Caramel cake! I've just spent ten minutes searching for the author and title of a book I read many years ago about a young man coming of age in the South whose mother sends him caramel cakes at college when he's feeling homesick. Just from the descriptions of these cakes and the characters' reactions to them, I knew this was something I wanted to try to make someday.
I would love to live on a cake commune! I haven't tried it yet. Unfortunately, my people are not cake people, so no one's ever said 'yes' when I've asked 'how about I make a caramel cake for the holiday dinner?' That, and I've only ever had caramel disasters in the kitchen. It and fudge are two candies I am never able to make despite careful watching and good thermometers.
Off and on all day yesterday between other activities I spent time googling "southern writers" "southern coming of age literature" "caramel cakes in books" "southern college caramel cake book" etc and couldn't find where I first read about one 25 years ago. The only thing that kept coming back were cookbooks and The Help. That drove me nuttier than a Hummingbird Cake.
And right after I posted this above, I returned to the search and almost immediately found my answer. My lament brought me good luck! Ferrol Sams' The Whisper of the River. I suspect NPR's Bailey White recommended it as a classic of Southern humor. I don't recall if it was all that, what stood out to me at first was this passage when the protagonist receives a care package from home:
"Porter instinctively clutched the box closer. The cake was a special, individualized expression of his mother's indulgence. She made each child's favorite cake on the appropriate birthday--banana for the older sister, amalgamation for the second daughter, and lemon cheese for the baby. Porter's burnt caramel was the most difficult to ice, and he had a sudden vision of his mother in the kitchen at home, patiently melting sugar in the black frying pan on the wood-burning stove, her face flushed and her dress wet across the shoulders with perspiration. This cake was an icon."
So it looks like "lemon cheese cake" was, in the 1800s, lemon curd. It sometimes seems to refer solely to the curd, but sometimes the finished dish, a lemon curd tart. Around 1900 it also began to refer to lemon-flavored cheesecake, in the dairy-based, Northern sense, BUT it was made with cottage cheese, not cream cheese. In 1913 in Georgia there is an ad for "lemon cheese layer cake," but recipes for the lemon curd tart are still printed all over the world, so we've got all three varieties rolling around.
In the 1930s the three are, almost exclusively, split regionally: England and the colonies use the term for lemon tart, the northern U.S. use it for cheesecake, and the South uses it for layer cake with a lemon curd filling. I found a couple examples of the latter listed among Lane and Lady Baltimore cakes.
Ultimately I found the simplest answer in Anne Byrn's book: "The creamy texture of cheesecake is universally loved. That texture is what the colonists came to know as “cheese,” and they gave that name to desserts that might not contain cheese at all—such as a lemon “cheese” cake, also called jelly cake, of Virginia that contained no cheese but had a lemon curd filling between the sponge cake layers."
I love that Anne Byrn book! I’m so fascinated by cake history, even though I’m actually not a big cake eater (more of a pie or cookie gal). The caramel cake sounds tasty though.
And I just came across this Old Line Plate post about Lord and Lady Baltimore cakes: https://oldlineplate.com/lord-baltimore-cake-grace-e-j-hanson/
As a sweets lover, I appreciate this rundown of cakes. Gonna make the caramel cake soon!
Tell us how it goes!
fascinated by the lane and lady baltimore cakes! Please make and report back!
Cakes are not my forte but I will attempt them!
Caramel cake! I've just spent ten minutes searching for the author and title of a book I read many years ago about a young man coming of age in the South whose mother sends him caramel cakes at college when he's feeling homesick. Just from the descriptions of these cakes and the characters' reactions to them, I knew this was something I wanted to try to make someday.
Well did you make one?
I just went on such a journey in my head from "we should start a cake club" to "America: too big?" to "let's live on a cake commune!"
I would love to live on a cake commune! I haven't tried it yet. Unfortunately, my people are not cake people, so no one's ever said 'yes' when I've asked 'how about I make a caramel cake for the holiday dinner?' That, and I've only ever had caramel disasters in the kitchen. It and fudge are two candies I am never able to make despite careful watching and good thermometers.
Off and on all day yesterday between other activities I spent time googling "southern writers" "southern coming of age literature" "caramel cakes in books" "southern college caramel cake book" etc and couldn't find where I first read about one 25 years ago. The only thing that kept coming back were cookbooks and The Help. That drove me nuttier than a Hummingbird Cake.
And right after I posted this above, I returned to the search and almost immediately found my answer. My lament brought me good luck! Ferrol Sams' The Whisper of the River. I suspect NPR's Bailey White recommended it as a classic of Southern humor. I don't recall if it was all that, what stood out to me at first was this passage when the protagonist receives a care package from home:
"Porter instinctively clutched the box closer. The cake was a special, individualized expression of his mother's indulgence. She made each child's favorite cake on the appropriate birthday--banana for the older sister, amalgamation for the second daughter, and lemon cheese for the baby. Porter's burnt caramel was the most difficult to ice, and he had a sudden vision of his mother in the kitchen at home, patiently melting sugar in the black frying pan on the wood-burning stove, her face flushed and her dress wet across the shoulders with perspiration. This cake was an icon."
A bonus with more cakes! What would have been lemon cheese at the time? Amalgamation is another name for Lane Cake: https://www.tctimes.com/living/my_recipes/amalgamation-cake/article_bc2d554c-bdda-11e4-a0fa-e3d53e4279f9.html
I love that you found the book! And the amalgamation cake is a real doozy - the recipe you linked to doesn't include jam, but most of them do, and jam cake is another Southern classic I almost included, along with coconut cake, and coconut is hugely important to amalgamation cake .... So, 1) that name is no lie, and 2) now I have to read these papers: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26476899?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents; https://www.jstor.org/stable/26217380?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
Lemon cheese has sent me on a journey, will reply separately...
This is the best journey ever
SO MANY CAKE JOURNEYS
So it looks like "lemon cheese cake" was, in the 1800s, lemon curd. It sometimes seems to refer solely to the curd, but sometimes the finished dish, a lemon curd tart. Around 1900 it also began to refer to lemon-flavored cheesecake, in the dairy-based, Northern sense, BUT it was made with cottage cheese, not cream cheese. In 1913 in Georgia there is an ad for "lemon cheese layer cake," but recipes for the lemon curd tart are still printed all over the world, so we've got all three varieties rolling around.
In the 1930s the three are, almost exclusively, split regionally: England and the colonies use the term for lemon tart, the northern U.S. use it for cheesecake, and the South uses it for layer cake with a lemon curd filling. I found a couple examples of the latter listed among Lane and Lady Baltimore cakes.
Here are my precious clippings! https://www.newspapers.com/clippings/?user=14734903%3Akatherinespiers&tag=lemon%20cheese%20cake
Ultimately I found the simplest answer in Anne Byrn's book: "The creamy texture of cheesecake is universally loved. That texture is what the colonists came to know as “cheese,” and they gave that name to desserts that might not contain cheese at all—such as a lemon “cheese” cake, also called jelly cake, of Virginia that contained no cheese but had a lemon curd filling between the sponge cake layers."
OMG you have hijacked my Monday morning with cakes!
I won't rest till everyone's obsessed!
I love that Anne Byrn book! I’m so fascinated by cake history, even though I’m actually not a big cake eater (more of a pie or cookie gal). The caramel cake sounds tasty though.
I'm the exact same! There's somehow more intrigue around cake ... probably because they're so Southern :)
Lol yes 😄