American Cake - Cake #39: Orange Chiffon Cake

Time Period: 1946-1962

Though several of the cakes in this project were developed elsewhere and updated and/or perfected in America, chiffon is truly a homegrown bake. The style was invented by Harry Baker (no pun intended), who moved to LA in the '20s and began selling his cakes to local restaurants. He kept his technique (using vegetable oil instead of butter) a secret, finally selling it in 1948. This substitution made giant waves in the baking community, and now, using oil as the fat has become commonplace in all types of cakes.

So, how to put this? Do I not have the proper equipment? Am I not following the instructions correctly? Is Anne Byrn bad at conveying information when it comes to this family of cakes? Is it a combination of these factors? Because I have had terrible luck with every cake so far that depends on whipped eggs as the leavening agent. If I'm not supposed to grease the pan so that the batter can climb, how the hell is it supposed to get out of the tube pan?

I'll keep experimenting, and while it tasted fine and I was able to rescue it by turning into bread pudding, this one will join its angelic brethren at the bottom of the ranking.

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American Cake - Cake #38: French King Cake

Time Period: 1963-1979

Why is there a recipe for "French King Cake" in a book called American Cake? I don't know, ask Anne Byrn. Though this cake did originate in France, it's apparently become the King Cake of choice for home bakers in New Orleans, rather than the brightly-colored brioche cakes you see in most bakeries, though both are traditionally served on Epiphany.

Also known as Galette des Rois or Frangipane King Cake, this version is made with sheets of puff pastry, which are sealed around a square of almond-heavy cake batter. While making puff pastry from scratch would have been a nightmare not that long ago, the fact that you can buy it out of the freezer case at the grocery store now goes a long way to understanding how this one took over in home kitchen popularity.

I found it to also be very tasty, and honestly more flavorful than the other version of King Cake, which wasn't bad, but on the dry side, which this cake managed to avoid by incorporating the soft batter into the center. If there was one textural problem to this cake, it was the puff pastry itself. Know what puff pastry is? Flaky! That's a good thing, but when 80% of your cake is a double layer of it, it explodes into crumbs the second you press a knife to it.

That aside, I did enjoy this chapter of the project, and as long as you've got a broom handy to clean up after you slice it, it would be worth having again.

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American Cake - Cake #37: Chocolate Earthquake Cake

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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The American Cake Project

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 #14: Fraunces Tavern Carrot Tea Cake

Cake #15: Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Cake #16: 1917 Applesauce Cake

Cake #17: Cowboy Cake
Cake #18: Ocracoke Fig Cake

Cake #19: New Orleans King Cake

Cake #20: George Washington Carver's Peanut Cake

Cake #21: Mary's Cherry Upside-Down Cake

Cake #22: Hershey Bar Cake

Cake #23: Moosewood Cardamom Coffee Cake

Cake #24: Malinda Russell's Washington Cake
Cake #25: Cinnamon Flop
Cake #26: Bangor Brownies
Cake #27: Louisiana Syrup Cake
Cake #28: 17th-Century Cheesecake

Cake #29: Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake

Cake #30: Julia Child's Queen of Sheba Cake

Cake #31: Beet Red Velvet Cake

Cake #32: Lois's Original Plum Torte
Cake #33: Alaska Rhubarb Cake
Cake #34: Cold Oven Pound Cake

Cake #35: Mary Lincoln's White Almond Cake
Cake #36: Lazy Daisy
Cake #37: Chocolate Earthquake Cake

Cake #38: French King Cake

Cake #39: Orange Chiffon 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: French King Cake

#24: Bangor Brownies

#25: Hershey Bar Cake

#26: Lemon and Molasses Spice Marble Cake
#27: Cold Oven Pound Cake

#28: New Orleans King Cake

#29: Wacky Cake

#30: Granny Kellet's Jam Cake

#31: Cinnamon Flop

#32: Cowboy Cake

#33: Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake

#34: Malinda Russell's Washington Cake

#35: Classic Pound Cake

#36: 1-2-3-4 Cake

#37: Orange Chiffon Cake

#38: Scripture Cake

#39: Angel Food Cake

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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!

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American Cake - Cake #35: Mary Lincoln's White Almond Cake

 Time Period: 1870 - 1899

In absolutely none of my American History education was I told that Mary Todd Lincoln was an avid baker. I suppose that fact doesn't have much to do with things like, oh say, the Civil War, but would have certainly made me more interested in her as a person. Evidently, the wealthy Todd family first had this almond cake at a catered event, and requested the recipe from the caterer. Mary proceeded to make it regularly, including while she and Abraham Lincoln were dating, as well as in the White House. Apparently, she made it so much that it became a symbol of the Lincoln family, and was found on important governmental event menus as late as the 1870s,

So, how was it? Pretty good! One serving suggestion mentioned that Mary Lincoln may have iced the cake and topped it with additional nuts or sugared fruit, but I opted to just give it a dusting of powdered sugar. I was expecting the almond flavor to pack a punch, but it was actually quite subtle. And unlike the other egg white cakes I've prepared, this one was better about holding its shape. It may not be as top tier a recipe as Lincoln was a president, but it was solidly enjoyable, and frankly, those are the types of cakes I've been preferring lately.

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American Cake - Cake #34: Cold Oven Pound Cake

Time Period: 1917 - 1945

Modern Americans are used to preheating their ovens before baking anything, but it wasn't also so. It used to be common wisdom to not turn on gas ovens until you were ready to start baking, not only because it was cheaper to use less gas, but because people thought putting a cake into an already-hot oven would adversely affect the texture and the rise. 

Obviously, attitudes shifted, as this recipe is now one of a grand total of two that I've used a cold oven for. This cake starts at zero, and once the oven is lit, is increased in temperature partway through the process. Doing this preserves the moist center while providing a nice crust on the exterior.

One thing I've noticed along the way with this project is the challenge of getting cakes out of a tube pan (however nice it is) without the exterior looking raggedy. Am I over-buttering? Under-buttering? Not letting it rest long enough once out of the oven? Resting it for too long? How on Earth does one get a smooth exterior out of these things?

That said, I made this one for a friend's birthday, and was heartened by his reaction. Despite its...humble appearance, there were no complaints, flavor-wise. I'm not sure if this'll be a repeat recipe or not, but it was definitely a solid dessert (in more ways than one).

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American Cake - Cake #33: Alaska Rhubarb Cake

Time Period: 2000 - The Present

Rhubarb does well in cooler climates, which may explain why this cake is identified with Alaska. Though its leaves are poisonous, the stalks are often combined with sweeter fruits and added to pies and cakes. Benjamin Franklin first introduced to America as a medicinal plant, which isn't surprising, given its flavor. It wasn't until we started copying Britain's tendency to use it for jams, sauces, and baked goods that the States began turning out the sweets it's most associated with today.

I have a checkered history with rhubarb. I've never liked cherries or cherry-flavored anything, but I try them every few years to see if that's still the case (and wow, as of this writing, is it ever.) I'm not sure why I didn't extend the same opportunity to rhubarb. When I first tried it, I found it bitter and unappealing. Maybe that's just because it wasn't balanced well with the other flavors in whatever it was in, because this cake was outstanding. It didn't even need a balancing factor like strawberries - the sugar and cinnamons was all that was required to give this cake a moist sweetness with a slight tang from the rhubarb.

I shared this cake at a party, and it was remarkable to see people take a tiny sliver, try a tentative bite, and then immediately come back to carve off a bigger wedge. Thanks to this recipe, rhubarb's reputation has been rehabilitated in my mind, and I'm already thinking about what I've been missing out on.

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American Cake - Cake #32: Lois's Original Plum Torte

Time Period: 1980-1999

Although the time period this cake was assigned to is in the '80s, the recipe itself dates back to 1960. Lois Levine and Marian Burros put it into their Elegant But Easy Cookbook, and 20 years later, Burros shared it even more publicly via the New York Times. It became one of the paper's most requested recipes, and was eventually re-published annually. Plum tortes used to be made with crushed zwieback (sweetened toast) back in Depression-era America, but evolved into buttery cake batter in the 60s.

I can see why this recipe became so popular; it was really delicious. The plum size and placement can be a challenge, because crowding the cake pan turns this recipe almost into a cobbler, while spacing the plums out makes it feel too sparse. However, when it works out, you have a perfect late-summer, early-autumn dessert that tastes fresh yet comforting all at the same time.

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American Cake - Cake #31: Beet Red Velvet Cake

Time Period: 2000 - Present

While the red velvet cake recipe is inherently American, what's usually even more American about it is the shortcut bakers use by using food coloring. Not so with this one, which is given its coloring via roasted beets, which not only dyes the cake, but contributes some natural sugars. While my cursory internet research suggests that red velvet cake was popularized by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and then spread more widely by Adams Extra and their food coloring, this particular version comes from a pastry chef in Atlanta.

Fun fact: Tiddy hates beets. Loathes them. He didn't even want to be in the house while I was roasting them, due to the smell. I don't mind them as much, but I'm usually only good for a few bites before I'm done with them, too. So how would a cake with a full bundle of roasted beets go over? 

Pretty well, it turns out! While the beets lent plenty of color, their flavor was overshadowed by the other ingredients, and with the addition of a cream cheese frosting, this cake was quite tasty, and actually achieved the impossible: Popularity.

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American Cake - Cake #30: Julia Child's Queen of Sheba Cake

Time Period: 1963-1979

Like millions of other food-loving Americans in my, ahem, age bracket, I was a huge fan of Julia Child's work. I watched The French Chef, I own Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and I've watched and read any number of biographical movies, TV shows, and books about the culinary legend. Child brought elevated cooking to American kitchens, and her influence cannot be overestimated. This cake recipe was included in her seminal cookbook, which was published in 1961.

This cake is a relatively flat one, containing no baking powder, and depending on egg whites as its raising agent. I have an open question about how American this recipe really is, if it's so dependent on French techniques, but I can see how it's gotten a cultural twist, with its inclusion of semi-sweet chocolate and rum.

Although the photo in American Cake shows the cake completely covered with icing, there was absolutely no way the quantities given in the recipe was going to make enough to do that, so I just iced the top. I also used toasted whole almonds on top (instead of the slivers pictured in the cookbook), and hoped that these differences wouldn't hurt the flavor. It turned out to be a lot more moist than I was expecting, and tasted very good; the gentle hit of rum in both the cake and the icing was noticeable without being overpowering.

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American Cake - Cake #29: Brown Derby Grapefruit Cake

Time Period: 1917-1945

The legacy of the Brown Derby restaurant in Los Angeles is based on three things: Being the in place to spot celebrities eating back in the heyday of Hollywood, the Cobb salad, and this cake. Though the recipe used to make this particular cake didn't derive from that restaurant's kitchen, they did serve grapefruit chiffon, allegedly because the clientele requested a healthier alternative to other desserts. Insisting that a restaurant create a brand new menu item so that you can pretend you're not still eating cake is the most American thing I've ever heard, so this fits right into this project.

This cake has another significance as well. Grapefruit is one of Tiddy's favorite things to eat, so given that this incorporates grapefruit sections, grapefruit juice, and grapefruit zest, I could think of no better birthday cake to make him. I wish I could have made the final product look a bit prettier and photogenic, but this cake was a rousing success where it counted. It was a little bitter for me, but the birthday boy loved it.

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American Cake - Cake #28: 17th-Century Cheesecake

Time Period: 1650-1799

Cheesecake may seem like a relatively modern recipe, but it's actually got a long history, dating back to the Greeks and Romans. It enjoyed popularity with the first colonists since before the War of Independence, first appearing on a menu on an American menu in 1758. Unsurprisingly, Philadelphia was a hub for cheesecake in early America, where they used cheese curds similar to the ricotta we use today. 

One of the nice things about the more historic cakes in this book is that their flavors aren't derived from pure sweetness. The ricotta lends a tang that it slightly leavened by the currants, but this isn't a cake that blasts you with sugar. It turned out very well, and though it's very dissimilar to the more modern cheesecakes you'd get in a restaurant or bakery, it offers more than just a peek into history; I'd happily eat this one again.

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American Cake - Cake #27: Louisiana Syrup Cake

Time Period: 1900-1916

Cultural lines are drawn all over America, but in matters both political and culinary, the South has always been a realm unto itself. Citizens of French descent in particular had their own argot, their own religious practices, and of course, their own recipes. In the cake world, one of those specialized desserts was the syrup cake (or gâteau de sirop). Small communities in Louisiana had easy access to sugarcane, and the cane syrup derived from those crops was used to make this spice cake. That's not to say everyone made them the same way; even within the community itself, there are vast differences. I looked up this cake on the internet, and every recipe was wildly variant.

I couldn't find cane syrup at the store, and didn't really care to, as I read about the Cajun variant that uses fig preserves, instead, and that sounded far more appealing. There is no butter in this cake; the fat comes from vegetable oil, and the added fig preserves made for an incredibly moist result. It turned out to be very good. The spices and fig gave it a homey, traditional flavor that could really shine, since the relatively low amount of sugar means than it wasn't too sweet. This one is a keeper.

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American Cake - Cake #26: Bangor Brownies

Time Period: 1870-1899

Hopefully, nobody asks you too much at a trivia contest about the origin of brownies. Are they named after the pixie-like characters in Palmer Cox's cartoons and poems? Are they named after the color, derived originally from the toasted nuts and molasses used to make them? Did they first come about because someone forgot to throw baking powder into the mixing bowl? Did someone at a chocolate company simply decide to toss in extra egg and chocolate to the cake recipe? All of these are described as possibly having a hand in the brownie's inception. This recipe honors the deep roots that brownie have in Maine, though at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, chocolate cake was already being cut into squares for portability.

As far as the project goes, I am quickly running out of easy recipes. Almost gone are the days of simply mixing six ingredients, then baking. Before we transition to the more complicated cakes, though, turning out this pan of brownies took hardly any effort. They were fairly tasty, though I wouldn't say this recipe blew me away. The brownies also didn't solidify quite enough, which meant that cutting and serving turned into a very messy process. Still, they were a satisfying dessert to serve at an afternoon of playing cards with friends; brownies are the laid-back member of the cake family, and that makes them welcome at almost any event.

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American Cake - Cake #25: Cinnamon Flop

Time Period: 1900-1916

Though a lot of cakes depend on eggs for their batters, there are plenty of home kitchens throughout American history that didn't have them in the fridge ready to go. Without the electricity from refrigerators and mixers, the Amish population in Pennsylvania had to depend on staples and hand-stirring. The cinnamon flop was a popular one in the early 1900s, and though nobody is quite sure how the word "flop" derived in this context, this cake has been a stalwart for the Amish ever since.

I made this one as a birthday cake for Tiddy while I was on a conference call for work, so you know its steps weren't too complicated. It served well as both an after-dinner dessert and a next-day coffee cake, though as with most eggless cakes, it didn't take long to dry out over the next couple of days. 

It's unlikely this cake will wind up in the top ten by the end of the project, but as a rough-and-ready dessert that can be whipped up in a hurry, it performed admirably.

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American Cake - Cake #24: Malinda Russell's Washington Cake

Time Period: 1800 - 1869

This recipe was published as part of a 39-page booklet named A Domestic Cookbook in 1866. It was created by Malinda Russell, a free woman of color, and is thought to be the first cookbook by an African-American woman in our country's history. Mrs. Russell is thought to have run her own boardinghouse and pastry shop, and her recipes had a more European flair than her contemporaries. This cake, for example, is similar to an English-style pound cake. After the Revolutionary War, a lot of cakes began to be named after President Washington, but eventually, Washington cakes began to be categorized by being pound cakes infused with currants or lemon.

This is one of the lemon Washington cakes, as it contains both lemon juice and lemon zest. The citrus gave it a nice zing, and unlike another pound cake I've made, it was not dry. That said, I do not know what is wrong with my tube pan, as it often turns out cakes with raggedy patches torn out, like this one. Malinda Russell was no doubt better at presentation than I. Oh, well. At least it tasted good.

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American Cake - Cake #23: Moosewood Cardamom Coffee Cake

Time Period: 1963 - 1979

American Cake is not a political book. By that, I mean that although certain types of cakes are intensely regional, and thus associated with certain types of people, the focus of each of the entries is simply the cake's origin, without much comment as to the personality of the person who invented/perfected it. And that's how it should be in a cookbook. That said, the introduction to this 1973 cake pins it to "a group of Cornell students" that "opened a mostly vegetarian restaurant called The Moosewood Collective", and served "seasonal meals with ingredients from local farms". OK, so, hippies. Got it. One of the cooks went on to publish some of those recipes in The Moosewood Cookbook, which included this coffee cake, inspired by the flavors of Scandinavian baking. That cookbook went on to be entered by the James Beard Foundation into the Cookbook Hall of Fame, which is something I now desperately need to research.

As you can tell from the picture, this cake is not fooling around when it comes to butter. The cardamom goes directly into the cake batter, which is then divided into thirds and separated by two layers of filling that contains cinnamon, brown sugar, and chopped walnuts. I baked this as this year's birthday cake, and it turned out very well. The butter saves it from being too dry, though it still benefited from a big mug of coffee on the side, or at times, some whipped cream as a topping.

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American Cake - Cake #22: Hershey Bar Cake

Time Period: 1946 - 1962

Though a lot of the cakes in this project have main ingredients that are not native to America, there's no denying the origin of Hershey's chocolate. Milton Hershey apprenticed with a Philadelphia confectioner when he was a teenager, and there was no looking back. He built his company on the ideal of making chocolate affordable, and between that, stamping the name of his product right into the chocolate itself, and providing it as rations to wartime soldiers, it's little wonder that Hershey's became a national phenomenon.

This cake, which derives all of its chocolate from Hershey's products (no cocoa powder) first appeared in the 1950s. At the time, it contained more sugar, which was later reduced in place of Hershey's syrup to infuse even more chocolate into it. Some recipes even ask for more drizzled on top, but that seems like overkill.

Today, it's become very fashionable to bag on Hershey's for being mass-produced, processed, "fake" chocolate. To some extent, I get it. There are certain ingredients I want to be as pure and natural as possible, and I enjoy more thoughtfully-sourced chocolate of varying levels of darkness as much as the next guy. That said, I don't have any beef with Hershey's. Though I don't have much of a sweet tooth, when I do get the craving for candy, there's nothing wrong with a good ol' fashioned Hershey bar, and hey, if it's Mr. Goodbar, even better.

While Hershey's has now mostly been relegated to bite-sized candy to give out at Halloween, this cake wasn't bad. Would it replace traditional chocolate cake in any serious baker's cookbook? No, of course not. But much like the chocolate bars themselves, it was a perfectly serviceable dessert.

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American Cake - Cake #21: Mary's Cherry Upside-Down Cake

Time Period: 1946 - 1962

The entry for this cake is a little strange. It details a short history of Mary Drabik, a woman who had to make every penny count, so she grabbed every free sour cherry she could from her sister's trees, and made all sorts of things out of them, including this cake, which won first prize at the Minnesota State Fair in 2014. Why is some random lady's recipe included in a book meant to be a holistic representation of the country's cake history? Unclear. I suppose I could see an argument for it, since cherries are so popular nationally, and heirloom recipes are important when describing the evolution of American cake over time.

Here's another fun fact: I hate cherries and anything cherry-flavored. Still, a deal is a deal, and I agreed to bake every cake in this book. I used the opportunity of a Memorial Day BBQ to bake it for a potluck, and foisted it off on friends instead of eating any myself. I'm told it turned out very tasty, and will take their word for it!

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