"Let them eat cake!" is a translation of the French "qu'ils mangent de la brioche." While typically attributed to Marie Antoinette, the original source is not settled among historians. Before Antoinette ascended to the throne, some believe Jean-Jacques Rousseau used the phrase while writing about an insensitive aristocrat who offered this advice to peasants unable to afford bread. The line has also been attributed to Maria Theresa of Spain, dating it before Antoinette was born.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seven Famous Cakes What Strange Names

Cakes were called "plakous" by the Greeks, from the word for "flat." These cakes were usually combinations of nuts and honey. They also had a cake called "satura," which was a flat heavy cake.

During the Roman period, the name for cake (derived from the Greek term) became "placenta." They were also called "libum" by the Romans, and were primarily used as an offering to their gods. Placenta was more like a cheesecake, baked on a pastry base, or sometimes inside a pastry case.

Culinary evidence confirms the practice of naming cakes for their measurements dates up to the 18th century. In the days when many people couldn't read, this made it easier to remember these recipes. Pound cake is of this genre and was composed of the same basic ingredients to the 1234 cake.

I have always liked making cakes and was in my element on finding

Chocolate Demise

I made two of this cake for the Twins 21^st Birthday. They were just great for an auspicious occasion. it is a layer of flourless chocolate cake, a layer of ganache, a pecan tuile, a layer of ganache, a pecan tuile, a layer of ganache, a pecan tuile, a layer of ganache, a pecan tuile, a layer of ganache, a layer of flourless chocolate cake, topped off by a final layer of ganache. Decorated with rolled pecan tuiles.

Beware this beautiful cake is super rich! The recipe is from Death by Chocolate : The Last Word on a Consuming Passion and one of the best high quality dessert books by Marcel Desaulniers. The recipe is long and complex and I will assume most of you will not attempt to make it.

If you do want to make it, please ask for it

"Devil's Food”. A cake made with dark chocolate, so called because it is supposedly so rich and delicious, it must be somewhat sinful, although I make the comment with a little humor.

What is chocolate cake?

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 for devil's food proliferated, in the first decades of the 20th century. 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. 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. Maybe it was as dark and rich as angel food was light and airy...In the early 1900s there were a number of bizarre variations on Devil’s Food Cake.

"Devil's Food, though a new cake in our household, had made its startling appearance in Chicago in the middle eighties, and by the time it reached our small family of five sons, it was just the rage.

Mum could cook dinner, served hot, for 10. Beat up a cake for supper, an hour before the guests arrived. But not this 'Chocolate Demise'

It should be made when you have lots of time and plenty of patience. I practiced several times before I made two neigh on perfect ones.

Twelfth Night Cake (aka Rosca de Reyes, Gateau des Rois, King Cake) honors the Three Wise Men who visited the baby Jesus on the 12th day after his birth. This Christian holiday is called Epiphany, Twelfth Night, and Three Kings Day.

The cake is a basic yeast-based brioche filled with dried fruits and nuts. The recipe descends from Ancient Arab recipes. The practice of serving this particular cake, often with a prize or bean inside, around Christmas time actually predates Christian times. Ancient Romans served a similar item. The traditional King Cake, as we know it today, was made by Christians throughout most of Europe by the Middle Ages. King cakes were introduced to America by European settlers. In places settled by Spanish missionaries (Mexico, South America, Florida, California), Rosca de Reyes was served. In the United States, the King Cakes of New Orleans are probably the most well known.

In France the cake was known as gateau des Rois, or king's cake, in honour of the Wise Men, whose feast Epiphany is; in Louisiana it is "king cake"; in Germany it is Dreikongskuchen; it is the Black Bun in Scotland; in Portugal it is bola-rei; and in Spain it is Rosca de Reyes."

---The World of Christmas, Gerry Bowler [McClelland & Stewart: Toronto] 2000 (p. 230)

Depression Cake.

Coping in the kitchen during the Great Depression and after the war. This sugarless, eggless cake was developed during the First World War. "Sugar, the cheapest and most compact form of energy...was saved for the men overseas, so creative cooks learned to use molasses, honey, or corn syrup instead. For scarce wheat, they substituted barley, oats, for corn; for butter they used vegetable oil.”

By the time I was 15 years of age I was sick of eating this cake, as my mother would make it at least once a month. It was all she could afford to make, as there was a lack of money and also a lack of the various products to even imagine make something more grandiose.

Four: - Baumkuchen -- the King of Cakes!

A true test of a pastry chef's skills, the Baumkuchen has earned its reputation as the "King of Cakes." This labor-intensive specialty gets its name, which translates literally as Tree Cake, from the many thin rings that form as layer upon layer of cake is baked. For more than 200 years German bakers have been producing this treat by placing a thin spit over a heat source, originally a wood fire, then evenly brushing batter over it, giving each new layer a chance to bake to a golden brown before brushing on the next. When the cake is removed and sliced, each layer is divided from the next by a golden line, resembling the rings on a crosscut tree. Skilled pastry chefs have been known to create cakes with 25 layers, weighing over 100 pounds and measuring more than 3 feet long. The recipe here is adapted for the home baker and uses a springform pan instead of a spit. Of course the ring effect won't be exactly the same, but the taste is still worth the effort and you won't have to spend your Christmas holiday cleaning drips of burned batter off the oven.

Again if you wish to make I will be very happy to forward on to you.

I have made it and it could be time consuming the first time you make it, especially if you add lots of layers. It is a little like adding one grain of sand to a beach.

Or if you wish to be a Devil’s Advocate or a Feminist, you may call it

Queen of Cakes

Known as the "Queen of Cakes," the Baumkuchen is a kind of layered cake, known in many countries throughout Europe. When cut, the cake reveals the characteristic golden rings that give it its name, Baumkuchen, which literally translates to "tree cake". Baumkuchen may be covered with sugar or chocolate glaze. With some recipes, the fully baked and cooled Baumkuchen is first coated with marmalade, and then covered with chocolate.

This I do like, the Marmalade I mean

What was Tunnel of Fudge cake?

This Pillsbury Bake Off winner is generally credited for putting the bundt cake on the American culinary map.

Ella Helfrich's recipe for her tunnel of fudge cake won second place the Pillsbury Bake-off in 1966, the bundt cake was virtually unknown? Bundt pans were originally made by Nordic Ware (and they still hold the trademark for the name) which was a small baking supply company that made specialty ethnic Nordic baking pans like the Rosette Iron, Ebleskiver Pan and Krumkake Iron. It wasn't until the tunnel of fudge cake recipe became famous that people started looking for bundt pans, which then was a specialty item. Nordic Ware had to open new production plants and hire workers around the clock to keep up with the demand caused by the recipe. Bundt pans were also given away with Pillsbury products as a special promotion. Now the bundt pan is standard in many kitchens although you can no longer make the exact recipe for the tunnel of fudge cake: it calls for packets of instant icing mix.

ORIGINAL RECIPE CIRCA 1966: I have a copy if you would like it.

It is said that Maids of Honour cakes date from a day in 1525 when Henry VIII saw Maids of Honour for one of his six Queens eating a platter of cakes with such joyous relish that he tried one himself, and found it very good. Another tradition says they were named for Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour when she lived at Richmond Palace, so rich in flavor and therefore became famous as Richmond Maids of Honour, which come from Richmond, a suburb of London, and are said to have been invented for the court of Henry VIII in the 16th Century.

Original Maids Of Honour are sweet curd cheese pastries, and make a perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea. The advice is to eat them warm, though they are still delicious when cold. With rigorous testing over the last 10 years or so, it seems that each pastry is lovingly handmade with each disc of puff pastry varying slightly, along with the dollop of sweet curd filling.

"A new Watergate crisis is sweeping the Washington area, but this time only homemakers and a few business men seem to care... The crisis stems from the growing popularity of a recipe for a concoction called "Watergate Cake," which demands large quantities of powdered pistachio pudding mix, both in the layer cake and in its light green icing. Apparently, only one firm, Royal Pudding, a division of Standard Brands, Inc., distributes pistachio pudding in the Washington area....If the sales spurt is not directly attributable to the popularity of Watergate Cake... "Then we don't know why this product has suddenly taken off. It's been just phenomenal..." Barry Scher, a spokesman for Giant Foods, placed the blame not only on the recipe, but also on a coincidental shortage of pistachio nuts. "That was about five months ago, the spokesman said, "and as it ended, this recipe began circulating around

"A Watergate Cake Mania," Alexander Sullivan, Washington Post, February 26, 1976 (p. B2) [Recipe included, see below 1976]

"According to my sister-in-law who lives in Waynesboro, Virginia, the name of the cake became prominent in that part of the country because--Nixon liked Pistachio Nuts, hence (and a rather far-fetched reasoning) the name for the Watergate Cake, because synonymous with--Pistachio Nuts, Mrs. Nixon and Watergate. I had neither heard of Pistachio Pudding or the Watergate Cake until last fall we stopped to visit them, and she had the cake all ready for us to eat. However, her recipe is much different than the one printed in the Washington Post Thursday in your column. Sincerely yours, Virginia K. Wiszneauckas, Wheaton, Md." ---"That Cake," Washington Post, March 11, 1976 (p. VA2)

L i f e S t o r i e s o f C i v i l W a r H e r o e s

March 9, 1864

Tennessee

Dear D,

As we neared Tennessee, we heard about this marvellous lady cook.

It was my intention to visit this woman, and expend my pay, my entire pay, if necessary, to procure the most magnificent item in her inventory, and bring it to my companions for consumption.

As I sat on my mount and looked in the window, my eye was instantly drawn to the largest item on the table: a cake as big as a hatbox. Its sides rose in an impressive display of cylindrical symmetry, and its color was the deep golden brown of a ripened acorn. The lacy-white trails of the sugary icing collected in great puddles atop the magnificent cake, and streaked down the sides in swift and sweet races to reach the plate on which the cake rested. I stared, I dreamt, I sighed, and fell in love. I resolved that I must have that cake.

she asked me what I wanted. I could only point at the cake and murmur, "How much?" Without hesitation she named a number that expressed a much higher percentage of my humble pay than I expected, but equally without any hesitation of my own I shouted, "Sold!"

A moment later, her young son appeared in the yard with the cake in one hand and his other hand extended to receive my hard earned pay. I wondered how Ito transport this heavenly creation back to camp in one piece. I gently and lovingly cradled it in the crook of one arm, while holding the reins with the other. So slowly, I walk that horse and cake back to camp.

I ordered an armed squad to escort me to a small supply tent at the edge of camp. In the canvas-filtered light, I carefully placed the cake atop a wooden box and stepped out of the tent. Two sentries were posted at the entrance to the tent, and ordered to shoot, without question, anyone who approached within ten paces without giving the watchword. The watchword was only known by me. I did not impart the watchword even to the guards, to ensure no one could touch the cake, and also obligating one guard to shoot the other should he invade the sanctity of the cake.

Although we had been promised an afternoon with no dismounted drill, the Major had suddenly decided that the ground surrounding our camp, though hard and dry, had not been trampled enough in the preceding week. We were called out for a hot session of marching, wheeling and turning, all the time with intoxicating visions of heavenly cake swimming in front of us, drifting on the shimmering heat waves that rose from the ground.

As I wearily trudged back to camp, there suddenly came a clamorous shout and alarm from up ahead. "Enemy, the enemy!" are over running our Camp!

Arriving there, I came upon a horrible sight that made my blood run cold in my veins. The enemy's attack had been planned with cunning precision and timing. They had cowardly attacked in force while we were away. With great stealth, they had slipped past the guards that had been left behind, and had immediately taken every salient and strong point, and captured every crossing. They moved in numbers too large to estimate, their streaming lines moving endlessly and swiftly with ever growing numbers. Even as they spread across our front, overran our flanks. There was a sinister logic to their frenzied assault: they were all converging relentlessly on one point. Their desperate objective was clear to us now, and only a few of us stood between them and certain victory. The base of their target had been surrounded en masse, and they were now charging up the sides to claim the peak. already moving about the crest, beckoning the legions below to join them.

Pursuing them relentlessly, we ultimately arrived on the wide plateau where they were assembling. This is where the fighting became especially desperate, and horrible to behold. Having nothing left with which to fight them, we were forced to fix bayonets and dispatch them one by one. The enemy found themselves trapped and mired in sticky morasses that captured and held them fast. They squirmed and struggled, but it was no use; they were immobilized and had no choice but to flail helplessly in terror awaiting the point of our cold steel as we methodically confronted them one by one, impaled them, and flipped their still-writhing bodies to the depths below.

The battle was over in a matter of twenty minutes. We were tired, but victorious. Our honor had remained unstained. We could rest easy tonight, safe and proud in the knowledge that we had saved our cake from the vicious and savage invading ants that had tried to capture it!

That evening, we again ate pork that was all fat and no meat. We again ate cornmeal that contained more cob than corn, but we had our cake. We carved away great slices with our knives and filled our mouths and stomachs with the heavenly manna. It was well that we were eating in darkness, because who could tell how many of the enemy still remained in the hidden crevices and caves of that tasty terrain? But we did not care. We had fought hard and well to claim our prize, and we were determined to enjoy every crumb.

Yours truly,

Dutch Hoffmann