Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[Donna McCreary]

(01-30-2013 07:48 PM)L Verge Wrote:  I first read the recipe for this cake shortly after I got out of college. My mother had just purchased The Presidents' Cookbook by Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks. The authors/editors claim that there were verifiable reports that Lincoln thought this was the best cake he ever ate. They then went on to quote his sister-in-law, Mrs. Edwards, who found it high praise indeed since Lincoln "ate mechanically - I have seen him sit down at the table and never unless recalled to his senses would he think of food."

The cake was an invention of Monsieur Giron, a Lexington caterer, who created it in honor of Lafayette's 1825 visit to that city. The Todd family obtained the recipe and held onto it.

In the same cookbook is a recipe labeled Mary Todd's Courting Cake. It intrigued me because the recipe was almost identical to one that my mother called her Burnt Sugar Pound Cake -- just a little lighter in texture. Supposedly several Lincoln biographers mentioned this cake as being prepared by Miss Todd when Lincoln came courting. The recipe was traced back through the Todd family to Mary Hosford, a granddaughter of one of Mary's cousins, who included it in a cookbook that she published. Supposedly her father was proud of being related to Mary Lincoln and told many sad stories about her trials in life. Evidently this cake was one thing about Mary Lincoln that no one ever complained about.

Sorry I did not see this post before now. Even though the topic has moved on, I have to respond to comments about the cake.
Roger, I can tell from the page number you mentioned that you have the first edition of Lincoln's Table. You need the second edition.
In the second edition, information regarding the White cake and Lincoln's "favorite" cake is found on pages 73 - 82. Yes, the story is that complicated.

The recipe found in the 1st edition was given to me by a staff member at the former Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, IN. Later, I asked them where they found the recipe. Answer -- from a Lincoln scholar (no names please). I called him and asked him where he found the recipe. Answer -- in the files of Emilie Todd Helm in Lexington, Kentucky. During my next trip to Lexington, I found the recipe card the scholar had mentioned. It was an index card titled "Mary's White Cake." It did not mention which Mary - did not even say "Mary Lincoln" - there was no mention of this recipe being Abraham's favorite -- no mention of Monsieur Mathurin Giron -- no icing recipe. It was nothing more than a basic recipe for a white cake.

I then called the scholar and asked why he thought this was the white cake. Answer: It just had to be because everyone had heard the story about M. Giron's cake - knew the story about Lincoln's favorite cake - and this was the only recipe in Emilie's papers. For over thirty years, he had been promoting this recipe as the same one created by M. Giron. I asked him about a connection to the icing recipe. Answer: It goes well with the cake.

Further investigation led to an article about early Kentucky famous recipes which included the recipe from M. Giron. He called it the Lafayette Cake.[i] It does not contain almonds, but it does call for 24 egg whites. What is called Mary Todd's Vanilla Almond White Cake[/i] has one cup of blanced almonds. The version of the recipe that Mary used is the same one published in Leslie's Directions for Cookery. The icing recipe often associated with the white cake also appears in 19th century cookbook.

There is no documentation that the white cake was Lincoln's favorite. However, the story prevails. According to others, when Lincoln visited the Todd family he was given a flavorful pecan cake that Lincoln proclaimed was "the best cake I ever ate!" What was really his favorite cake? Lincoln enjoyed a good piece of cake, and as a gracious guest, his 'favorite' was probably the one most recently handed to him.

Recipes for all the cakes mention here, and a recipe for the very similar cake titled the "Lincoln-Douglas Cake" are in Lincoln's Table.