Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[L Verge]

Donna - I don't have access to your cookbook at home. Is the icing recipe called Candied Fruit Frosting? That is what is carried in The Presidents' Cookbook (1968 - no citations of sources). It gives a variation of icing that is just white icing with grated coconut. They call it Merry Christmas Cake. It has always been just Snowball Cake in southern regions that I'm familiar with.

Would love to know the original source for the story of this Todd cake. Given that The Presidents' Cookbook is now over fifty years old, could the authors have started the story? I will say one thing, if the recipes attributed to the Lincoln household in that cookbook really were Lincoln favorites, old Abe should have ended up as wide as he was long!