, and stir to prevent sugar from adhering to saucepan; heat gradually to boiling-point, and boil without stirring until syrup will thread when dripped from tip of spoon or tines of silver fork. Pour syrup gradually on beaten white of egg, beating mixture constantly, and continue beating until of right consistency to spread; then add flavoring and pour over cake, spreading evenly with back of spoon. Crease as soon as firm. If not beaten long enough, frosting will run; if beaten too long, it will not be smooth. Frosting beaten too long may be improved by adding a few drops of lemon juice or boiling water. This frosting is soft inside and has a glossy surface."
---Catering for Special Occasions, (p. 222)

Contrast the above recipes with this pioneer-era birthday cake [Texas 1851]

"Pioneer Birthday Cake
This recipe was used to make a birthday cake for a small girl eighty-five years ago. There was no flour to be had, and corn was ground on a handmill. The meal was carefully emptied from one sack to another, and fine meal dust clinging to the sack was carefully shaken out on paper; the sack was again emptied and shaken, and the process was repeated labouriously time after time until two cupsful of meal dust was obtained. The rest of the ingredients were as follows: 1/2 cup of wild honey, 1 wild turkey egg, 1 teaspoonful of homemade soda, 1 scant cupful of sour milk and a very small amount of butter, to all of which was added the meal dust. The batter was poured into a skillet with a lid, and placed over the open fire in the yard, the skillet lid being heaped with coals. To a little girl's childish taste the cake was very fine, but looking back through the years, the nonoree said relfectively, "It was none too sweet."
---Cooking Recipes of the Pioneer, Bandera Library Association [Frontier Times:Bandera TX] 1936 (p. 23)
Pound cake
Food historians generally agree that pound cake is a Northern European recipe named for the equal weight of its ingredients. Recipes printed in contemporary American cookbooks follow the same general proportions. The "pound" connection is not obvious today because we now measure with cups, not weight. American cookbooks printed in the early decades of the 20th century helped cooks bridge the gap by including both sets of measurements.
Historic evidence confirms recipes for pound cake first surface in 18th century English and American cookbooks. Then, as now, there were variations on the recipe. Early recipes sometimes included alcohol and currants. Many are flavored with a hint lemon. Then, as now, proportions varied. Many recipes for pound cake call for more or less than a pound! Cup cakes & 1234 cake are related.

"Pound-cake. A rich cake so called as originally containing a pound (or equal weight) of each of the principal ingredients, flour, butter, sugar, fruit, etc."
---Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Volume XII (p. 247)

"Pound cake. A Plain white-cake loaf whose name derives from the traditional weight of the ingredients--one pound of flour, one pound of butter, one pound of sugar, and one pound of eggs--although these measurements are generally not followed in most modern recipes. Its first printed mention was in 1740 according to Webster's Ninth, and it has remained a popular and simple cake to make to this day."
---Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 254)

"Pound cake a cake of creamed type, is so named because the recipe calls for an equal weight of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs; in old recipes, a pound of each, making a large, rich cake...Pound cake has been favoured in both Britain and the USA for over two centuries. Recipes for it were already current early in the 19th century...The German Sandtorte is similar to pound cake; and a French cake, quatre quarts (four quarters), uses the same principles..."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 631)

[1747]
"To make a Pound Cake
Take a Pound of Butter, beat it in an earthen Pan, with your Hand one Way, till it is like a fine thick Cream; then have ready twelve Eggs, but half the Whites, beat them well, and beat them up with the Butter, a Pound of Flour beat in it, and a Pound of Sugar, and a few Carraways; beat it all well together for an Hour with your Hand, or a great wooden Spoon. Butter a Pan, and put it in and bake it an Hour in a quick Oven. For Change, you may put in a Pound of Currants cleaned wash'd and pick'd."
---The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, facsimile 1747 London reprint [Prospect Books:Devon] 1995 ( p. 139)
[NOTE: this book has been reprinted in recent years. If you want to study other cake recipes from this time period ask your librarian to help you find a copy of this and colonial American cook books. You might also want to compare this recipe with modern ones]
[1803]
Pound Cake, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter
[1817]
"A Pound cake, plain.
Beat a pound of butter in an earthen pan till it is like a thick cream, then beat in nine whole eggs till it is quite light. Put in a glass of brandy, a little lemon-peel shred fine; then pork in a pound and a quarter of flour. Put it into your hoop or pan, and bake it for one hour."
---The Female Instructor or Young Woman's Guide to Domestic Happiness, [Thomas Kelly:London] 1817 (p. 462)

[1824]
"Pound cake.
Wash the salt from a pound of butter and rub it till it is soft as cream, have ready a pound of flour sifted, one pound of powdered sugar, and twelve eggs well beaten; put alternately into the butter, sugar, flour, and the froth from the eggs; continuing to beat them together till all the ingredients are in, and the cake quite light; add some grated lemon peel, a nutmeg, and a gill of brandy; butter the pans and bake them. This cake makes an excellent pudding if baked in a large mould, and eaten with sugar and wine. It is also excellent when boiled, and served up with melted butter, sugar, and wine."
---The Virginia Housewife, Mary Randolph, with historical notes and commentaries by Karen Hess [University of South Carolina Press:Columbia] 1984 (p. 161)

[1845]
"Plain Pound or Currant Cake.
Or rich Brawn Brack, or Borrow Brack.
Mix, as directed in the foregoing receipt, ten eggs (some cooks take a pound in weight of these), one pound of sugar, one of flour, and as much of butter. For a plum-cake, let the butter be worked to a cream; add the sugar to it first, then the yolks of the eggs, next stir lightly in the whites, after which, add one pound of currants and the candied peel, and, last of all, the flour by degrees, and a glass of brandy when it is liked. Nearly or quite two hours'baking will be required for this, and one hour for half the quantity. To convert the above inot the popular speckled bread,' or Brawn Brack of the richer kind, add to it three ounces of carraway-seeds: these are sometimes used in combination with the currants, but more commonly without. To ice a cake see the reciept for Sugar Glazings at the commencement of this Chapter, page 449. A roase-tint may be given to the icing with a little prepared cochineal, as we have said there."
---Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton [1845], with an Introduction by Elizabeth Ray [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1993 (p. 451)

[1857]
Pound cake, Great Western Cook Book, Anna Maria Collins

[1861]
Pound cake, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, Isabella Beeton (recipe 1770)

[1884]
Pound cake, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln

[1896]
Pound cake, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Fannie Farmer

[1908]
"Pound Cake.
The old rule--and there is none better--calls for one pound each of butter, sugar and flour, ten eggs and a half wine glass of wine and brandy. Beat the butter to a cream and add gradually a pound of sugar, stirring all the while. Beat ten eggs without separating until they become light and foamy. Add gradually to the butter and sugar and beat hard. Sift in one pound sifted flour and add the wine and brandy. Line the cake pans with buttered paper and pour in the well beaten mixture. Bake in a moderate oven. This recipe may be varied by the addition of raisins, seeded and cut in halves, small pieces of citron or almonds blanched and pounded in rose water. Some old fashioned housekeepers always add a fourth of a teaspoon of mace. The mixture may be baked in patty tins or small round loaves, if preferred, putting currants into some, almonds or raisins in the rest. Pound acake is apt to be lighter baked in this way. The cakes may be plain or frosted, and they will grow richer with the keeping in placed in stone jars."
---The New York Evening Telegram Cook Book, Emma Paddock Telford [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1908 (p. 126)

[1926]
"Pound Cake
3/4 lb butter
3/4 lb sugar (sifted three times)
3/4 lb flour (sifted three times
1 tablespoon whisky
9 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch salt
Cream together butter and sugar very light and creamy. Stir in whisky. Add well-beaten egg yolks. Add salt and vanilla. Add alternately flour and stiffly-beaten egg whites. Add baking powder to last flour. Begin the baking in slow oven, increase heat as baking progresses, one to one and a quarter hours."
---Every Woman's Cook Book, Mrs. Chas. F. Moritz [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1926 (p. 415-6)

[1936]
"Old-Fashioned Pound Cake
1 pound cake flour (4 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 pound butter (2 cups), scant
1 pound sugar (2 1/4 cups)
1/4 cup lemon juice of 2 tablespoons brandy
1 pound eggs (10), separated
Mix flour, baking powder and nutmeg, and sift three times. Cream butter until soft and smooth; add sugar gradually, creaming until very fluffy; add lemon juice and well-beaten egg yolks, beating very thoroughly. Fold in thoroughly the stiffly beaten egg whites, then flour. Turn into greased, paper-lined, loaf pans and bake in slow oven (300-325 F.) For 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Yield: 2 loaves."
---America's Cook Book, The Home Institute of the New York Herald Tribune [Charles Scribner's Sons:New York] 1937 (p. 547)

[1944]
"Pound Cake (8 eggs)
3 3/4 c. sifted cake flour
1 1/2 teasp. baking powder
1 teasp. grated lemon rind
1 teasp. nutmeg
1 3/4 c. butter
2 1/4 c. granulated sugar
8 eggs, separated
Sift together flour and baking powder 3 times. Add lemon rind and nutmeg to butter, and work with a spoon until fluffy and creamy. Gradually add 1 3/4 c. of the sugar while continuing to beat with a spoon until light. Beat egg yolks very thoroughly with a hand or electric beater until light-colored and thick enough to fall from beater in a heavy continuous stream. Add to butter mixture and beat thoroughly with a spoon. Beat egg whites with a hand or electric beater until stiff enough to stand up in peaks, but not dry. Add remaining 1/2 c. Sugar, 2 tablesp. at a time, beating after each addition until sugar is just blended. Stir 1/3 of the flour mixture into the butter mixture, then 1/2 of the egg whites, repeating until all are used, beating very thoroghly with a spoon after each addition. Turn into 2 9" X 5" X 3" loaf pans which have been greased, lined with heavy paper, and greased again. Bake in a moderate oven of 325 F. For 1 hr. 20 min., or until done. Needs no frosting."
---The Good Housekeeping Cook Book, Completely revised edition [Farrar & Rinehart:New York] 1944 (p. 702-3)

Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin bread (pumpkin cake, pumpkin cookies, etc.), as we Americans know it today, descends from a long line of classically spiced baked goods incorporating vegetables/fruits & spices. Obviously, the same basic culinary evolution as carrot cake, banana bread & zucchini bread. Or is it?

Food historians confirm squash (pumpkins &c.) perched patiently in the pantry of "New World" foods easily incorporated into "Old World" recipes. Cultural culinary synergy was inevitable. Pumpkin recipes are classic examples. Think: Pumpkin pie. On closer examination? Pumpkin bread is not one but several recipes depending upon place, people & period. This particular dish sets a unique table spread with rudimentary cakes, thickened porridge, savory pone, potato-type yeast breads, European inspired spice cake & quick (chemically leavened) loaves composed with canned product. In sum: the perfect study of culinary evolution.

Native American pumpkin bread
"Baked Pumpkin...The dried pumpkin is pounded, sifted, then soaked in cold water for an hour to an hour and a half. It is then sweetened and grease added. A pan is greased, the pumpkin placed in it, marked with a knife into cakes, and baked in the oven." ... "Cornmeal and Pumpkin: The pumpkin is sliced, boiled, sugar is added, also Indian corn meal to make a pudding. This is eaten with sutgar and milk."
---Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation. F. W. Waugh, orginally published in 1916 [University Press of the Pacific:Honolulu HI] 2003 (p. 116)
The earliest references we find for pumpkin bread/cake in USA cookbooks were yeast-based goods based on traditional potato bread. Note: "Indian meal" was a non-endearing term for corn [maize] meal. This ingredient was generally considered inferior to wheat flour. It was used only as a last resort.

[1844]
"Pumpkin Bread.
Stew and strain some pumpkin, stiffen it with Indian meal, add salt and yeast, and it makes a most excellent kind of bread."
--- Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book, Catharine Esther Beecher
[1857]
"Pumpkin Bread. Take two quarts of sweet pumpkin, stewed dry; two quarts of fine Indian meal, two tea-spoonsful of salt, a table-spoon heaping full of lard, and mix them up with sufficient hot water to make it of the consistence of common corn-meal dough. Set it in a warm place, two hours, to rise, and bake it in a pan, in a moderate oven. It will take an hour and a half to bake."
---Great Western Cook Book, Anna Collins

[1913]
"Pumpkin Bread: (Pioneer.) Sift a pint of meal, add salt to season fully, then rub through a large cupful of stewed pumpkin, made very smooth. Add half a cup melted lard, then mix with sweet milk to a fairly stiff dough, make pones, and bake crisp. Mashed sweet potato can be used instead of pumpkin, and cracklings, rubbed very fine in place of lard."
--- Dishes & Beverages of the Old South, Martha MCCullough-Williams

[1937]
"Pumpkin Cakes with Bacon
Used canned or cooked pumpkin; for directions for cooking pumpkin, see Boiled Winter Squash...To 2 cups mashed pumpkin, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, dash of paprika, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon ketchup, 1/4 cup milk and 2 tablespoons melted butter; shape into patties. Fry 6 to 12 strips of bacon...drain on unglazed paper and keep hot; pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings in pan. Saute patties in bacon fat and serve with crisp bacon. Approximate yield: 6 portions or 12 small patties."
---America's Cook Book, compiled by the Home Institute of The New York Herald Tribune [Charles Scribner's Sons:New York] 1937 (p. 479)

[1939]
"Pumpkin Pone
10 quarts raw pumkin
2 large sifters corn meal
1/2 gallon water
1 large sifter flour
Cook the pumpkin and water until pumpkin is soft and tender. Mash with potato masher and bring to a boil. Combine corn meal and flour and scald with the boiling pumpkin. Set aside for ten yours.
1 pound grated sugar
2 tablespoons salt
1/4 teaspoon soda dissolved in 1/2 cup water
Add sugar, salt and soda to pumpkin mixture. Stir throughly. Place in a greased black iron kettle that will hold ten to twelve quarts. Cook over a slow fire without a lid for two days."
---New York World's Fair Cook Book, Crosby Gaige [Doubleday, Doran & Company:New York] 1939 (p. 188)
[NOTES: (1) Although not technically a "bread" or "cake," we include this recipe because it appears to be a crossover between old and new concepts in pumpkin cooker. (2) This recipe is offered as Delaware food, "Millsville Pumpkin Pone."]

The oldest references we find to modern pumpkin bread are from the early 1940s.
[1942]
"Pumpkin Cake
Cake flour, 2 1/4 cups
Baking powder, 2 teaspoons
Baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon
Cinnamon, 1 teaspoon
Cloves, 1/4 teaspoon
Allspice, 1/2 teaspoon
Shortening, 1/2 cup
Sugar, 1 1/2 cups
Eggs, 2
Vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon
Pumpkin, home-cooked or canned, 1/2 cup
Buttermilk or sour milk, 1/2 cup
Sift flour; measure; add baking powder, soda and spices; sift again. Cream shortening; add sugar gradually; cream together until light and fluffy. Add well-beaten eggs (unbeaten if electric mixer is used); beat thoroughly; add vanilla and pumpkin; beat until smooth. Add dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk or sour milk, stirring only enough after each addition to blend thoroughly. Pour into 2 greased 8-inch layer pans 1/14 inches deep. Bake in a moderate oven (375 degrees F.) 25 to 30 minutes. When cool put layers together with filling or frosting. Frost top and sides with molasses whipped cream, cream-cheese frosting, mocha butter or orange butter frosting."
---Woman's Home Companion Cook Book [P.F. Collier & Son:New York] 1942(p. 715)
[1958]
"Spicy Pumpkin Cake
[Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.]
1/2 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup cooked pumpkin
1/2 cup bran
1 3/4 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teasoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla
Btter 2 10-inch cake tins. Cream 1/2 cup butter with 1 cup granulated sugar. When light, add 2 unbeaten eggs and mix well. Combine 1/4 cup milk with 1 cup cooked pumpkin and stir into egg-and-sugar mixture. Then add 1/2 cup bran and mix well. Place 1 3/4 cups flour in a sifter; add 4 teaspooons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon cloves; and sift it gradually into the first mixture, beating well after each addition. Flavor with 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour micutre in buttered tins and bake until it tests done, about 25-30 minutes. Turn out onto cake plates, sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, and serve while still hot, accompanied by plenty of whipped ream; or thurn out onto cake rack and, when cool, ice with twice-cooked vanilla frosting."
---June Platt Cook Book, June Platt [Alfred A Knopf:New York] 1958 (p. 448)

[1963]
"Pumpkin Muffins
(Makes 30 muffins)
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups white flour
2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup light molasses
1 cup canned or cooked pumpkin
2 well-beaten eggs
1/2 cup melted butter (1/4 pound)
2 cups buttermilk
Sift together the flour, cornmeal, baking sod, baking powder and salt. Beat the eggs well. Add the pumpkin, honey molasses and buttermilk, and mix thoroughly. Add the sifted dry ingredients and beat with a spoon until well mixed; last of all stir in the melted butter. Fill well-greased muffin tins 2/3 full and bake at 425 to 450 degrees F. until nice and brown, or for about 18 to 20 minutes. Sere hot with lots of butter."
---Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook [Grosset & Dunlap:New York] 1963 (p. 342)
[NOTE:Ms. Rudkin also supplies this translated recipe from Delights of the Country, a French cookbook published in 1661. In some ways this is not suprising, given the fact that the French are credied for giving us pumpkin pie!]

"Pumpkin Bread.
To make pumpkin bread, it is necessary to parboil the pumpkin as you would to fricassee and pass it through a heavy towel to take out the little nerves which are therein, adding the water in which the pumpkin was cooked as much as is necessary to knead in the ordinary way--and governing your dough for two raisings, and thus, as I say, before you will make a good bread which will be a little fat when cooked and yellow which is excellent for those who have need of refreshment and to have a free stomach."

[1966]
"Pilgrim Pumpkin Cake
1 package Betty Crocker Honey Spice Cake Mix
1 can (1 pound) solid pack pumpkin (2 cups)
2 teaspoons soda
2 eggs 1/3 cup water
Penuche Cream Topping
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In large mixer bowl combine all ingredients except Penuche Cream Topping. Beat 30 seconds low spped on mixer; beat 4 minutes medium speed. Pour batter into greased and floured oblong pan, 13X9X2 inches. Bake 45 to 50 minutes. Serve warm with Penuche Cream Topping. Sprinkle with chopped pecans, if desired."
---Betty Crocker's Cake and Frosting Mix Cookbook [Golden Press:New York] 1966 (p. 36) [NOTE: This book also offers notes for creating Pumpkin-Nut Cake (Fold 1/2 cul chopped walnuts or pecans into batter before pouring into pan) & Pumpkin-Raisin Cake (Fold 1/2 cup rasiins into batter before pouring into pan).]

[1968]
"Mrs. Raymond Schenk's Pumpkin Cake
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups vegetable (salad) oil
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree, home-made or canned
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup seedless raisins
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place the sugar, oil and pumpkin puree in a large mixer bowl and beat well on medium speed.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon and salt and fold into the cake batter. Stir in the raisins and nuts.
5. Pour into a greased 10-inch tube pan. Bake one and one-quarter hours or until done. Do not open the oven door under one hour. Let cool slightly in a pan before turning onto a rack. Yield: 12 servings."
---"The Pumpkin Eaters," Craig Claiborne, New York Times, September 29, 1968 (p. SM106)

Pumpkin Nut Bread
Oven 350 degrees F.
In mixing bowl, blend 3/4 cup canned pumpkin, 1/2 cup water, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon ground mace. Add one 1-pound 1-ounce package nut quick bread mix; stir till moistened. Turn into greased 9X5X3-inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 50 minutes or till dine. Remove from pan; cool. If desired, frost with confectioners' Icing."
---Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book [Meredith Corporation:New York] 1968 (p. 49)

Related foods? Cranberry bread, Carrot cake, Banana bread & Zucchini bread.

Cranberry bread
Cranberry cookery in America predates European settlement. Most of the cranberry recipes we enjoy today, descend from European culinary traditions. People cook what they know. Cranberry bread is a 20th century twist on the enriched fruited bread theme.

James Beard prefaced his recipe for "Quick Cranberry Bread" thusly: "This is an unusally good version of an old American favorite..." (Beard on Bread, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975, p. 176). On the following page he lists variations, including "Cranberry Orange Bread," adding 1/2 cup orange juice and 3 tablespoons grated orange rind to the mixture. His words make us wonder...exactly how old is this recipe? When and why were oranges added?

American cranberry production is concentrated in East Massachusetts, South New Jersey and North Wisconsin. Orange/citrus production is California/Florida based. None of our 19th century American cookbooks contain for cranberry breads (quick or yeast). Pre-20th century cranberry recipes concentrate on sauce (mostly boiled), conserves, jellies, puddings, and pie fillings. Citrus fruit infiltrates cranberry recipes slowly, but surely, in the dawning 20th century decades. No reason is profferd in primary documents. Perhaps it was a perfect storm of industry collusion and contemporary taste.

Jean Anderson's American Century Cookbook [1997] states "This quick-and-easy [Cranberry-Nut] bread has been popular from the mid-twentieth century on. With only 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) shortening, with orange juice the liquid ingredient instead of milk, it is also lower in fat than many fruit-nut breads." (p. 328). Our survey of historic American cook books and newspapers confirms the existance of cranberrry baked goods (muffins, breads, etc.) from 1903 forward. Oranges (juice/diced sections/grated rind) were included in selected recipes from the late 1930s forward.

Corporate connections
Both Ocean Spray [cranberries] and Sunkist [oranges & lemons] actively promoted their crops to American cooks. An undated [probably 1910s-1920s] Ocean Spray advertising booklet promoting canned cranberry sauce shows a picture of cranberry muffins. Annotation reads "Cut our sauce into small cubes and mix in your favorite batter. Delicious in Bran or dark muffins." A 1941 booklet ["Cape Cod's Famous Cranberry Recipes] contains two muffin recipes, both featuring their canned jellied product; neither with orange. Their Cranberry-Orange Relish recipe is subtitled without comment: "The National Favorite." Sunkist Recipes: Oranges-Lemons [c. 1916] offers recipes for yeast-based Orange Bread and Orange Peel Bread. No reference to cranberries anywhere. What makes this booklet notable is the complier, Alice Bradley, principal of Miss Farmer's School of Cookery. Sunkist was actively promoting their citrus fruits as healthy foods, easily included in traditional recipes. We have to believe Boston-based Miss Bradley was familiar with cranberries. The 1896 edition of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book does not combine cranberries and oranges. The 1923 edition (p. 710) offers a recipe for Cranberry Conserve using 1 orange (cut into small pieces, no rind), English walnut meats and seeded raisins. The Bradley factor? Our survey of historic cookbooks confirm the cranberry-orange-nut combinations grew in popularity. The New Butterick Cook Book [c. 1924] adds 1 cup of orange juice to its Cranberry Conserve recipe (p. 702). An alternate version uses rind and juice of 2 oranges and 2 lemons, no nutmeats. Suzanne Cary Gruver's Cape Cod Cook Book [c. 1930] contains a chapter on cranberry cookery. for this purpose is her recipe for Cranberry Conserve--"Jelly Kitchen" similar to the ones reference above. We find similar recipes (titled conserves or relish) in the Good Housekeeping Cook Book [c. 1933] and other popular culinary texts.

Cranberry bread & muffins
The earliest reference we find for cranberry baked goods [muffins] was published in the Mansfield News [OH], January 28, 1903 (p. 5). It was listed as a menu selection; no recipe provided. The oldest cranberry muffin recipe we have on file is from 1911. The earliest bread recipe we find combining cranberries and oranges [grated rinds] was published in a Massachusetts newspaper, 1938. Orange juice enters in the 1950s.

[1911]
"Cranberry Muffins.
Beat one-third of a cupful of butter to a cream. Gradually beat in one-fourth of a cupful of sugar, then one egg, beaten light; three-fourths of a cupful of milk and two cups of sifted flour, sifted again with two rounding teaspoonfuls of baking powder and half a teaspoonful of salt. When well mixed beat in one cup of cranberries, cut in halves. Bake about twenty-five minutes in a well battered muffin pan."
---Logansport Pharos [IN], February 22, 1911 (p. 6)
[1916]
"Cranberry Muffins.
1/4 cupful butter.
1/4 cupful sugar.
1 egg.
2 2/3 cupfuls sifted flour
1/2 teaspoonful salt,
4 tablespoonfuls baking power.
1 cupful cranberries, sprinkled with 2 tablespoons sugar.
Cream butter, add water, well-beaten egg, milk and then the flour mixed and sifted with the salt and baking powder. Add berries, drop into greased muffin tins and bake."
---"Here are recipes for cranberries many ways," Bakersfield Californian, November 24, 1916 (p. 8)

[1931]
"Cranberry Muffins.
1 egg.
3/4 cup milk.
2 cups sifted flour. 4 teaspoons baking powder.
1/4 cup sugar.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
4 tablespoons melted butter or other fat.
1 cup cranberries.
Beat the egg slightly and add the milk. To the liquid mixture, add the sifted dry ingredients. Roll the berries in two or more tablespoons of sugar, and fold into the batter with the melted fat. Do not stir the mixture any more than necessary. Pour into greased muffin pans and bake in a moderately hot oven (400 degrees F.) for about 30 minutes, or until brown. Serve hot."
---Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes Revised, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Home Economics, [Government Printing Office:Washington DC] 1931 (p. 79)

[1937]
"Cranberry Muffins. In one recipe Tea Muffins omit 2 tablespoons milk and add 3/4 cup raw cranberries to sifted dry ingredients."
---My New Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book [Meredith Publishing:Des Moines IA] 1937 (p. 12)
[NOTE: this book also contains a recipe for Orange-Nut Bread (p. 10).]

[1938]
"Cranberry Nut Bread [One loaf]
One cup cranberries, one cup sugar, three cups flour, four teaspoons baking powder, one teaspoon salt, one-half cup coarsely chopped walnuts, grated rind one orange, one egg, one cup milk, two tablespons melted butter. Put cranberries through food chopper and mix with one-fourth cup of sugar. Sift remaining sugar, flour, baking powder and salt together and add nuts and orange rind. Beat egg slightly, combine with milk and melted butter and add to first mixture. Fold in cranberries. Bake in buttered bread pan in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) about one hour."
---"Healthful Breads Go Nutty in Fall Months," Lowell Sun [MA], October 1, 1938 (p. 6)

[1950]
"Cranberry Nut Bread
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
Juice and grated rind of 1orange
2 tablespoons shortening
1 egg
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup cooked jellied cranberry sauce
Sift dry ingredients together. To the juice and rind of orange add boiling water to make 3/4 cup liquid. Add melted shortening and beaten egg. Mix with dry ingredients until just blended. Add sifted dry ingredients. Add chopped nuts. Carefully fold in cubes of cranberry sauce. Bake in a greased loaf pan at 325 degrees F. for about one hour or until done."
---"Fruit Breads Give Sparkle to Daily Meals," Oakland Tribune [CA], June 26. 1950 (p.15)

[1960]
"Cranberry-Nut Bread
2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup (one-half stick) butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup chopped citron
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the soda to the butter and mix well. Gradually blend in the sugar. Beat in the egg. Stir in the orange rind, nuts and citron. Add the flour mixture alternately with the orange juice.
4. Put the cranberries through a food chopper, using the coarse blade. Stir into the dough.
5. Turn into a well-greased, lightly floured 9X5X3-inch loaf pan and bake one hour and twenty minutes. Cool. Yield: one loaf."
---"Cranberries to the fore," Craig Claiborne, New York Times, November 13, 1960 (p. SM108)

Related foods? Banana bread & Carrot cake.

Cupcakes
Individually portioned confections have a long and venerable history. Diminutive iterations of popular traditional baked goods are particularly enjoyed when portability and ease of service is appreciated. Cookies, tea cakes, petits fours and cupcakes all spring from the basic same idea. Commerically packaged "personal size" cupcakes appeared after World War I. Think: Hostess cup cakes & mini cupcakes. Commercial cupcake paper baking cups & liners surface after WWI.

There seem to be two theories about the origin of recipes titled "cupcake:"

1. The name comes from the amount of ingredients used to make the cake (a cupful of flour, a cupful of butter, cupful of sugar etc.).
---This is very similar to how pound cake was named. In fact, the recipes for cup cakes and pound cakes include pretty much the same ingredients and would have produced similar results.

2. These cakes were originally baked in cups.
---Old cookbooks also sometimes mention baking cakes in small cups. These cups may very well have been earthenware tea cups or other small clay baking pans. These would easily accomodated baking level oven heat and produce individual-sized cakes. This is not the same thing as contemporary metal cupcake pans, enabling cooks to bake a dozen small cakes in one fell culinary swoop.

Which is true? Both! We have historical evidence (old cookbooks) that support both theories. This food historian agrees:

"Cupcake
The name given in Britain and generally in the USA to any small cake baked in a cup-shaped mould or in a paper baking cup. In the USA the term may have originally have been related to the American measuring system, based upon the cup."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson (p. 234)

Small pound cakes baked in individual-portion pans were quite popular in the 18th century. "Queen Cakes" are a good example of these. Food historians tell us this recipe evolved from lighter fruitcakes baked in England.

"Queen cake. A small rich cake made from a creamed mixture with currants, lemon zest, and sometimes chopped almonds, baked as individual cakes. They have been popular since at least the 18th century. Now usually baked in paper cases, traditionally little fluted moulds in fancy shapes were used; Eliza Acton (1845) said that heart-shaped moulds were usual for this mixture."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 644)

20th century cupcake variations are endless. They range from simple to sublime. Baking papers come in designer prints. Individual portions and easy clean-up make cupcakes perennial favorites for classroom birthdays and bake sales. A survey of American cookbooks reveals the interest in cupcakes, as food in their own right, has grown over the years.

Historic cupcake recipes:

[1796]
"A light Cake to bake in small cups.
Half a pound sugar, half a pound butter, rubbed into two pounds flour, one glass wine, one do. [glass] Rosewater, two do.[glass] Emptins, a nutmeg, cinnamon and currants."
---American Cookery, Amelia Simmons, 2nd edition (p. 48)
[1828]
"Cup cake.
5 eggs.
Two large tea-cups full of molasses.
The same of brown sugar, rolled fine.
The same of fresh butter.
One cup of rich milk.
Five cups of flour, sifted.
Half a cup of powdered allspice and cloves.
Half a cup of ginger.

Cut up the butter in the milk, and warm them slightly. Warm also the molasses, and stir it into the milk and butter: then stir in, gradually, the sugar, and set it away to get cool. Beat the eggs very light, and stir them into the mixture alternately with the flour. Add the ginger and other spice, and stir the whole very hard. Butter small tins, nearly fill them with the mixture, and bake the cakes in a moderate oven."
---Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, By a Lady of Philadelphia [Eliza Leslie](p. 61)

[1833]
"Cup cake. Cup cake is about as good as pound cake, and is cheaper. One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs, well beat together, and baked in pans or cups. Bake twenty minutes, and no more."
---American Frugal Housewife, Mrs. Child, 1832 facsimile edition [Applewood Books:Beford MA] (p. 71)

[1847]
"Common Cup Cake. One tea cup of butter, two of sugar, four of flour, four well-beaten eggs, one cup of sour milk, one teaspoonful of saleratus, dissolved in a little water, one teaspoonful of lemon extract, or a wineglass of brandy, and half a nutmeg, grated; beat up the mixture well,butter two two-quart basins, line them with white paper, and divide the mixture between them; bake in a quick oven three quarters of an hour."
---The American System of Cookery, Mrs. T.J. Crowen [T.J. Crowen:New York] 1847 (p. 298)
[NOTE: This book also offers a recipe for Cocoanut Cup Cakes which are cut in diamonds or squares (p. 299-300).]

[1871]
"Cup cake. Half a cupful butter and four cupsful of sugar creamed together, five well-beaten eggs, one teaspoonful of [baking] soda dissolved in one cupful of cream (or milk), six cupsful of flour, nutmeg, one teaspoonful of dry cream of tartar."
---Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M.E. Porter (p. 255)

Compare with Queen Cakes:
[1798]
American Cookery, Amelia Simmons
[1803]
Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter.---click "next" for the rest of the recipe

[1845]
"Queen cakes.
To make these, proceed exactly as for the pound currant-cake of page 451, but make the mixture in small well-buttered tin pans (heart-shaped ones are usual), in a somewhat brisk oven, for about twenty minutes."
---Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton , with an introduction by Elizabeth Ray [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1993 (p. 460)

Cupcakes in a "nutshell," courtesy of Scientific American, September 2009 (p. 98):

"The yummy baked good is one of America's first and finest contributions to world cuisine Like many acts of pure genius, the invention of the cupcake is lost in the creamy fillings of history. According to food historian Andrew Smith, the first known recipe using the term "cupcake" appeared in an American cookbook in 1826. The "cup" referred not to the shape of the cake but to the quantity of ingredients; it was simply a downsized English pound cake. Lynne Olver, who maintains a Web site called the Food Timeline, has tracked down a recipe for cakes baked in cups from 1796. But we will probably never know the name of the first cook to take the innovative leap or whether it had anything to do with a six-year-old's birthday party. "Just like other popular foods--the brownie comes to mind--it's impossible to pinpoint a date of origin for the cupcake," says culinary historian Andrea Broomfield. That cook almost certainly lived on the left bank of the Atlantic. Broomfield says that the earliest known cupcake recipes in England date to the 1850s and that their popularization was slow. One writer in 1894 had evidently never heard of cupcakes: "In Miss [Mary E.] Wilkins's delightful New England Stories, and in other tales relating to this corner of the United States, I have frequently found mention of cup-cake, a dainty unknown, I think, in this country. Will some friendly reader … on the other side of the Atlantic kindly answer this query, and initiate an English lover of New England folks and ways into the mysteries of cup-cake?" Even to this day true cupcakes--as opposed to muffins or cakes cut up into cup-size portions--are sadly uncommon in Europe. In recent years the U.S. has had something of a great cupcake awakening, as blogs and bakeries have devoted themselves to its pleasures. Some attribute this renewed popularity to the cupcake-indulging characters of HBO's Sex and the City, and food historian Susan Purdy also credits dietary awareness: you can have your low-calorie cake and eat it, too. But true connoisseurs needed no moment of rediscovery. They never forgot what it was like to be six." By George Musser"

Hostess cup cakes: one of America's most popular edible icons
According to the records of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hostess brand cake products were introduced to the American Public January 3, 1919. Record here:

"Word Mark HOSTESS Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S: BREAD, BISCUITS, AND CAKES. FIRST USE: 19190103. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19190103 Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING Serial Number 71115132 Filing Date January 11, 1919 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Registration Number 0126368 Registration Date August 19, 1919 Owner (REGISTRANT) WARD, WILLIAM B. INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES BELT LINE, NEAR GENESEE STREET BUFFALO NEW YORK .(LAST LISTED OWNER) INTERSTATE BAKERIES CORPORATION CORPORATION DELAWARE 12 E. ARMOUR BLVD. KANSAS CITY MISSOURI" 64111

"In 1919, World War I ended, prohibition was about to begin and women were ready to vote. It was also the year that Hostess introduced its first snack cake -- the cupcake. The Hostess Cupcake, which celebrates it 70th birthday Wednesday, has come a long way since its inception. It always has been made of devil's food cake, but the first cupcake lacked the creme filling and the white loop-de-loop icing on top. During the 1920s, cupcakes were hand-iced in either chocolate or vanilla. For a while in the 1940s, they were available with malted milk icing. Orange cupcakes with orange icing, which are still available, also were introduced in the 1940s. But it wasn't until 1947 that the cupcakes began to develop into the cupcake of today after D.R. ''Doc'' Rice was given the task of redesigning it. Rice was hired by the company in September 1923 at the age of 17 as a cake dumper. A cake dumper did just that -- dumped baked cakes onto a table, he said. ''I wanted to go to business college,'' Rice said Tuesday. ''The hours at the bakery worked with my schedule. I usually started around midnight and worked for nine hours, six days a week.'' By the time he enlisted in the Army, Rice had been regional supervisor of five bakeries. When he returned after the war, he went to work in the production department of Continental Baking Co. at its headquarters in New York. ''I began working in the experimental bakery,'' Rice said. ''More ingredients were available, and the dough was improved. The icing was also improved by using pure chocolate to make it. ''Just when we were ready to go to the plants with the cupcake, a machine which would automatically put the creme filling into Twinkies, which had been introduced in 1930, was perfected,'' he said. Before a machine was designed, the filling was pumped into the Twinkies by hand. ''We weren't sure we were going to fill cupcakes. But since the machine was ready, the cupcakes were also filled,'' he said. The new cupcakes had an improved cake mix, purer chocolate icing, creme filling and a straight white line of icing. They were introduced in Detroit, the home of the creme-filled cupcake. ''The white line was received well, but didn't do the new cupcakes justice,'' he said. ''It needed something that would catch the eye and let the buyer know it was quality.'' After a couple of weeks, the white loop-de-loop icing began appearing on the cupcakes. Rice noted that the perfect cupcake should have exactly seven loops.''We began selling 25 percent more new cupcakes than the regular ones,'' he said. ''Eventually the regular cupcakes were discontinued.'' Since the cupcakes were going to have creme filling, the prices had to be increased, Rice said. ''The wholesale price jumped from 8 cents to 10 cents and the retail prices went from 10 cents to 12 cents.'' Although he retired in 1972, Rice continues to work as a consultant for many companies, even outside the country."
---"And By The Way ...Hostess Cupcake celebrates 70th birthday," C.E. EVANS,United Press International, May 10, 1989,

"The man responsible for the curlycue in Hostess cupcakes tells of a brand turnaround. Doc Rice didn't get his nickname because he had a Ph.D. On the contrary, he never graduated from college. His initials, D.R., legally make up his first name, and co-workers at the Continental Baking Companies nicknamed him Doc long before any of them realized Rice would become the "Doctor of Dessert." Rice is considered the father of modern Hostess Cupcakes and has been getting a lot of publicity since the popular mouthful turned 70 this year. At 83, Rice seems a throwback to simpler days in corporate America--days when companies weren't strangled by their own management layers, and when R&D was the function of any employee with good hunches and the necessary amount of luck. He also symbolizes another almost antiquated figure in this era of merger and acquisition-induced redundancies and cutbacks: the career employee. "Today people change jobs a lot," he says. "Back in my days, if you came to me looking for work and had had more than two jobs, I wouldn't hire you because I figured you wouldn't stay with me either. Today it's different." Rice's road to baking's hall of fame started in his native Texas in 1923 when, at 17, he got a job in CBC's Dallas bakery as a "cake dumper" putting baked cakes out on racks to cool. The pay was $ 15 a week. The hours were midnight to 8 or 9 a.m. "I had just gotten out of high school and was married. And I wanted to keep going to school," he said. However, he admits another reason he didn't mind the night shift was it left him time to pursue his passion: baseball. "I was half made up in my mind whether I should play baseball, or do something else," he said. Rice opted for the "something else" of CBC. He relished in a relief shift that opened all facets of bakery production up to him. "At midnight I relieved the mixer, then the oven man, then the icing maker. I learned to do all of those key jobs," he said. This experience soon showed dividends. In 1928 he became the youngest bakery superintendant ever at CBC, taking that post in Cincinnati at the age of 22. By the time he was 29, five plants were under his supervision. In 1939 he got a job as general manager in charge of the CBC's Buffalo bakery. "When I got there it was a depressed town. Our business was based on the steel mills and they were closed. Our one competitor left town. Then, with the war, the work came and Buffalo became a boomtown," Rice says. The cake route averages in Buffalo went from the bottom of the baking tin at CBC to the very top. In 1942, Rice took a hiatus from CBC by enlisting in the Army as a second lieutenant. He remained Stateside, appropriately enough in charge of baking at a training camp. He left the service as a captain and returned to CBC in 1948 as director of production for the cake division. Soon he was to make the major product innovation for which he is remembered. Though Hostess Cupcakes were on the market since 1919, they lacked their characteristic icing and filling. Rice said he was presented with the problem of improving the quality of Hostess Cupcakes, which because of World War Two-induced shortages had suffered. The company was also looking for a way to add value to the cakes so it could sell them at a higher price. Rice decided to put a modified version of the Hostess Twinkies filling into Hostess Cupcakes. Next came a white stripe across the top of the cupcake. "After two weeks we said, Hell, that stripe doesn't look good.' So we decided to do the curlycue thing," he said. The result was the signature seven loops that adorn every Hostess cupcake. Was seven some sort of lucky number? "I wasn't aware of it at the time. That's the number that fit and looked right," says Rice. The price of the cupcakes increased from 8 cents to 10 cents . Product flew off the shelves. Eventually the striped cupcakes were phased out. Rice's looped cupcakes continue to sell today. In 1988 over 400 million Hostess Cupcakes were sold domestically. How much market research and consumer testing was done before the new format was approved? "We didn't go through all of these consumer surveys. We were just lucky. Me and my boss made up our minds on something and we did it," says Rice. The cupcake isn't the only CBC brand Rice had a hand in. In attempting to find uses for equipment that the bakeries had sitting idle, Rice and his cohorts developed both Twinkies and Suzy Qs.... Rice says Suzy Q was named after the daughter of one of his bosses. A Different World Although he was eventually named vice president and made head of new product development, Rice feels his best work was done on the line. "I had done most of the good things before I got the title, when I was head of production. I always thought it was our job to develop new products," he said. After retiring in 1972, Rice acted as a bakery consultant, so he is aware of how things have changed since his days at CBC. Even CBC itself has changed. In 1968 it was acquired by International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. and subsequently bought by Ralston Purina in 1984. "It's a different world," says Rice. "I'm glad I'm sitting where I am. Today, you don't have two people running a company, you have committees." As with many involved in packaged goods, Rice feels that costs of bringing a brand to market have strangled new-product development and paralyzed many people charged with coming up with ideas. "We wasted good ability because people are afraid to do things because they fear getting into job trouble," he says. As he approaches 84, Rice still plays golf and consults. Last March he made his 43rd trip to the Society of Baking Engineers convention so he can "keep up." He keeps busy partly on the advice of a friend. "He said, When you retire, don't ever wake up in the morning unless you have something to do.' Now that's good advice."
---"Doctor dessert; D.R. Rice of Continental Baking Co.," Kevin McCormack, Food & Beverage Marketing, March 1990 (p. 16)

Hostess ad circa 1928:
"Greetings to the People of Ogden From the New Hostess Cake Kitchen. We are proud to announce to the people of Ogden that the first supply of Hostess Cup Cakes will be baked tomorrow morning. Ever since we stgarted to plan our new bakery we have worked to make it a real factor in the life of our city. We have looked forward to this day for months. And now Hostess Cakes are here-- here to stay. Now baking cake at home is needless. As in all other cities all over the country, these famous cakes will eliminate all that drudgery. The ultr-modern equipment we have gathered so carefuly insures consistent quality. Our ingredients are the best money can buy. Carefully selected eggs. Fresh, sweet shortening. Soft winter wheat flour. Pure refined sugar. And before being used, all of these materials are carefully tested, right in our own Hostess kitchen. Our ovens are modern in every detail. Every corner of our bakery is as immacualte as any kitchen. Our pastry cooks are masters of their profession. Se owe belive this day has more than ordinary importance to Ogden women. Therefore we urge you to try these new cup cakes at once. Serve them to your famly. Compare them with the finest you can bake yourself. Then, make your own fair and square decision. Your grocer will have them, starting tomorrow morning. Ask him for these Hostess Cup Cakes in their attractive, airtight package. They are five cents for two, thirty cents a package of twelve...Hostess Cakes, A Continental Product."
---Display ad, Ogden Standard-Examiner [UT], September 3, 1928 (p. 3)

Hostess ad circa 1949:
"Have you tried Les Petits Gateuax Hostess Hostess French Pastry cream-filled Cup Cakes. New! Super Rich! Super Delicious! You Cannot Beat This Cup Cake Treat! Because you cannot buy the secret blend of chocolate from the African Gold Coast and Brazil. And because you cannot imitate this whipped richness of this super smooth creamed-filling. You never go wrong serving the best money can buy. We believe you will agree Hostess French Pastry Cup Cakes are the best you can buy. In fact, we believe, you will agree that Hostess French Pastry Cup Cakes taste better than what you can make at home--even though you may pay up to twice as much for ingredients. Or--you get double your money back from your grocer! Super Rich. Hostess French Pastry Cup Cakes are super rich! More shortening; more milk flavor than ever before. Plus a rich creamed-filling that's whipped lighter than a cloud and smoother than ice cream. You cannot imitate this filling because you cannot make it at home. And you cannot possibly duplicate the famous chocolate flavor of the devil's food or icing of thrilling new Hostess French Pastry Cup Cakes. Because you cannot buy the secret blend of chocolate we use. Exclusive Chocolate Flavor. Here is the palm-shaded treasure of the Gold Coast--the luscious Almonado with the flavor that is as rich as old wine. Here is the prize of Brazil's blue-green jungles--and smooth Forestero with the colors so vivid red-brown. Both combined by hands long skilled in the art of the chocolate trade, into a secret blend with a flavor both grownups and children adore. Save Time, Money. Making cup cakes at home takes about 81 minutes of kitchen mess and bother. And you know what cup cakes cost to make--with prices what they are. Yet Hostess French Pastry Cup Cakes cost only 10 cents for 2. You'll rave about them. Your guests will rave about them. Get new Hostess French Pastry Cup Cakes in cellophane at your grocer now. Baked fresh! Sold Fresh! Just 10 cents for this dessert for two."
---Display ad, Waterloo Daily Courier [IA], February 21, 1949 (p. 7)

If you need more details ask your librarian how to access magazine and newspaper databases. These will help you identify key events in Hostess Cupcake history (plant strikes, product modifications, pricing and market strategy). You will also find some "human interest" stories, such as specially wrapped Hostess cupcakes used to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Yankee Stadium ("Yanks' First 50 Years Really a 'Piece of Cake', New York Times, April 14, 1973, p. 26) and Hostess cupcakes as pop art ("Pop-Art Food: Taste is No Object," Mimi Sheraton, New York Times, September 29, 1977, p. 70), and a giant replica of an Egyptian step pyramid composed from 45,000 Hostess Cupcakes ("Edible Art," Jim Buck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 29, 1997, p. D10)

Related snack cake? Twinkies.

Mini cupcakes
Are mini-cupcakes are recent invention? Apparently not:

"Assorted Baby-Size Cup Cakes. Desposit the desired quantity of batter in small-size cup cake pans, using the White, Yellow, Fudge and Devil's Food Batters. Approximately 12 oz. of batter is required for each dozen. If fruit batters are employed, a greater amount is necessary. Ice with assorted icings. The Fluffy Icing and Fudge Icing are particularly well-suited for this type of product. The photo shows box and method for getting delicate cup cakes into the hands of the consumer without crushing. Thsi is a specially constructied box with two bottoms with oepnings in th second bottom for the cakes to set in so as to keep them from tipping over. This is essential when soft, fluffy, delicate icings are used, particularly as these icings remain sticky. The softness of the icing makes these baby-size cup cakes very attractive."
---A Treatise on Caked Making, The Fleischmann Division, Standard Brands Incorporated [Standard Brands:New York] 1935 (p. 280)

Baking cakes with paper liners and cups
The modern practice of lining baking molds with paper first surfaces in mid-19th century cookbooks. They confirm paper (parchment, buttered, writing) used as liners in molded metal baking pans. Recipes for cakes, small cakes (cupcakes) and souffles are msot likely to recommend paper liners. Fluted paper cups were used to to serve candy and nuts. The term "paper cases" means different things in different times and places. A careful examination of the description and purpose reveals whether the item is a paper box meant to hold a cake or candy, a fancy party favor, or to be used in baking. Some cookbooks also suggest placing a piece of paper on top of the cake to prevent a hard crust.

Modern decorative paper baking cups (cup cake papers) surface after WWI. These were suggested for serving, not baking. In the 1930s instructions for baking cup cakes baked in paper cases were promoted by popular home economists. Several US patents for paper baking cases of various sizes and designs were issued in this decade. We have not researched patents issued by other countries. Paper drinking cups were patented in they USA in the 1880s.

[1875]
"Vienna Cake (a german recipe):
"Make four or five white paper plates by stretching the paper over any round utensil - a large dinner plate or soup plate will do - plait up an edge an inch deep, and tack it round with needle and thread to keep it upright. Butter these papers and lay them on baking tins. Spread over each a layer of 'sand tourte' mixture not thicker than a thin pancake. The 'sand tourte' mixture is made thus:- stir half pound of butter tto a cream, then add the yolks of 12 eggs and half a lemon peel grated. Add by degrees half a pound of sifted sugar, quarter of a pound of fine flour, and the same of potato flour. When these ingredients are well mixed, add the egg whites whipped to a snow. Bake the cakes in a moderate oven to a nice yellow; do not let them tinge brown. When cold cut away the paper round, turn the cakes over, and peel off the bottom paper without breaking them. Lay one cake over the other, with different coloured preserves and marmalades between till all are piled up. Dissolve powdered sugar with a little lemon juice, spread it thickly over the top and sides to make a glazing. Put into a cool oven to dry and when cold ornament the top with preserved fruit or marmalade."
---Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery With Numerous Illustgrations containing about Nine Thousand Recipes [Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.: London] 1875 (p. 1091)

"Souffles...A souffle can be cooked in a souffle-tin, which fits into a silver-plated ornamental dish, in which it can be sent to table. When this is not at hand, a plain round or oval cake-tin, or thin basin, or a deep pie-dish may be used, with a high band of buttered writing paper fastened inside the rim, to prevent the batter falling over the sides of the dish. A properly-filding case of frilled writing paper should be prepared, into which it may be quickly dropped when taken from the oven...Butter the tin, already lined with oiled writing-paper, and put it in the oven till very hot."
---ibid (p. 901)

"Trifles, Savory...Make some paper cases by pressing a round of thick writing paper into a circular wooden box to take the shape. Lightly oil these cases inside and out, fill them with the savoury mince, and put them into a brick oven for a minute or two to make them hot."
---ibid (p. 991)

[1877]
"In making very large cakes that require three or four hours to bake, an eccellent way for lining the pan is the following: Fit three papers carefully, grease thoroughly, make a paste of equal parts of Graham and fine flour, wet with water just stiff enough to spread easily with a spoon, place the first paper int eh pan with the greased side down,and spread the paste evenly over the paper about as thick as pie-crust. In covering the sides of the pan, use a little paste to stick a portion of the paper to the top of the pan to keep it from slipping out of place, press the second paper carefully into its place, with the greased side up, and next put in the third paper as you would into any baking-pan, and pour in the cake...All except payer cakes should be covered with a paper cap, (or a sheet of brown paper, which the careful housewife will save form her grocers' packages), when first put into the oven. Take a square of brown paper large enough to cover well the cake pan, cut off the corners, and lay a plate on four sides, fastening each with a pin so as to fit nicely over the pan...Save the cap, as it can be used serveral times."
---Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Woods Wilcox, revised and enlarged edition [Buckeye Publishing:Minneapolis MN] 1877 (p. 62-63)

[1884: lining cake pans with paper to prevent scorching]
Boston Cooking School Cook Book/Mary Lincoln

[1890: making paper forms for Charlotte Russe]
"Whill you kindly tell me how the paper forms are made for Charlotte russe, such as you see in restaurants, and what kind of paper is used?...The paper forms used at restaurant can be purcahsed at any paper-box factory, very much chaper than they can be made at home. Of course, if you wish to try, purchase a soft card, cut out a circle the desired size for the bottom,w rap the standing part to fit, and glue. While these may be serviceable and convenient for hotel and restaurant use, I think they are exceedingly homely for a family table."
---Table Talk Volumbe 7, January-December 1890 [Table Talk Publishing:Philadelphia PA] 1890 (p. 303)

"Please send price of paper cases for serving sweetbreads, lobster, ect....Paper cases are form fifty sencts per dozen to two dollars and a half."
---ibid (p. 468)

[1920: serving cake in paper cups, not baking]
"The little paper cups, the size of candy puddings, which come in different colors, may be used for salted almonds, a nice large candied prune, a handsome bonbon, or what you choose in the ways of comfits. A collection or variety may be served on a small plate. In the larger size, intermediate between the candy pudding and the ramekin size, may be served little cup cakes for the ice cream course, each one differently iced and perhaps initialed to arouse interest and pleasure, and so to save food for this or other reasons. One reason why this is economical is that the cake supply for a meal can be most precisely planned. If any guest chooses to leave his portion there it is in better condition far, for keeping, than a slice of cake. You do not need to urge him to eat more than he needs, as you might with a big cake before you from which you delighted to cut slices. Not a crumb is lost in the cutting and considerable is gained in flavor and digestibility."
---"Tribune Cook Book: Economical Small Portions," Jane Eddington, Chicago Daily Tribune, November 22, 1920 (p. 20)

[1925: commercial baking cups promoted to Americans housewives] Liberty Baking Cups, advertised in American Cookery, October 1925. Other papers in this ad are pie collars, chop frills and skewers. 225 baking cups sold for one dollar (prepaid) by William W. Bevan Company, Everett MA.

[1928: economical & efficient kitchen supplies]
"Don't buy muffin pans. They are attractive, but the thing for the Kitchenette Cook is paper baking cups. There are enough for several months in one small container. They can be set, if necessary, on the oven grill." (p. 14)

"Spice Cakes
1 egg beaten, 2/3 c. molasses, 2/3 c. sugar, 2/3 c. melted shortening, 1 c. milk, 2 1/2 cs. flour, 3 tsps. baking-powder, 1 tbsp. mixed cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger,1 tbsp. vinegar. Mix in the order given and bake in paper cups." (p. 113-114)
---Man-Sized Meals from the Kitchenette, Margaret Pratt Allen & Ida Oram Hutton [Macy-Masius Vanguard Press:New York] 1928

[1929: popular paper products for home use]
"Paper napkins and tablecloths (plain and decorated), paper cups for hot and cold drinks, papers spoons and forks, paper plates, paper baking cups, paper towels, wax paper for sandwiches, toilet paper (white and tint)."
---display ad, Andrews Paper Company [Washington DC], Washington Post, February 28, 1929 (p. 10)

[1931: baking cup cakes in fluted paper cups on flat cookie sheet or muffin tins]
"Mrs. M. B. wants us to give some advice on the baking of cake in paper cups--the fluted kind that are especially designed and prepared for baking cup cakes. She is unable to get the cakes out of the cups when they are baked and she wants to know if they should be removed from the cups while warm or after they have cooled. I've never had any difficulty with paper cups except one time when I was trying a new recipe which proved a failure. There was too much sugar in proportion to the other ingredients. The cakes fell during the baking, the texture was poor, and the crust was sugary. It was impossible to remove these cups unless the paper was picked off in tiny bits. I have baked all kinds of cakes, using, of course, the recipes with which I was familiar, and in each instance the cake baked in the cups perfectly and the cups always came out nicely from either hot or cold cakes. I prefer, however, to wait until cakes are cold. The shape is much better. Some precautions should be taken when baking in paper cups. Do not fill the cups more than 2/3 full of better. In fuller cups the cake is liable to rise enough to spill over the sides. It is also important that the cups be placed at least two inches apart on a baking tin. Use a baking sheet that is used for cookies or biscuit to set cups on. This much space around each cup allows the heat to circulate freely and brown the sides. If the cups are placed on the sheets touching each other the cakes are sure to be out of shape. The cups may also be dropped into muffin tins, which keep the shape and brown the sides and bottom of the cake equally well."
---"Three Meals a Day," Meta Given, Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1931 (p. 25)

[1935: accessorizing the table]
"One of the simplest methods of carrying out a color scheme is to use colored dishes and containers for the food. But this practice doesn't necessarily mean a great outlay for different sets of china. Paper baking cups are being made in almost every color. Several harmonizing colors are packed together in rainbow packages."
---"Paper Baking Cups May Be Effectively Used on the Table," Chicago Daily Tribune, August 18, 1935 (p. C6)

[1941: paper baking cups are easy]
"Cupcakes are more simple to make than any other type of cake. They are as versatile in their service as they are simple to make, When you use paper baking cups a cookie sheet is a convenience in handling in and out of the oven and when frosting."
---"Marian Manners' Recipes," Los Angeles Times, January 26, 1941 (p. E13)

1234 Cake
Culinary evidence confirms the practice of naming cakes for their measurements dates (at least) to the 18th century. In the days when many people couldn't read, this simple convention made it simple to remember recipes. Pound cake and cupcakes are foods of this genre. In fact? They were composed of the same basic ingredients of your 1234 cake.

There are several variations on the recipe for 1234 cake but "yr basic list" goes like this:

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 cups flour
4 eggs
This combination, it its purest form, produces a chewey dense cookie-type treat reminiscent of medieval jumbals, or sugar cookies. The Internet confirms many cooks "fudge" (pardon the pun) this classic 1234 recipe by adding other ingredients in various proportions. Most common? Baking powder, milk, fruit juice, spices and nuts. These additions affect the taste and texture of the finished product.

Canadian recipe, circa 1877

1,2,3,4,CAKE.
Augusta Simmers.
One cup of butter, two of sugar, three cups of flour, four eggs; add a little more flour, roll out very thin on sugar, cut any shape, and bake quickly."
---The Canadian Home Cook Book, Compiled by the Ladies of Toronto and Chief Cities and Towns in Canada [Hunter, Rose and Company:Toronto] 1877 (p. 307)
American recipe, circa 1955

1-2-3-4-Cake
Ingredients:
3 cups sifted flour 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 egg yolks
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 egg whites
Directions: (Makes two 9-inch layers)
Sift together opposite ingredients three times. Set aside. Cream butter; add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour, alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Fold in vanilla. Beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold in carefully. Pour batter into two round 9-inch layer pans which have been lined on bottoms with paper. Bake in moderate oven 375 degrees F. About 25 minutes. This cake may also be baked in three 8-inch layer pans. Cool and frost with Orange Butter Cream Frosting and sprinkle with coconut."
---Duncan Hines Dessert Book, Duncan Hines Institute [Pocket Books:New York] 1955 (p. 23)
We do not find any one person/place/company/cookbook claiming to have "invented" 1234 cake. There is no trademark on the name. In the world of food? This is pretty common.

Black Forest Cake
Black Forest Cake (gateau) descends from fancy Renaissance-era confections combining sponge cake and cream. Think: English Trifle. Recipes evolve according to local ingredients and taste. Rich cake-like confections featuring sour fruit, including cherries, and chocolate are traditionally associated with Germany, Austria and surrounding regions. About Black Forest cuisine.

German national Karl Fredrich Von Rumohr mentioned combinations of chocolate cake and sour fruit in his Essence of Cookery [1822]: "In many German towns, pastry and cake 'factories' have risen from the ruins of the art of true housekeeping. I have seen cakes emerging from these places with layers of tart fruit, chocolate, vanilla, almond paste, sour preserves and insipid sweetness." (Barbara Yeomans translation [Prospect Books:London] 1993 (p. 131). He does not provide a recipe for these items.

While the ingredients and general method of Black Forest Cake can be traced through hundreds of years, food historians generally agree this recipe belongs to the 20th century. We find no evidence of anything close to Black Forest Cake, as we know it today, in our small collection of 19th-20th century German-American cooking texts. The earliest recipes we find are dated 1960s.

"Black Forest Gateau. Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte in German, a baroque confection of layers of chocolate cake, interspersed with whipped cream and stoned, cooked, sweetened sour cherries. The cake layers are often sprinkled with kirsch, and the whole is covered with whipped cream and decorated with chocolate curls. This confection is not one which has a long history. It has been suggested that is was created in the 1930s in Berlin, but firm evidence is elusive. What is certain is that in the last decade of the 20th century it made a triumphant entry into the dessert course of restaurants in Britain (and no doubt elsewhere) and reigned for a time as top favourite'."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 80)

"Black Forest gateau. A chocolate cake Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, made in Bavaria during the summer. The fame of this rich gateau has risen since the early years' of the 20th century."
---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely Revised and Updated, [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 120)
[NOTE: there is no entry for this item in the 1961 edition of LG]

USA introduction
Our survey of historic American newspapers reveals references to Black Forest Cake (gateau, torte) first surfaced in the mid-1960s. This popular upscale confection was served in trendy urban restaurants. A Stern's department store announcement published in the New York Times (May 2, 1964 p. 7) advertised Klaus Limberg, pastry chef of Tavern on the Green, preparing 'Black Forest Cake' in the gourmet aisle, 5th floor.

Selected recipes

[1963]
"Black Forest Cherry Cake (Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte)
This unusual blend of chocolate, cherries, kirsch-flavored whipped cream and shaved chocolate is a specialty throughout Swabia. There are almost endless variations on the theme and this version is one of the best. It comes from the Cafe Harzer in Herrenalb, where it is served with a small glass of iced kirsch.
2 chocolate layers, as on pages 421-422
kirsch
1 recipe Butter Cream Filling, using chocolate, page 480
2 cups stoned and halved black bing cherries, stewed or canned
1 recipe gelatin-thickened whipped cream, flavored with kirsch, page 476
Chocolate curls, page 476
Bake two round layer cakes--from the above recipes or one of your own favorites. Or buy two unfrosted layers in a bakery. Moisten both layers liberally with kirsch. Prepare cream filling and spread all of it on top of one layer. Drain cherries well and place half of them on top of butter cream, gently pressing into it. Top with second layer. Prepare whipped cream and flavor well with kirsch. Arrange on top of top layer, heaping cream in swirls and mounds as you spread it on. Garnish with remaining cherries and shaved chocolate. This can be served a once or it can be chilled for an hour or so in refrigerator."
---The German Cookbook, Mimi Sheraton [Random House:New York] 1963 (p. 424-425)
[1975]
"The traditional Black Forest cake, with its kirsch-scented chocolate layers and its tantalizing blend of our and sweet cherries, is one of Germany's proudest contributions to the world cookery. The version here is that of Albert Kumin, a leading pastry chef at the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, N.Y.

Black Forest cake
1 10-inch chocolate spongecake
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup water
2 thick orange or lemon wedges
1 small can dark sweet pitted cherries
1 one-pound can sour cherries
1/2 cup kirschwasser
1 three-ounce (85-gram) bar of imported bittersweet chocolate
3 cups heavy cream
3 drops pure vanilla extract
Scraped and/or grated chocolate for garnish.
1. Prepare the spongecake and set aside.
2. Combine half a cup of sugar and the water in a saucepan. Add the orange or lemon wedges and bring to the boil. Simmer about three minutes and let the syrup cool. Discard wedges.
3. Drain both cans of cherries separately and set cherries aside.
4. Combine the kirschwasser with two-thirds cup of the syrup. Set aside.
5. Place the chocolate in a saucepan and let it melt gradually in a warm place. When it is melted, gradually add three tablespoons of the remaining syrup, stirring.
6. Whip the cream and beat in the remaining tablespoon of sugar and the vanilla.
7. Fold one and one-half cups of the whipped creaminto the choclate mixture. Set the remaining whipped cream aside.
8. Place the cake on a flat surface and, holding a knife parallel to the bottom of the cake, slice the cake into thirds.
9. Place the bottom slice on a serving plate and brush with sonmeof the syrup mixture. Add about half the chocolate mixture to the slice and smooth it over.
10. Cover with the top slice but place it bottom side up. Brush the slice with syrup and add the remaining chocolate mixture, smoothing it over. Using a pastry tube, pipe three rings of whipped cream around the cake. Pile one ring in the center, another in the middle andthe other around the rim. Arrange sour cherries in the center and between the middle and outer rings.
11. Top with the final slice of cake. Brush it with the remaining syrup. Add whipped cream to the top, but save enough cream to make 13 rosettes on top of the cake. Smooth the whipped cream around the top and sides of the cake. Use a No. 4 star pastry tube and pipe 12 rosettes, equally spaced, around the upper rim of the cake. Make one rosette in dead center. Garnish each rosette with one dark sweet pitted cherry. Garnish the top with scraped or grated chocolate. Hold in the referigerator. Yield: Twelve servings. Note: Fresh black bing cherries may be poached in syrup, pitted and used in this recipe."
---"Pride of the Forest," Craig Claibore with Pierre Franey, New York Times, February 9, 1975 (p. 228)
[NOTE: Recipe for Chocolate spongecake included.]

Black Forest culinary traditions
Where is the Black Forest? Along the Danube River, in what is now known as Germany. Think: Hansel & Gretel.

"The Black Forest region of Germany is a cradle of fairy tales and legends. The magnificent forests hide many mysteries and have been irresistible to poets, storytellers, and raconteurs since time immemorial...Small inns and hotels dot the countryside; enchanted moss-covered trails lead into the forests of dark-trunked and heavily limbed fir trees--from which the Black Forest gets its name...Out of the kitchens come veal, venison, wild boar, and green salads, along with other delicacies...The cooking of the Black Forest is substantial and plentiful. The Black Forest is also a haven for mushroom gatherers...The most prized are the 'Steinpiolz', or yellow buletus, which are eaten sauteed in butter, used as a flavoring for sauces, or dried on long strings for the winter months. The delicate 'Pfefferling', or chanterelles, add incomparable flavor to veal and fowl dishes and to sourcream sauces. Morels, or 'Speisemorchel', are marvelous sauteed in butter and added to omelettes and other egg dishes or to delicate veal and chicken creations. Some of these dishes can be traced to the times of the Nibelungen and the German knights. Pork is prepared with apples, cherries, plums, and a magnificent milk gravy. Sauerbraten is made with gingerbread snaps, and there are as many venison recipes as there are innkeepers and hausfraus...The Black Forest is famed for its smoked hams, for bacon, and for partridges cooked in white wine, served with wine-steeped sauerkraut. A wild boar pie is also one of the local delicacies. The succulent plums that ripen in orderly orchards are made into a smooth brandy and into compotes simmered in their own juices. But the crowning culinary achievement of the region is the Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte--the famed Black Forest cake made, in many villages, with pumpernickel crumbs and fresh sour cherries."
---All Along the Danube, Marina Polvay, expanded edition [Hippocrene Books:New York] 2002 (p. 6-7)
[NOTE: This book offers a recipe for Black Forest Cake, Country Style (with pumpernickel crumbs) p. 46-47.]

History notes on primary ingredients: gateau, sponge cake, chocolate cake & cherries.

Blackout cake
Blackout Cake, a 3-4 layer butter cake frosted with chocolate icing, is fondly recalled by Brooklynites devoted to Ebinger's. Did this cake originate there & why the name? Excellent questions. Our survey of historic USA newspapers confirms the term "Black-Out Cake" dates to WWII. The place? Midwest USA. The cake? Yellow with chocolate icing. The chocolate-on-chocolate layer cake version iced with chocolate surfaces in Texas about the same time as German's Chocolate Cake. Newspaper ads confirm Blackout Cake was a popular bakery good in the 1960s. We can't confirm Ebingers invented this cake. No doubt about it: Ebinger's made it famous.

Why the name?
Popular theory cites government-imposed WWII-era blackouts, when citizens offed lights and shuttered inside for safety. We find no print evidence confirming this connection. Ebingerists attribute the cake's name to famous NYC blackouts: 1965, 1977, (& sometimes?) 2004. Chocolate on chocolate (black on black) lends well to this appelation.

[1942]
“Black-Out Cake, two delicious layers of yellow cake covered with dark chocolate icing!”
---display ad, M. Kautz Baking Co., Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune [IA], November 13, 1942 (p. 10)

[1958]
“All Butter Blackout Cake, Devil’s Food, 59 cents.”
---display ad, Henke and Pillot (division of Kroger’s supermarket), Galveston Daily News [TX}, September 11, 1958 (p. 17)

[1963]
“Blackout Cake, 6” size, 69 cents; 7” size, 79 cents. 4 layer chocolate cake, chocolate pudding, cream filling & frosting.”
---display ad, La Patisserie, Dunkirk Evening Observer[Dunkirk-Fredonia NY], May 9, 1963 (p. 12)

[1964]
“Blackout Cake, regularly $2.50, $2.19 “We use fresh, sweet butter exclusively.”---display ad, Pupi’s Pastries, Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1964 (p. WS-A15)

“Blackout Cake, deep dark texture and color. A new king of chocolate cakes. Something different, $1.49.”
---display ad, Sweet Adeline Bake Shop, San Mateo Times [CA] , August 5, 1964 (p. 48)

[1968]
“Waldbaum’s Blackout Cake, 1 lb 2 oz pkg, 59 cents.”---display ad, Waldbaum’s supermarket, New York Times, December 4, 1968 (p. 43)

Ebinger's Chocolate Blackout Cake [Brooklyn NY]
Our survey of historic newspapers confirms Ebinger's was established in 1898. This greater New York City food establishment was legendary. Baking was done inhouse & in factories. The original establishment went bankrupt in 1972. The "new" Ebinger's reopened a decade later. We can confirm chocolate cakes were an Ebinger's specialty. The earliest print evidence we find for Chocolate Blackout Cake is from 1969.

[1961]
“Chocolate cakes…are one of Ebinger’s best sellers in stores patronized largely by Jewish people.”
---“Ebinger’s bakery Started in 1898, With German Pastry as a Specialty,” New York Times, November 10, 1961 (p. 30)

[1969]
"More than 200 varieties of baked goods are made in the course of a week, and a number of them are distinctively Ebinger's, such as the Othellos (no one can recall the origin of the name), egg-shaped sponge cakes filled with chocolate butter cream and enrobed in a special chocolate coating; the seven layer that many Brooklynites swear cannot be equaled and the famous dark chocolate black-out cake, which got its name during World War II."
---"Ebinger's: An Institution to Cake-Eating Families of Brooklyn," Jean Hewitt, New York Times, January 11, 1969 (p. 36)

[1991]
“…scores of Ebingerists undertook personal projects to resurrect their favorite cakes. Like scholars dissecting ancient holy texts, they scraped the minutiae of their taste memories and tried to render scriptures—recipes—true to the Ebinger’s spirit. Blackout cake—three layers of devil’s-food sandwiching a dark chocolate pudding, with chocolate frosting and sprinkled with chocolate cake crumbs—was the holiest quest. ‘Catholics have a pope…Ebingerists, it seems, had blackout cake and they wanted it back.’ Mr. Forman compiled what he knew to be true fo the cake and bedeviled food magazines and baking experts for advise. ‘No one xould help. They said it was a commercial recipe. ...’ The closest he came to an authentic Ebinger’s blackout cake…was by using ‘Betty Crocker’s brownie mix, the one with the little can of Hershey’s chocolate.’ ‘You replace the Hershey’s with Fox’s U-Bet Chocolate Syrup and decrease the eggs from two to one and you hit that point between brownie and blackout…’”
---“The Cake Box From Heaven (Brooklyn, of Course) I Back,” Molly O’Neill, New York Times, June 5, 1991 (p. C1)

[1994]
"Ebinger's large bakery did not, of course, make Blackout Cakes one at a time. At Ebinger's plant the bakers could concoct vats of batter, pudding filling, and frosting, and no doubt those thrifty Germans noticed that crumbs were going to waste when the layers of chocolate cake were sliced. It must have been a pleasing solution to use them up by sprinkling them over the cakes."
---The Brooklyn Cookbook, Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy, Jr., [Alfred A Knopf:New York] 1994 (p. 383)
[NOTE: This book contains a recipe for Blackout Cake]

Bundt cake
Most foods are not invented. They evolve. The same holds true for bakeware. Food historians generally credit H. David Dalquist of Nordic Ware (Minneapolis MN) for creating the first aluminum pan called "bundt" in 1950. It was not a new invention. It was, rather, an economically produced aluminum version of a traditional European kugelhopf mold. Bundt cakes gained national attention in 1966 when the Tunnel of Fudge took first prize at the Pillsbury Bake Off.

The popular story of the American bundt pan
"In 1950, a group of Minneapolis women, members of Hadassah, approached Nordic Products owner H. David Dalquist and asked him to make an aluminum version of the cast-iron kugelhupf pan common in Euorpe. Obligingly, he made a few for the members and a few extra for the public. Not many of these fluted tube pans sold until ten years later when the new Good Housekeeping Cookbook showed a pound cake that had been baked in one of them. Suddenly every woman wanted a pan just like it. What really put the Bundt pan on the culinary map of America, however, was the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, which made the finals of the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. Bundt, by the way, is now a registered trademark...By 1972 the grand prize winner in the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest was a Bundt Streusel Spice Cake and eleven top winners also called for a Bundt pan; that same year Pillsbury sold $25 million worth of its new Bundt cake mixes. It's strange to think that fifty years ago there were no Bundt cakes because there were no Bundt cake pans. Today, more than forty million pans exist in America..."
---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 458)

"Bundt historic? You betcha: The Smithsonian says the icon cake of '60s comfort food, its creator and the company he co-founded all deserve a place beside our greatest treasures," Tom Webb. Feb. 23--Ruby slippers, space capsules and dinosaur bones -- make some room. The Bundt pan, that made-in-Minnesota creation that became an American icon, is on its way to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Museum curators are in the Twin Cities this week, where they're gathering up one of the original aluminum Bundt cake pans, invented in 1950 by H. David Dalquist, co-founder of the cookware company Nordic Ware. Some 60 million Bundt pans later, all of America is familiar with O-shaped cakes, drizzled icings and gooey centers. "It's shaped, in some small way, American culture and how we entertain," said David Dalquist, son of the Bundt cake inventor and the current president and CEO of Nordic Ware. While the Smithsonian curators are big on the Bundt, what has really wowed them is the almost perfectly preserved record of an American business that made such an impact on consumer tastes, popular culture and everyday life. The Dalquist family has owned the St. Louis Park-based business for six decades. "At the (Smithsonian's) American History Museum, we collect objects and documents that represent a wide range of important themes in American history and American life," said Paula Johnson, a Smithsonian curator. "The Nordic Ware story really relates to so many of these themes: entrepreneurship, innovation and the changes in American foodways in the 20th century. "It's the whole story, it's the depth and breadth that we're after," Johnson added. "But the Bundt pan was the way in." This week, Smithsonian officials are packing up 30 cubic feet of old paperwork, engineering drawings, recipe books and early advertisements along with sand-cast molds of bunny cakes and Santa cakes, microwave-cooking devices and financial ledgers. "My dad hung on to everything -- he was one of these collectors -- so we literally have boxes of stuff from over the years," Dalquist said. The family basement has been "like an archeological dig for them," he added. The Smithsonian is charged with documenting the story of America, and "it's really hard to do American history without doing food," Johnson said. So museum officials travel the country to preserve pieces of that story a morsel at a time. To date, they've collected Julia Child's kitchen, chocolate molds from Hershey's, a Krispy Kreme doughnut-making machine, a 1928 bread slicer and more. Eventually, it all will wind up at the National Museum of American History, part of the constellation of museums that make up the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The Smithsonian houses many great national treasures, including the original Star-Spangled Banner, the Wright Brothers' airplane, Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and the Apollo 11 space capsule. Currently, the American History museum is being renovated. But even when it reopens, Johnson said, visitors aren't immediately likely to find a Bundt pan next to such famed icons as Dorothy's ruby slippers or George Washington's military uniform. "We always collect things, for now and in the future," Johnson said. "We have to take the long view. Even though we may not be able to do a big food-related exhibit in the immediate future, that's always in the back of our minds. ... So we have to start collecting now. This is how we begin." Nordic Ware was founded in 1946 by H. David and Dorothy Dalquist. In its early years, the struggling company specialized in making Scandinavian cookie-making items. Then Dalquist "was approached by a group of local women from the local Hadassah society," said Dana Norsten, the company's spokeswoman. "They had an old-world, heavy, heavy ceramic pan with a hole in the middle, called a Kugelhopf." The women wondered if Dalquist would make a lighter-weight aluminum pan. He did, adding the signature folds and later giving it the distinctive name, Bundt. Yet for years, the Bundt pan wasn't a particularly big hit. Then in 1966, a Pillsbury Bake-off winner used the Bundt pan to create the "Tunnel of Fudge" cake -- and it rocketed the Bundt pan to fame. "It was just like a frenzy," David Dalquist said. In the 1970s, Pillsbury introduced a popular line of Bundt cake mixes. Nordic Ware long ago branched out into other kitchenware lines, including its Micro-Go-Round food rotator, which remains popular. The company still sells a lot of Bundt pans, too. But the kitchenware business has changed dramatically. "We are one of only very few people who are still manufacturing in this country," Dalquist said. "Most of them have moved overseas. It's almost all imported today." The elder Dalquist died in 2005, but his widow and Nordic Ware co-founder has been a rich source of material for the Smithsonian curators. And what would the inventor of the Bundt pan think of his life's work ending up in the Smithsonian? "My dad was kind of a publicity-shy kind of person," Dalquist said. "So I think he'd be amazed that there was so much interest in the company and his products."
---Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minnesota), February 23, 2007

"It seems that in "The Bundt Pan Man, Letting Them Eat Cake" [Style, Jan. 11], Hank Stuever wants to have his cake and eat it too. How else could he have come up with the historically incorrect claim that the Bundt pan was "invented" in America (just the "t" in Bundt was invented here)? Stuever writes: "According to an obituary in the Los Angeles Times, the ladies of a Minnesota chapter of Hadassah, the Jewish volunteer organization, sensed the need 55 years ago and went to the Dalquists at Nordic Ware with a request: Please replicate this old ceramic dish that somebody's grandmother had kept for years and years to bake a dessert called kugelhopf." The meanings of "replicate" are "duplicate" or "repeat," a far cry from "invent." Actually, the pan had been invented and used in Europe much earlier. So what did H. David Dalquist really replicate back then? Webster's Third New International Dictionary gives an answer under the German names "gugelhupf," "kugelhopf" or "gugelhopf" : a semisweet cake usually of yeast-leavened dough containing raisins, citron and nuts and baked in a fluted tube pan. And the German Brockhaus Dictionary of 1935 defines the cake baked in a fluted and grooved pan as "gugelhupf," a term used primarily in southern Germany and Austria (and with some linguistic roots traced to Latin). In northern Germany it is called "bundkuchen." Contrary to Stuever's somewhat mystic translation effort in this context, the German word "bund" originated from bundling or wrapping the cake's dough around the pan's center hole. As for the pan's fluted and grooved design, it allows for more of the dough to get exposed to the pan's inner surface than a smooth design would, and provides for a more evenly and deeper heat distribution into the dough. This specific design feature, discovered and applied hundreds of years ago in Europe, apparently was successfully replicated and copied by Dalquist. I grew up in Germany in the 1930s, and my mother baked a gugelhupf about once a month. The gugelhupf and its pan have been ubiquitous in German households for centuries; Stuever's claim that Dalquist gave "the world" millions of Bundt pans is a bit of an exaggeration. Giving them to America would have sounded more plausible. And may H. David Dalquist rest in peace."
--- "Who Brought the Bundt Cake?," The Washington Post, January 22, 2005, Editorial; A15

Why call it "bundt?"

"Bundt: The German word bundt relates to the word for band or bundle, and refers to the banded effect of the flutes (such as would be found in a wheat sheaf or straw wreath, tied at intervals with twine), and probably originated as a harvest celebration cake. Bundt Pan Progenitor. This well-known cast aluminum bundt pan, alternating 8 large scallops with 8 small pointed flutes, first made in 1949 as a "Nordic Ware" product by Northland Aluminum Products of Minneapolis, MN, has been reported over the years as a reproduction of a 19th C. European cast iron bundt pan, brought over- reportedly - by a European immigant to Minnesota. Northland has now registered "Bundt" for their own use. It is not known how long ago the first bundt pan was made, probably in ceramic...Ceramic Progenitor...In 1997, the June 11 issue [of the] Washington Post published an article by Mark Goldman in the food section about bundt pans. Goldman...relates the history of Northland, and the account of H. David Dalquist...[and] about some ladies from the Minneapolis Hadassah chapter who paid him a visit ant told him about a ceramic bake mold used to made Bundkuchens--"party or gathering cakes." They asked if his new company could make such a thing out of aluminum, and the rest is history."
---300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles, Linda Campbell Franklin, 5th edition [Krause Publications:Iola IA] 2003 (p. 187-8)

About Nordic ware

"...As Nordic Ware, the company that invented the beloved Bundt cake pans, marks its 60th anniversary this year, we asked readers to submit stories about the Bundt pans they’ve used for decades in their kitchens. Retired teacher Mildred H. Curtis, 85, of Altus said just reading about our search for Bundt cake memories motivated her to go into the kitchen and pull out her Bundt pan, stored in its original box, along with the recipe book that came with the pan. She quilts at her church each week, and when it’s her turn to provide lunch for the quilters, the menu usually includes a Bundt cake she makes with a German chocolate cake mix embellished with additional ingredients such as canned coconut pecan frosting. “I have given away many of my cooking pans because I do not cook like I used to, but the Bundt pan will be the last to go,” Curtis wrote...Oklahomans are definitely creative when it comes to using their Bundt cake pans, which may be why Nordic Ware has thrived for six decades. It’s not the only company making pans that turn out elaborate cakes, but it has been an industry leader since the Minnesota company began in 1946. In recent years, Nordic Ware has stepped up introduction of new and more elaborately detailed cake pans that now are common in gourmet shops. The Castle pan is one of the newest such designs, Nordic Ware spokeswoman Dana Norsten said...The family-run company started out by making ethnic cake pans like the Rosette Iron, Ebleskiver pan and the Krumkake Iron. That changed in 1950, when the Minneapolis chapter of the Hadassah Society asked company founder, the late H. David Dalquist, to make a “bund” pan similar to one a member had received from her German grandmother. “Bund,” the German word for gathering, was an appropriate name because the fluted cake was often served at a gathering or party. According to Nordic Ware, Dalquist made the pan from cast aluminum and decided to make a few extra “bund” pans to sell at department stores. When Nordic Ware filed for a trademark for the pan, the name was changed from “bund” to Bundt. The rest, as they say, is history. The pans really hit the big time in 1966, when Houston homemaker Ella Helfrich used a Bundt cake pan for her Tunnel of Fudge Cake recipe in the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. She won second place in the contest, and Pillsbury fielded more than 200,000 requests for help in finding the Bundt pans. Nordic Ware stepped up production, working around the clock to meet consumer demand. Bundt cookbooks, with recipes created and tested by Dalquist’s wife, Dorothy, followed. When she and her staff baked cakes to test for the cookbooks, “Nordic Ware’s employee lunchrooms were always well supplied with Bundt cakes, and they were delivered to food shelters and churches, as well,” Norsten said. Dorothy Dalquist, 80, still helps promote the company that’s run by her son, David Dalquist. In 1971, Pillsbury rolled out a line of Bundt cake mixes licensed by Nordic Ware. Those mixes eventually disappeared from supermarket shelves in the 1980s. Nordic Ware has reintroduced the cake mixes in more upscale packaging. ... A few new Bundt pan designs are introduced each year. The formed aluminum pans in classic colors have made a comeback in recent years, too. For Bundt cake pan owners who feel motivated to dust it off and bake a cake soon, we share some recipes, from the popular Tunnel of Fudge Cake to a slimmed-down pound cake and even a cherished recipe from a reader."
---"Bundt pan fans; Fluted cakes popular for six decades, Sharon Dowell, The Oklahoman, May 17, 2006, FOOD; Pg. 1E

US Patent & Trademark records state 1951 as the year the bundt pan was introduced to the American public:

Word Mark BUNDT Goods and Services IC 021. US 013. G & S: CAKE PANS. FIRST USE: 19510000. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19510000 Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM Design Search Code Serial Number 72241796 Filing Date March 24, 1966 Current Filing Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Registration Number 0826340 Registration Date March 28, 1967 Owner (REGISTRANT) NORTHLAND ALUMINUM PRODUCTS, INC. CORPORATION MINNESOTA 3245 RALEIGH AVE. MINNEAPOLIS MINNESOTA 55416 Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Affidavit Text SECT 15. Renewal 1ST RENEWAL 19870328 Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

Who was David Dalquist?

"H. David Dalquist, whose fledgling Scandinavian cookware company developed its most famous product, the Nordic Ware Bundt pan, with Jewish immigrant cooks, died Sunday of heart failure at his home in Edina. He was 86. The Minneapolis native had worked as a metallurgical engineer for U.S. Steel in Duluth for two years after receiving a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in the early 1940s. He served in the Navy during World War II as a radar technician aboard a destroyer in the Pacific. After the war, he and his brother, Mark, started a company called Plastics for Industry, said his son, David of Minnetonka. Soon it evolved into Maid of Scandinavia, a specialty cookware company run by Mark, and Northland Aluminum Products, Dave's company, which manufactured Nordic Ware...Said his son, "My dad believed the common person could do great things if you give them a chance," and that included keeping his factory in the heart of a U.S. metropolitan area instead of moving it to a foreign country. Dalquist helped develop thermoset plastic molding technology to make products to use in microwave ovens. "He was very good at recognizing product niches, and what the consumer was looking for," said Gene Karlson, a company vice president."
---"Bundt pan inventor H. David Dalquist dies," Trudi Hahn, Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MM), January 6, 2005, Pg. 6B

Bund cake recipes?
The earliest recips we find for "Bunt" or "Bund" cake in America were published in Jewish-American and German-American cookbooks in the late 19th century. These cakes were enriched yeast breads were baked in tube pans.

[1889]
"Plain Bund, or Napf Kuchen
Take two cents' worth of compressed yeast, put it in a common kitchen cup, adding a pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar and about two tablespoonfuls of lukewarm water. Stir the yeast until it is a smooth paste and set it in a warm place to rise. Now sift two cups and a half of flour (use the same size cup for measuring everthing you are going to use in your cake), make a cavity in the flour, stir in the yeast and a scant cupful of lukewarm milk, make a nice batter, and let it rise until you have prepared the following: Rub three-quarters of a cup of butter and three-quarters of a cup of powdered sugar to a cream, just as you would for cup cake, then add gradually one egg at a time, using from four to five altogether, and stirring all the time in one direction. Work in your risen batter, a couple of spoonfuls at a time, between each egg. Grate in the peel of a lemon or an orange. Butter the form well that the cake is to be baked in (do this always before you begin to work). Put in your dough, set it in a warm place and let it rise for an hour and a half or two hours. Bake in a moderate oven one full hour, covered at first."
Aunt Babette's Cookbook (p. 326-327)
[1909]
"Bund-Kuchen
1 lb of flour, 1/2 lb. of butter, 1/2 lb. of sugar,
3 eggs, 1/2 lemon peel, 1 1/2 cents yeast,
1 cup of milk
Preparation: Cream the butter with sugar and eggs. The yeast is dissolved in 1 cup of lukewarm milk and mixed in, also the grated 1/2 lemon peel, then stir in the flour, beat the dough well for 10 minutes. Butter a cake pan with tube, fill in the dough to half full and let it rise to the top of the form. Then bake it 1 hour."
---The Art of German Cookign and Baking, Mrs. Lina Meier [Wetzel Bros. Printing Co.:Milwaukee WI] 1909 (p. 337)

Kugelhopf
Kugelhopf is a yeast-based cake similar to French brioche. It is typically baked in a mold with a funnel-shaped center insert to achieve a tall, round, ring-shaped cake. "Kugel" means "round," in German. "Kugel" means a kind of pudding in Yiddish (per the Oxford English Dictionary). Where did this recipe originate? Vienna, Germany & France (Alsace) are all credited, along with much foodlore. Culinary traditions don't neatly adhere to political divisions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "kugelhopf as "light Austian cake bread." Variant spellings (Gugelhuph &c.) strongly suggest this recipe traveled. The general concensus of food writers is this recipe orginated in Austria. We cannot confirm or deny this.

"A kugelhopf is a cake made from a yeast-based brioche-like dough in a characteristic shape, rather like an inverted flower pot with a hole down the middle; it usually contains raisins and currants and is dusted with icing sugar. As its name suggests, it originated in Germany and particuarly Austria (where it is usually called a gugelhupf), but it is now perhaps chiefly associated with Alsace. There are several no doubt equally apocryophal stories concerning its introduction to France from further east, one of which implicates Austrian-born Marie-Antoinette's partiality for such cakes."
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 181)

"Kugelhopf, a rich, light, delicate yeast cake, made from flour, eggs, butter, and sugar. It is related to Brioche, Baba, and Savarin...the identifying characteristic of kugelhopf is its tall ring shape. It is derived from the mould in which it is baked, round and deep, with a central funnel, and flouted with decorative swirls. After baking, the cake is turned out and dusted with icing sugar which catches in the pattern...Kugelhopf is one of the best-known C. European bakery products...It is made in a wide belt from Alsace...through parts of Germany...and Poland; and into Austria...The traditional pattern in C. Europe was for the kugelhopf to be baked for Sunday breakfast, when the village baker had his day off. It is also popular with Jewish communities who have settled in these areas."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford Unviersity Press:Oxford] 2nd edition, 2006 (p. 441)

"Cakes baked in Kugelhopf form...are very popular is Germany, Austria and Alsace. They may be simple sand cakes...marble cakes, poundcakes...or they may be made of a rich yeast dough as the classic Kugelhopf. The Kuglhopf is the original cake to be baked in this high, round, fluted center-tube mold, a shape created after the Turks were defeated at the gates of Vienna in 1683. The Viennese bakers who helped defend their city during the seige created this victory cake, modeling it after the sultan's turban."
---The German Cookbook, Mimi Sheraton [Random House:New York] 1965 (p. 454-456)
[NOTES: (1) The bagel origin story shares a simiar story. (2) Recipes follow in this book. Both use yeast.]

Similar foods: bundt, coffee cake, baba & savarin.

Pillsbury Bake Off
Pillsbury marked it's 80th birthday by hosting a national baking contest. The first contest was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City, December 12-13, 1949. Art Linkletter was the emcee. Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the judges. 100 finalists, home cooks ages 27-74, participated in this televised event. The first grand prize winner was Mrs. Ralph E. Smafield [Detroit, MI] for her "Water Rising Twists." Ms. Smafield's recipe came from her mother. It was published in national newspapers in January 1950.

"News of Food: Waldorf's Ballroom is Kitchen as 100 Cooks Compete for Awards," Jane Nickerson, New York Times, December 13, 1949 (p. 46)
"News of Food: $50,000 Recipe Award Goes to Housewife Who Has Been a Cook for Only 6 Years," , Jane Nickerson, New York Times, December 14, 1949 (p. 41)
"Pillsbury's $50,000 No-Knead Water Rising Twists,", display ad with recipe, Chicago Daily Tribune, January 11, 1950 (p. 18) [NOTE: recipe is in bottom right quadrant of the page. Copy of recipe (with color photo from original 1949 recipe booklet here.]
FoodTimeline library owns several Pillsbury Bake Off recipe booklets, 1st-20th contests, incomplete. The first cover looks like this. If you want a vintage recipe let us know!
What was Tunnel of Fudge cake?
Arguably, the most famous of all Pillsbury Bake Off winning recipes, this cake is generally credited for putting the bundt cake on the American culinary map. 17th contest, 1966. The "secret ingredient" was Double Dutch Buttercream Frosting Mix. You can't recreate the original cake because that mix has been retired. Pillsbury's web offers current approximation with cocoa instead. Cake photo here.

[1966]
"Tunnel of Fudge Cake
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups Pillsbury's Best All Purpose Flour
1 package Pillsbury Two Layer Size Buttercream Double Dutch Frosting Mix
2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans
Oven 350 degrees F. 10-inch tube cake
Cream butter in large mixer bowl at high speed of mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Gradually add sugar; continue creaming at high speed until light and fluffy. By hand, stir in flour, frosting mix, and walnuts until well-blended. Pour batter into greased Bundt pan or 10-inch Angel Food tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes. Cool 2 hours; remove from pan. Cool completely before serving. NOTE: Walnuts, Double Dutch Fudge Frosting Mix and butter are key to the success of this unusal recipe. Since cake has soft fudgy interior, test for doneness after 60 minutes by observing dry, shiny brownie-type crust.
For use with Pillsbury's Best Self-Rising Flour, decrease batter to 1 cup. Cream butter in large mixer bowl at high speed of mixer. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. At low speed, gradually add flour, then sugar, mixing until well blended. By hand, stir in frosting mix and walnuts; blend well. Pour batter into greased Bundt pan or 10-inch Angel Food tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 65-70 minutes. Cool 2 hours; remove from pan. Cool completely before serving."
---"Frosting Inside? That's the $5,000 shortcut surprise," Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1966 (p. E4)
[NOTE: If you want the original recipe printed in the Pillsbury Bake off booklet let us know. Happy to scan & share.]
Double Dutch Frosting Mix
"It isn't easy to keep track of all the wonderful mixes being brought out by the Pillsbury people nowadays. Two weeks ago we were telling you about their just-introduced Pink 'n Pretty Angel Food Cake Mix. Since then five more Pillsbury mixes have show up, two for cakes and three for frostings...The Double Dutch Fudge Frosting Mix yields a dark, creamy fudge icing with a pleasant suggestion of bittersweet chocolate, a perfect flavor match for a devil's food cake."
---"'Round the Food Sores: For a look at the latest ideas," Lois Baker, Chicago Tribune, May 17, 1963 (p. B3)

Cake pops
Food-on-a-stick is a perennial favorite with Americans. Portable, inexpensive, and personally portioned, they are ubiquitous fair fare. Our first reaction to cake pops was this surely must have been a Betty Crocker invention. We examined several 1960s (read: baby boomer era) children's party/cake books for clues. While we did not find cake pops, we did find lollipop cookies, which are generally the same idea. In 2002 cheesecake pops (or lollipops) became popular. Cake pops, as we know them today ala Starbucks, are generally credited to Angie Dudley, proprietress of Bakerella.com blog. Our research indicates she launched cake pops in 2007. The 'craze' was fanned by her cookbook (2010) and Starbucks menu addition (2011). Timing is everything. Consumers with deep purses and adventurous tastes are always ready for something new. And then? There is a point when small becomes too small. A cake pop is about the size of a petit fours. When was the last time you are one petit four & called it quits?

[1963]
"Lollipop Cookies
Make Mary's Sugar Cookies (p. 18)--except cut 2 1/2 to 3" circles. Bake 7 to 8 min. 375 (quick mod) oven. Cool. To make lollipop: spread Easy Creamy icing (p. 150) on plain baked cooky. Place a flat wooden stick or colored plastic straw across the middle, letting one end extend beyond edge of cooky. Place another cooky on top; press down slightly. Decorate with faced of tinted icing. makes about 2 doz. lollipops."
---Betty Crocker's Cooky Book [General Mills:Minneapolis MN] 1963 (p. 59)

[2002]
"At Neiman Marcus, we're selling a lot of what we call Cheesecake Pops. They're literally cheesecake on a stick."
---USA Weekend, Nov. 29-Dec. 1, 2002 (p. 11)

[2007]
"Word Mark CHEESECAKE LOLLIPOP Goods and Services IC 030. US 046. G & S: Cakes; Pastries. FIRST USE: 20060131. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20060131 Standard Characters Claimed Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK Serial Number 77063982 Filing Date December 14, 2006 Current Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1B Published for Opposition July 10, 2007 Registration Number 3441487 Registration Date June 3, 2008 Owner (REGISTRANT) Phil's Cake Box Bakeries, Inc. CORPORATION FLORIDA 2909 West Cypress Street Tampa FLORIDA 33609 Attorney of Record H. William Larson Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "CHEESECAKE" APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN Type of Mark TRADEMARK Register PRINCIPAL Live/Dead Indicator LIVE" ---SOURCE: US Patent & Trademark Office

[2010]
"...make room for a new treat: cake pops. And with a few strategically placed sprinkles and chocolates, you can create animal-shaped cake pops...Cake pops, chocolate-coated cake balls on a stick, are the cupcakes of 2010. Several local companies...sell the trendy desert that is surprisingly easy to make at home. With a box of cake mix, a can of frosting, lollipop sticks, melting chocolate...and a helping hand form a creative young chef in the house, you can make cake balls on a stick...When cake ball shops started popping up around Austin last year, Kathy Phab tried them and thought they were good, but she didn't catch the cake-pop fever until she saw the cutesy cake balls on a stick that sites like Bakerella...have popularized...Phan...first made cake pops in the shape of the Twitter bird for a New Year's party in January...Phan started posting her creations...making cake pops in the shape of dogs, basketballs and fish...She's moving on to more complicated pops."
---"Easter Treats that Pop Hop on a new trend and make your own cake to stick to fill baskets," Addie Broyles, Austin American- Statesman, March 31, 2010 (p. D1)

[2011]
"Starbucks customers saw something new Tuesday when they sipped their coffee. The Seattle-based company rolled out its new words-free logo Tuesday on all its cups. Signs also changed at a handful of stores, and the new logo will show up on more storefronts in the future. The Associated Press first reported in January that Starbucks was updating its logo and would introduce it this month in conjunction with its 40-year anniversary. Starbucks on Tuesday also introduced a number of new coffee flavors and baked goods as part of the anniversary celebration. In addition, Starbucks said Tuesday it plans to roll out its Via instant coffee in China starting in April, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The new products include a cocoa cappuccino, a new coffee blend and a new line of small dessert treats called Starbucks Petites. They include mini cupcakes and "cake pops," small sweets on a stick."
---"Starbucks debuts new logo, products in stores; new products also debut for 40th anniversary," Associated Press Newswire, March 8, 2011

"Modern society digests information in less than 200 characters. It was only a matter of time before cake went mobile. Cupcakes -- like clunky old cell phones -- are being downsized. Streamlined sweets known as cake pops are the confectionery equivalent of a tweet -- Small bites. Big impact. Many credit Angie Dudley with starting the trend. Her blog bakerella.com and bestselling books have inspired bakers around the globe. Even Starbucks recently started selling Petites -- cake pops in flavors such as rocky road and tiramisu."
---"Mixed Molded Dipped Stick-y sweet Local bakers catch onto cake pop trend to make mobile treats," Erin McCracken, Daily Record/Sunday News; York Daily Record, August 14, 2011

[2012]
"What's less than 2 inches wide, covered in candy and impossibly adorable? A cake pop, those irresistibly moist confections made by mixing crumbled cake and frosting. The blogger Bakerella first unleashed these miniature cakes on sticks back in 2007. Once they went viral, pastry chefs, home bakers, even Starbucks jumped on the trend, creating ambitious shapes and speckled surprises at about 200 calories a pop. As a result, a miniature movement is upon us. Inspired by the pops' portability, moderate calorie content and undeniable cute factor, pastry chefs are coming up with miniature versions of other desserts, from cookies and cupcakes to seasonal tarts, whoopie pies and eclairs no bigger than a cocktail wiener. There is much to love about these mini treats, says Paulina Tsagaris, whose Campbell, Calif.-based boutique catering company, Sweet Luna Desserts, specializes in miniature treats. "They're small, so you don't have to feel guilty," says Tsagaris. "And they're usually full of flavor, so you're left feeling satisfied in one or two bites." Each month, Tsagaris fills orders for thousands of customized cake pops. Her tangy lemon curd tarts are a hit at weddings. She serves banana cream custard in shot glasses small enough to make even an ogre feel dainty. The queen of candy-coated cake pops is Angie Dudley, better known as Bakerella, the Georgia-based blogging sensation. Her precious Easter basket pops — with sugar cones for baskets and green Sour Patch straws for handles — are so intricately designed, one look would make most novices retreat to their kitchens with a bag of Tollhouse Break and Bake. But Dudley swears that even detailed pops are not difficult. All it takes is box cake mix, ready-made frosting, an edible ink pen, tons of candy — and vision. "I don't look at candy as something to eat anymore," says Dudley, the author of "Cake Pops: Tips, Tricks, and Recipes for More Than 40 Irresistible Mini Treats" (Chronicle Books, 2010). A second book focused on winter holiday pops is due out this year. "I look at it as inspiration. I look at it proportionally. A Junior Mint is a hat. Coated sunflower seeds make great noses."
---"Tiny treats are hugely popular," Jessica Yadegaran, San Jose Mercury News, July 23, 2012

Who is Angie Dudley?
"Bakerella -- the food blogger formerly known as Angie Dudley -- used to bake only when she got a craving for something like chocolate chip cookies. It wasn't until she took a Whole Foods cake decorating class with Angie Mosier, founder of Blue Eyed Daisy Bakeshop in Palmetto, that she ventured beyond store-bought mixes. Mosier's lesson on basket-weave frosting rocked Dudley's world. The Suwanee graphic designer started spending weekends in the kitchen. In late 2007, she launched her blog and registered with Flickr to submit her creations to top-rated blog Cupcakes Take the Cake -- picking "Bakerella" for both online accounts simply so she wouldn't forget the usernames. She had made cake "balls" before, but only cupcakes would be considered by CTTC. So she figured out a way to turn the cake spheres into cupcakes using a flower-shaped cookie cutter -- and, for the first time, she put them on a stick, which developed into her specialty. Not only did CTTC love Dudley's confections, but The Martha Stewart Show invited her to appear during Cupcake Week. The blogosphere erupted, as did Dudley's imagination. Soon she was using candy corn for bunny ears and turkey feathers. Pretzels turned into deer antlers, and French burnt peanuts into curly red clown hair. National ads now scroll on her website, which won the 2010 Bloggie for best food blog. Her first book, the spiral-bound Cake Pops, was released last fall, immediately breaking into the top ten of the New York Times bestselling advice books. But Dudley, age thirty-eight, finds her newfound celebrity status "surreal." During a book tour stop in New York, Gossip Girl actress Blake Lively invited her over to bake -- proving they were kindred spirits by whipping out a can of edible silver luster spray to polish off a tin man."
---"Suwanee's Pop Star," Betsy Riley, Atlanta [magazine], February 2011 (p. 61)

According to the records of the US Patent & Trademark database, Ms. Dudley launched Bakerella October 31, 2007. The original registration suggests baked goods were not the initial primary focus:
"Word Mark BAKERELLA Goods and Services IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: clothing, namely, t-shirts, cooking aprons, dress shirts, sweatshirts, shirts, sweaters, jackets, tanktops, bathing suit tops, hats, caps, neckwear, scarves and bandanas. FIRST USE: 20080812. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20080812 IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: educational services, namely, providing classes and online instruction in the field of baking and baked goods. FIRST USE: 20071031. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20071031 Standard Characters Claimed Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK Serial Number 77708129 Filing Date April 7, 2009 Current Basis 1A Original Filing Basis 1A Published for Opposition February 2, 2010 Registration Number 3776986 Registration Date April 20, 2010 Owner (REGISTRANT) Dudley, Angie INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 262 Dogwood View Lane Suwanee GEORGIA 30024 Attorney of Record James D. Withers Type of Mark TRADEMARK. SERVICE MARK Register PRINCIPAL Live/Dead Indicator LIVE."

Caramel cake
18th century English and American cake recipes regularly employ sugar (in various forms: molasses, treacle, granulated), milk/cream, flour, eggs, rising agents, and spices. Some of these might have produced recipes similar to what we know today as caramel cake. None of these recipes go by that name. Recipes with the term "caramel" in the title (cake, candy, icing, sauce, custard, coloring etc.) surface in the 1870s. What is caramel?

Southern USA tradition?
Food writers generally agree caramel cake is a favorite in the American south. This may indicate a French culinary descent. The earliest recipes we find for caramel cake in a U.S. were printed the mid-1870s. These recipes were published in newspapers throughout the country; no special mention of Southern tradition. Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book [1871], considered by some to be the quintessential catalog of 19th century baked goods, does not include this item. M.C. Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia [1879] offers a recipe for Caramel Pudding but not Caramel Cake.

Early Caramel cakes were filled and iced but not multi-layered. Many included chocolate. Today's popular Seven Layer Caramel Cake appears to be a new twist on an old tradition.
[1877]
"Caramel Cake.
One cup butter, two of sugar, a scant cup milk, one and a half cups flour, cup corn starch, whites of seven eggs, three tea-spoons baking-powder in the flour; bake in a long pan. Take half pound brown sugar, scant quarter pound chocolate, half cup milk, butter size of an egg, two tea-spoons vanilla; mix thoroughly and cook as syrup until stiff enough to spread; spread on cake and set in the oven to dry." --- Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping
[1901]
Gateau au Caramel
1 Cup of Butter.
2 Cups of Sugar.
1 Cup of Milk.
1 1/2 Cups of Flour, Sifted.
Whites of 7 Eggs.
2 Teaspoonfuls of Baking Powder.
Cream the butter, add the sugar, and beat till very light. Then add the milk. Mix well. Sift the flour, cornstarch and baking powder together, heating biforously all the while. Then add the vanilla and the whites of the eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. Mix all quickly and lightly, turn into a long family pan, lined with a buttered paper, and bake for about half an hour in a moderate oven. Apply the broom wisk test. When done, take out of the oven and set to cool. When cool, take
2 Cups of Brown Sugar
1 Cup Sweet Cream
2 Tablespoonfuls Vanilla
1 Tablespoonful of Butter.
Boil all together until it sugars, and spread over the top and sides. Or, if you wish something much nicer, make the following mixture:
1/2 Pound Brown Sugar
1/2 Pound Chocolate
1/2 Cup Milk
1 Tablespoonful Butter
2 Tablespoonfuls of Vanilla.
Grate the chocolate, and set all to boiling together until thick enough to spread over the top and sides of the cake. This is delicious."
---The Picayune Creole Cook Book, facsimile 2nd [1901] edition [Dover:New York] 1971 (p. 304)

[1930]
"Caramel cake.
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup milk
3 cups pastry flour
3 teaspoonfuls baking-powder
Pinch of mace
1 cup chopped walnuts.
Cream the butter with half the sugar. With the rest of sugar, beat the eggs, and add to the sugar and butter. Mix the baking-powder, spice, and nuts with the flour, and alternately with the milk. Measure the baking-powder level. Bake in small two-layer round, using caramel icing.

Caramel icing
1 cups sugar
1 cup cream
2 heaping teaspoonfuls butter
Boil together in a granite saucepan without stiffing, unitl a little dropped in cold water forms a waxy ball. Stir only from the bottom to avoid burning. When done set in cold water and spread while still soft."
---Old Southern Receipts, Mary D. Pretlow [Robert M. McBride & Company:New York] 1930 (p. 108-9)

Seven Layer Caramel Cake
Artistic combinations of cakes/biscuits with custards/creams were first made in Renaissance Europe. Think: English Trifle. Fancy/milti-layered cakes are generally traced to the late 18th/early 19th century. Austria and France in particular. 19th century Viennese bakers were famous for creating exquisite cakes of many layers filled with creams, custards, jellies and other icings. Some of these also contained chocolate. Dobos torte was a popular multilayered chocolate cake originating in 19th century Hungary. Viennese bakers perfected multi-layered torts (sponge filled with chocolate and fruit fillings). Careme elevated French patisserie to an art, creating petits fours and other fancy layered confections.

Why the number 7?
The number 7 (as in the number of layers composing cake that is your specialty) has long been considered a good/lucky number in many cultures. It is probably no accident early bakers selected this particular number. Other layers (5, 12) are also popular.

"Southern cake bakers are a breed apart. Maybe it's something in the water or maybe it's because dessert is considered one of the five basic food groups in the South, but an old-fashioned southern cake is a truly wondrous thing. Which is why South Carolina native Caroline Ragsdale Reutter's seven-layer caramel cake brought us to our knees. It is a huge, gorgeous, rich, incredibly sweet confection that seduces you with its buttery, brown-sugar aroma, velvety yellow cake layers and creamy caramel frosting. It's an old recipe, says Reutter, who now lives in Annapolis, "that's gone to the grave with a lot of people." Since she began selling the cakes commercially about five years ago, she's gotten accustomed to getting tearful phone calls and emotional e-mails from people telling her, "This was my grandmother's cake. Just tasting it brings back so many memories." The cake weighs five pounds and can serve a large number of guests, mainly because it is best enjoyed in thin slices, slightly chilled. Even better, it can be frozen and refrozen without harm to its flavor or texture. Reutter says her female customers, in particular, like to keep one in the freezer. "They tell me they cut a thin sliver to eat with a cup of black coffee in the morning and that's breakfast," she confides. Reutter grew up in Lake City, S.C., a farming town of 8,000 people in the heart of the tobacco belt. The cake is one she grew up eating. "It's an old southern recipe. Everyone made it, not just my family," she says. She first baked it for friends at her youngest son's christening luncheon 22 years ago. They loved it and soon began ordering the cakes and urging her to go into business. "But I had two young children and there just wasn't time," she says. Once her sons were grown and safely off to college, she began her cake business in earnest, adding a seven-layer chocolate cake with fudge icing as well. Although she started out as a one-woman operation, when a Palm Beach, Fla., company ordered 2,000 cakes five years ago, "that's when I knew it was no longer a hobby," she says. Last year, she sent out more than 10,000 cakes over the holidays. For the upcoming holidays, Caroline's Cakes and its 30 employees plan to move into a retail bakery space on Whitehall Road in Annapolis, (exit 30) off Route 50 by the end of the month."
---"Love is a Many-Layered Cake," Washington Post, November 5, 2003 (p. F7)

Carrot cake
According to the food historians, our modern carrot cake most likely descended from Medieval carrot puddings enjoyed by people in Europe. Historic evidence suggests Arab cooks of the Carrots are an old world food. imported to the Americas by European settlers. In the 20th century carrot cake was re-introduced as a "healthy alternative" to traditional desserts. The first time was due to necessity; the second time was spurred by the popular [though oftimes misguided] wave of health foods. Is today's carrot cake healthy? It can be. It all depends upon the ingredients.

"In the Middle Ages in Europe, when sweeteners were scarce and expensive, carrots were used in sweet cakes and desserts. In Britain...carrot puddings...often appeared in recipe books in the 18th and 19th centuries. Such uses were revived in Britain during the second World War, when the Ministry of Food disseminated recipes for carrot Christmas pudding, carrot cake, and so on and survive in a small way to the present day. Indeed, carrot cakes have enjoyed a revival in Britain in the last quarter of the 20th century. They are perceived as 'healthy' cakes, a perception fortified by the use of brown sugar and wholemeal flour and the inclusion of chopped nuts, and only slightly compromised by the cream cheese and sugar icing which appears on some versions."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 141)

"In her New York Cookbook (1992), Molly O'Neill says that George Washington was served a carrot tea cake at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan. The date: November 25, 1783. The occasion: British Evacuation Day. She offers an adaptation of that early recipe, which was printed in The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook (1975) by Mary Donovan, Amy Hatrack, and Frances Schull. It isn't so very different from the carrot cakes of today. Yet strangely, carrot cakes are noticeably absent from American cookbooks right through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. Before developing a new pudding-included carrot and spice cake mix, Pillsbury researched carrot cake in depth, even staged a nation-wide contest to locate America's first-published carrot cake recipe. Their finding: A carrot cake in The Twentieth Century Bride's Cookbook published in 1929 by a Wichita, Kansas, woman's club. Running a close second was a carrot cake printed in a 1930 Chicago Daily News Cookbook...Several carrot cake contestants also sent Pillsbury a complicated, two-day affair that Peg Bracken had included in one of her magazine columns sometime in the late '60s or early '70s...Whatever its origin, carrot cake didn't enter mainstream America until the second half of this century."
---The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 435)

A survey of carrot cake (& precessor recipes) confirms these items took many forms:

baked in pastry, like pumpkin pie
steamed and served with sauce, like plum pudding
baked in pans and served with icing, like cake
Tracing the evolution of Carrot Cake through recipes:
[10th century Arabian cookery]
T'Khabis al-jazar (Carrots): (A carrot pudding)
Choose fresh tender and sweet carrots. Peel them and thinly slice them crosswise. For each pound of honey use 3 pounds of these carrots. Boil the honey and remove its froth. Pound the carrot in a stone mortar. Set a clean copper cauldron with a rounded bottom on a trivet on the fire, and put in it the skimmed honey and carrots. Cook the mixture on medium fire until the carrots fall apart. Add walnut oil to the pot. For each pound of homey used add 2/3 cup of oil. Pistachio oil will be the best for it, but you can also use fresh oil of almond or sesame. Add the oil before the honey starts to thicken. However you do not need to stir the pot. You only scrape the bottom gently when mixture starts to thicken to prevent it from sticking to it. To check for doneness, use a stick or a spoon to see whether the pudding is thick enough or not yet. When pudding becomes thick, put the pot down, and spread the dessert on a copper platter. Set it aside to cool down before serving. It will be firm and delicious."
Source: The Book of Cookery preparing Salubrious Foods and Delectable Dishes extracted from Medical Books and told by Proficient Cooks and the Wise/Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq
[1699]
"26. Pudding of Carrot. Pare off some of the Crust of Manchet-Bread, and grate of half as much of the rest as there is of the Root, which must also be grated: Then take half a Pint of fresh Cream or New Milk, half a Pound of fresh Butter, six new laid Eggs (taking out three of the Whites) mash and mingle them well with the Cream and Butter: Then put in the grated Bread and Carrot, with near half a Pound of Sugar; and a little Salt; some grated Nutmeg and beaten Spice; and pour all into a convenient Dish or Pan, butter'd, to keep the Ingredients from sticking and burning; set it in a quick Oven for about an Hour, and so have you a Composition for any Root-Pudding."
---Acetaria: Discourse of Sallets, John Evelyn

[1747]
"A Carrot Pudding
Take a raw Carrot, scrape it very clean, then grate it, take half a Pound of the grated Carrot, and a Pound of grateed Bread, beat up eight Eggs, leave out half the Whites, mix the Eggs with half a Pint of Cream, then stir in the Bread and Carrot, and half a Pound of fresh Butter melted, half a Pint of Sack, and three Spoonfuls of Orange-flower Water, a Nutmeg grated, sweeten to your Palate. Mix all well together; and if it is not thin enough, stir in a little new Milk or Cream. Let it be of a moderate Thickness, lay a Puff-paste all over the Dish, and pour in the Ingredients. Bake it, it will take an Hour's baking, or you may boil it; but then you must melt Butter, and put in White Wine and Sugar."
---The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, facsimile 1747 London reprint [Prospect Books:Devon] 1995(p.107)

[1803]
Carrot Pudding, Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter

[1830]
"Carrot Cake.
Take a dozen large and very red carrots; scrape and bpoil them in water with a little salt; when done, drain them, take out the hearts, and rub them the rest through a bolting; put them in a stewpan, and dry them over the fire. Make a cream patissiere, with about half a pint of milk; and when done mix it with the carrots; add a pinch of minced orange-flowers pralinee, three quarters of a pound of powder-sugar, four whole eggs; put in, one at a time, the yolks of six more, and a quarter of a pound of melted butter; mix all these ingredients together well; whip up the six whites to a froth, and stir them in by degrees. Butter a mould, and put some crumb of bread in it, in a minute or two, turn out the bread, and three quarters of an hour before the cake is wanted, pour the preparation into the mould and bake it. Serve it hot."
--- The Cook's Dictionary and Housekeeper's Directory, Richard Dolby [Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley:London] 1830 (p. 124)

[1845]
Carrot Pie, New England Economical Housekeeper, Esther Howland

[1913]
"Crocus Carrot Cake
Rub four good sized cooked carrots through a sieve. Add two tablesoons ground almonds, three tablespoons sugar, the grated rind and strained juice of half a lemon, the well beaten yolks four eggs, three tablespoonfuls melted butter and the whites of the eggs beaten stiff with a pinch of salt. Pour into a small baking tin lined with pastry. Bake in a hot oven until ready and serve hot or cold, cut in square."
---"Woman's Page: How to Fight the High Cost of Living," Odgen Standard [Ogden UT], June 11, 1913 (p. 7)

[1914]
Carrot Cake, Neighborhood Cookbook, Council of Jewish Women

[1925]
"Carrot Cakes.
I presume a carrot cake could be made by the recipe for apple sauce cake, but I have so many recipes for carrot cakes that I have never settled down to finding out what is what among them. A clipped recipe is for a crocus carrot cake, which title suggests its suitability for this season. The author of the recipe was the late Marion Harris Neal. It reads: 'Rub four good sized cooked carrots through a sieve, add two tablespoons of ground almonds, three tablespoons of sugar, the grated rind and strained juice of half a lemon, the well beaten yolks of four eggs, three tablespoons of melted butter, and the whites of the eggs beaten stiffly. Pour into a small baking tin that has been lined with pastry. Bake in a hot oven and serve hot or cold, cut in squares.' This is readily done like a pie than a cake, but baked in a small square tin lined with crust it will undoubtedly bear a resemblance to cheese cake, which we know is more of a compromise between bread and pie than like cake."
---"The Tribune Cook Book: Carrot Diversity," Jane Eddington, Chicago Daily Tribune, March 1, 1925 (p. B2)
[NOTE: This article also offers recipes for carrot pudding, carrot salad, carrot marmalade, carrot candy (bioled and raw), glazed carrots, cream of carrot soup, escallped carrots, & mashed carrots.]

[1926]
"Carrot Cakes
1 cup grated carrots
1/3 cup milk
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Salt
Soak carrots in cold water one hour to crisp, scrape, grate and measure. Add well-beaten egg, milk, and salt. Sift in corn starcch and baking powder. Fry by spoonfuls on heat greased griddle."
---Every Woman's Cook Book, Mrs. Chas. F. Moritz [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1926 (p. 192)

[1930]
"Carrot Cake
Sugar 1 1/3 cups
Seeded raisins 1 cup
Carrots (grated) 1 1/2 cups
Cloves 1 teaspoon
Water (cold) 1 1/3 cups
Butter 2 tablespoons
Cinamon 1 teaspoon
Nutmeg 1 teaspoon
Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and boil very slowly for about 5 minutes. Remove from fire and allow mixture to become perfectly cold (never use while warm) and then add
Walnut meats 1 cup
Pinch of salt
Flour 2 cups
Baking soda 2 teaspoons
Mix well and put in loaf oan and bake for 1 1/4 hours in oven 350 degrees.--Mrs. William Inman"
---Chicago Daily News Cook Book, Edith G. Shuck and Dr. Herman N. Bundesen [Chicago Daily News:Chicago IL] 1930 (p. 47)

[1936]
"Carrot Torte
1 lb almonds
1 lb carrots
2 cups sugar
8 eggs, separated
Rind of one large orange
1 tablespoon orange juice
Cook the carrots, chill, and grate. Blanch the almonds and chop fine. Beat the egg yolks until light and thick. Add sugar gradually, then orange rind and juice, carrots, nuts, combining all ingredients well, lastly fold in the stiffly beaten whites. Bake in a greased torte pan in a moderately slow oven (325 degrees F.), 45 to 50 minutes. When cool cover with sweetened Whipped Cream...Place in ice-box for several hours and serve."
---The Settlement Cook Book, Mrs. Simon Kander, Twenty-first Edition Enlarged and Revised [Settlement Cook Book Co.:Milwaukee WI] 1936 (p. 459)

[1939]
"Ohio Pudding or Steamed Carrot Pudding
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
1 cup finely grated, raw potato
1 cup grated, raw carrot (3 small)
1 cup currants of seedless raisins
1 cup seeded raisins
Mix and sift sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, and soda. Add remaining ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Steam...2 hours in small molds or 3 hours in large mold. Serve with Ohio Sauce."
---Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Fannie Merritt Farmer [Little, Brown and Company:Boston] 1939 (p.550)
[NOTE: Ohio sauce is made with cream, chopped nut meats, chopped dates and lemon extract (p.610).]

[1939]
"Carrot Cake
Temperature 300F. Time 1 hour. Serving 1 loaf, 9 inches
Part I
2 2/3 cups hot water
2 2/3 cups sugar
2 cups ground carrots
2 cups raisins
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons cloves
2 teaspoons nutmeg

Part II
3 3 tablespoons shortening
4 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspooon salt
2 cups chopped nuts
Method:
1. Cook Part I together for 20 minutes.
2. Remove from fire; add shortening, cool to lukewarm.
3. Add flour, soda, baking powder, and salt sifted together.
4. Add nuts.
5. Bake in a well-greased loaf pan at 300 degrees for 1 hour."
---Prudence Penny's Cookbook, Prudence Penny [Prentice-Hall:New York] 1939 (p. 217)

Additional carrot pudding recipes, courtesy of the Carrot Museum.
Related recipes? Zucchini bread, Pumpkin pie & Sweet potato pie.

When did the cream cheese icing appear?

The earliest American print references we find to frosting carrot cake with cream cheese are from 1960's:

[1963]