American Cake - Cake #36: Lazy Daisy

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!