If you’ve ever been to Maryland, you’ve probably tried Smith Island Cake. The officially declared state dessert is made up of at least seven layers of yellow or white cake with cooked fudge icing layered between, resulting in a thick, chocolatey slice that only severe sweet tooths may be able to finish.
However, this famous dish is much more than just a layer cake. Smith Island Cake originated in the early 1900s and has a romantic history.
What is Smith Island Cake?
Smith Island’s population, who number just about 200 today, have historically made a living from fishing. When the men would go out on the Chesapeake Bay, frequently for a week at a time, their wives would send them out with food in the shape of this cake, according to Elaine Eff, a retired Maryland state folklorist who helped build a museum for the island.
The cake served three purposes: the soldiers enjoyed sugar, they needed it for energy, and the layers of chocolate icing kept the cake wet. Furthermore, a giant cut of cake was so sweet that it might last longer than a standard piece of cake. Talk about a saccharine sendoff, right?
However, Eff explains that Smith Island Cake’s numerous thin layers were more of a necessity than a work of art.
To understand its origins, examine the time: Smith Island did not receive electricity until the 1950s, several decades behind the rest of the country, therefore house cooks had to rely on wood fires. They’d “bake” sweets in a metal box on top of their stove.
As you might expect, getting a thicker cake layer to rise and bake through was almost impossible. Instead, they got imaginative and poured a small amount of batter into many pans, repeating the process several times.
Without electricity, you cannot use a refrigerator. That’s why the original Smith Island Cake chocolate icing contained both sugar and chocolate. Because there was no butter, it did not need to be refrigerated, whether at home or on the ocean with the fisherman.
Two recipes are usually recognized as the origins of “from the stump” (i.e., made from scratch) Smith Island Cake. The first recipe, from Frances Kitching’s 1994 book “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook,” calls for four cups of sugar for the cake and icing, as well as ten nine-inch pans.
The second recipe, from Mary Ada Marshall, a Smith Island resident who has been cooking the cake for decades, takes a shortcut, beginning with a package of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix.
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Where Can I Buy Smith Island Cakes?
Today, not much has changed. A variety of Smith Island Cake recipes call for buttercream frosting, and bakeries across Maryland now create and distribute tens of thousands of cakes nationwide. (You may even purchase one from Goldbelly).
Smith Island Baking Company of Crisfield claims to sell over 30,000 Smith Island Cakes each year, or approximately 250 per day. Classic Cakes, in Salisbury, Md., is operated by two native Smith Island women who have been making cakes for nearly 20 years and currently offer over 20 different types of Smith Island Cake.
Smith Island Bakery, run by a family, is the only remaining commercial bakery on the island, and it is housed in the same structure as the island’s original cake bakery.
“We felt it was important to bring the cake-making back to Smith Island, where it originated,” explains co-owner Kathey Jones. She adds that Smith Island eateries bake their own cakes in-house, and some island women, known as cottage bakers, continue to produce and sell cakes from their houses.
While Smith Island Bakery’s method is private, “I don’t think there is any big secret to the recipe,” adds Jones. “It’s all [about] how Grandma taught you to make them.”
“The cake,” as the locals say, was and still is much more than cake. Smith Island is geographically isolated as Maryland’s sole inhabited island accessible only by sea, and most people still make their living on the water.
Men often go to work before sunrise, and their wives pick the crabs they catch and help in the shanties fishing soft crabs throughout the season, according to Wendy Robertson, tourism manager for Somerset County Recreation, Parks, and Tourism, which is immediately over the Tangier Sound from Smith Island.
However, their way of life is swiftly fading, and Smith Island Cake provides extra revenue for cottage bakers as well as a means of making ends meet, according to Robertson.
That’s one of the main reasons why, about 15 years ago, many state groups banded together to support legislation that would make Smith Island Cake the official state dessert. They presented precisely plated portions of cake to each member of Annapolis’ General Assembly while speaking to them through their stomachs. The bill passed, and the cake was named Maryland’s State Dessert in 2008.
“Since the designation, the cake has served as an ambassador of sorts, heightening awareness of the island and providing an economic boost not only to tradition bearers but to the region as well,” Robertson said.
If that isn’t a compelling cause to order a Smith Island cake or make your own, we don’t know what is. As Eff points out, Smith Island Cake is an integral component of the islanders’ culture.
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