American Cake - Cake #37: Chocolate Earthquake Cake

Posted by Limecrete Monday, July 28, 2025 0 comments Labels:

Time Period: 1980-1999

One of the more stressful aspects of cake baking is presentation. Sure, the most important thing for a cake to achieve is good flavor, but I won't deny that it hurts my heart a bit when one of my them comes out looking sad and ugly, no matter how delicious it may be.

Obviously, I'm not the only one that feels this way, because in the modern era, there's a shift towards recipes that embrace the mess, so to speak. So, instead of worrying about how to fix a flourless cake leavened with egg whites that cracks as it cools, what if the cracking was just an intentional part of the design?



Ironically, even with the permissive parameters, this one didn't turn out quite as expected, visually. No complaints, flavor-wise, as it came out as dense and fudgy as promised. But instead of the photogenic implosion on a soaring cake pictured in the cookbook, I just got a squat circle with some minor cracking on top, as well as that pinched seam around the center of the cake I've come to dread. 

As with a lot of the cakes in this project, I probably won't go rushing to make it again, but it was fairly tasty, and a nice straightforward recipe that could give me some much needed folding-egg-white practice, so maybe its fault lines will pop up again at some point.


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American Plate - Bite #54: Cold Cereal

Posted by Limecrete Sunday, June 15, 2025 0 comments Labels:

There have probably been ingredients and dishes throughout human history that were remarkably delicious or healthy, but without a confluence of events to bring them widespread attention, they just faded into obscurity. When the fates align, however, something can burst onto the scene and stay there. Cold cereal might have just sat in the realm of religious zealots, but with advances in marketing and technology, it had no problems catching on nationwide. You'll recognize the last names of a lot of innovators of cold cereal, from Sylvester Graham (Graham crackers and granola) to the Kellogg brothers (Corn Flakes) to Charles William Post (Grape Nuts). Far from concentrating solely on business, these men were wholly convinced that their cereals, in concert with a regimen of high-grain diets and Christian morality would solve a host of ills, from dyspepsia to masturbation.

The cereal was prescribed almost like medicine, and it's not surprising that people who ate more grain and less fatty meat for breakfast probably had improved health outcomes. Plus, cereal was a lot more affordable than the heavier breakfast offerings at the time. Combine that with the rise of train travel to spread the message, the reduced cost of print advertisements, and the inception of the first grocery chain, and cold cereal's placement in the pantheon of American food was solidified.



It's hard to imagine an American household that doesn't eat cold cereal. I'm sure I've tried dozens of different ones over the course of my life, and there's usually at least two boxes in the pantry. We weren't allowed the super-sugary ones as a kid, and I think that was ultimately the right choice. Sure, when I went off to college, I went crazy for a while for the ultra-chocolately ones or the marshmallow ones. Now that I'm a cereal-buying adult, though, I'm back to the granola and fruit/nut flakes. The Kellogg brothers would be so proud of me for that. Probably not for other parts of my life, though.

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The American Cake Project

Posted by Limecrete Sunday, June 1, 2025 2 comments Labels:
The American Plate Project continues, but even as I explore the wide range of the foods the contributed to modern American cuisine, certain subsets draw me into their gravitational pull. Cake is mentioned twice on the American Plate Project list, and that's no accident. Americans love their sweets, and have been baking cakes since we first set foot on these shores.

It's common knowledge among my friends and loved ones that baking is a particular hobby of mine, so when I received American Cake (by Anne Byrn) for Hanukkah, it was "gently" suggested that I expand my food project by examining the history within. Of course, there's no better way to examine cake history than by baking the recipes in the cake history book.


Much like The American Plate, this book is split into different eras of time:

1) 1650-1799: Baking Cakes in Early America
2) 1800-1869: New Cakes & New Directions
3) 1870-1899: A Scientific Approach: Baking Powder & Fannie Farmer
4) 1900-1916: Birth of the American Layer Cake
5) 1917-1945: Baking in the Good Times & the Bad Times
6) 1946-1962: Tupperware, Bake-Offs, & a New Domesticity
7) 1963-1979: American Cake Times Are a-Changin'
8) 1980-1999: Cakes Born in the USA
9) 2000 to the Present: The Cakes of the New Millennium

Some of these chapters may have overly cutesy names, but this looks like a pretty natural breakdown of history, both food-related and otherwise. The rules for the American Cake project are similar to its cousin:

#1: No need to work from beginning to end. I can tackle these in whatever order is most convenient.

#2: I have to do my best to make these cakes in the spirit in which they were intended. If the people of that time period just couldn't enjoy a cake without walnuts in it, then the cake gets walnuts, even if they're not my favorite addition.

#3: There are some cakes that I can tell from the outset I won't enjoy. Simple solution: Find someone who will. Cakes make great gifts, after all.

#4: I'll do my best to use any specialized ingredients or equipment, but in some cases, it may be impossible. In those instances, I'll either get as close as I can, or will substitute something that isn't in the book, but that I personally feel is an important American cake.

Time to get cracking! I sense a lot of flour purchases in my immediate future.

Cakes Accomplished

Cake #1: American Gingerbread
Cake #2: Chocolate Stout
Cake #3: Martha Washington Great Cake
Cake #4: Classic Pound Cake
Cake #5: Shoofly Pie
Cake #6: Strawberry Shortcake
Cake #7: Lemon and Molasses Spice Marble Cake
Cake #8: Granny Kellet's Jam Cake
Cake #9: Scripture Cake
Cake #10: Chez Panisse Almond Torte
Cake #11: 1-2-3-4 Cake
Cake #12: Wacky Cake
Cake #13: Angel Food Cake
Cake #17: Cowboy Cake
Cake #18: Ocracoke Fig Cake

Cake Ranking

#1: American Gingerbread
#2: Martha Washington Great Cake
#3: Alaska Rhubarb Cake
#4: Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
#5: Chez Panisse Almond Torte
#6: Louisiana Syrup Cake
#7: Lois's Original Plum Torte
#8: Ocracoke Fig Cake
#9: Mary's Cherry Upside-Down Cake
#10: Strawberry Shortcake
#11: 17th-Century Cheesecake
#12: Shoofly Pie
#13: Moosewood Cardamom Coffee Cake
#14: 1917 Applesauce Cake
#15: Fraunces Tavern Carrot Tea Cake
#16: George Washington Carver's Peanut Cake
#17: Beet Red Velvet Cake
#18: Lazy Daisy
#19: Julia Child's Queen of Sheba Cake
#20: Chocolate Stout
#21: Mary Lincoln's White Almond Cake
#22: Chocolate Earthquake Cake
#23: Bangor Brownies
#24: Hershey Bar Cake
#25: Lemon and Molasses Spice Marble Cake
#26: Cold Oven Pound Cake
#27: New Orleans King Cake
#28: Wacky Cake
#29: Granny Kellet's Jam Cake
#30: Cinnamon Flop
#31: Cowboy Cake
#32: Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake
#33: Malinda Russell's Washington Cake
#34: Classic Pound Cake
#35: 1-2-3-4 Cake
#36: Scripture Cake
#37: Angel Food Cake
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American Cake - Cake #36: Lazy Daisy

Posted by Limecrete Thursday, March 27, 2025 0 comments Labels:

Time Period: 1900-1916

There isn't much to the history of Lazy Daisy cake. A woman submitted a recipe to a local newspaper in 1914, they printed it, other publications picked it up, and a shortening company employed it in their ads. Popularity ensued. There's not much to the name, either. People have always like rhyming names, and "lazy daisy" is even part of the lyrics to the flowerbed song in the original Alice in Wonderland.

It's an apt description of the cake's preparation as well. No need to separate eggs or sift the dry ingredients. You just make a sponge cake, mix and heat the topping ingredients in a saucepan, pour over the top, and bake. There is the last step of gently broiling it so the coconut toasts, but that's pretty simple as well.


I guess what's most notable about this cake is that I ate it. I've spent the better part of my life avoiding shaved coconut, due mostly to texture issues. I liked this, though. It's fairly sweet, so you don't need much, but the brown sugar mixed with the coconut helps blend the flavors, and softens the coconut so that it's not so grating on the teeth. Does the Lazy Daisy signal a seismic shift in the already-short list of foods I don't eat? Time will tell!

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