A piece of cake: Beehive cake stand sparks memories from bygone eras

Mother's Day often sparks memories of cakes.

Not the fancy kind bought at the bakery, but the kind that Mom, or Grandma, likely baked herself.

It seems that long before the Internet, cake recipes somehow were able to quickly spread from one part of the country to another. For instance, the Texas Sheet Cake, the Tunnel of Fudge and the Watergate Cake.

During the open house for Deseret Book's new flagship store, several Deseret News staffers were charmed by a beehive cake stand displayed with other plates and dinnerware. That sparked thoughts of memorable cakes, and I was challenged to come up with a honey of a cake to go along with the Beehive theme. Who knows, in the "Beehive State" of Utah, it might become a classic.

Some cakes helped define an era, such as War Time Cake, which was improvised due to food rationing during World War II.

A recipe for a cake that used no eggs, milk or butter was included in the Betty Crocker booklet "Your Share," it offered tips to make the most of war time rationing coupons, such as stretching ground meat with Wheaties. The War Time Cake, uses no eggs, milk, or butter. While it's unlikely that many people are clamoring for it today, it does bring back memories of an earlier era.

Watergate Cake mania took over in the 1970s. No one seems to know why a cake that uses pistachio pudding and 7-Up soda would be dubbed "Watergate," after the political scandal of the decade.

The cake, as well as Watergate Salad, quickly took hold after Kraft Foods introduced instant pistachio pudding mix in 1975. A 1976 Washington Post article joked about a new "Watergate crisis," because only one firm, Royal Pudding, distributed pistachio pudding in the D.C. area, and supermarkets weren't able to keep up with the demand.

It adds, "No one, meanwhile, seems able to pinpoint the origin of this Watergate, the recipe for which has appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Washington Post. Nor can anyone explain how the cake got its name or why pistachio is the main flavoring. One current explanation leans on the presence of crushed walnuts in the cake — 'bugs' in the parlance of kids."

The directions for most of the recipes of that era call for baking in a 9-by-13-inch pan. But in the Deseret News test kitchen, we dressed it up a little by making it into a double-layer cake with the "Cover Up" icing in the middle.