I have a book called United Cakes of America, and a couple of entries in there are the Dover Cake and the Smith Island Cake.
Poke cake, maybe called Jello Cake - after your white cake is done, you use the handle of a wooden spoon to poke holes in it, pour in jello, and refrigerate. This makes a very moist cake.
Some of my midwest family still makes something called a Texas Sheet Cake for special occasions. I’m not sure what it is (heard about it, not there for the occasion where it was served).
On the flip side, why are gingersnaps called ginger nut biscuits over in England? There are no nuts and it’s a cookie, not a biscuit (I know, biscuits can = cookies in England.)
Also, ginger-nut are soft cookies, which I like better than the crunchy kind.
I like to think of Boston Creme Pie as being a big Whoopie Pie. Which just pushes the “why do they call this cake a pie?” question back one step, I know.
So-called “coffee cake” is usually a simple yellow cake recipe with cinnamon-sugar streusel and/or sour cream in it somewhere. Does not contain coffee.
Ambrosia cake is a cakeified version of a Southern US dessert called ambrosia, typically containing coconut, orange and marshmallow.
Oh yeah, and pound cake is a yellow cake traditionally containing one pound each of butter, flour, sugar and eggs, though modern recipes vary that a bit. That’s not a particularly fancy cake name but it’s not exactly self-explanatory like “chocolate cake”.
You can see a lot of these being made on older episodes of Martha Stewart Bakes, where she would dive into a region of the US and make some of its specialties. I specifically remember Lane cake, and there were lots of others that I had never heard of or seen before.
More recent episodes seem to be focusing on middle eastern food. Maybe she ran out of regions in the US to explore. Or maybe she is paying the piper for one of her “sponsors.”
For extra confusion, make some crab cakes and johnny cakes.
But you should pass on the urinal cake.
It’s a single-layer very sweet chocolate cake with chocolate icing made in a 9x13 pan.
I literally almost spewed a mouthful of coffee!
The cake is a lie!
No kidding. :rolleyes:
Chiffon cake, which is a description of the finished cake texture rather than flavor or ingredients. If you say you’re making a layer cake or a sheet cake most people would get it. Chiffon is not one you can guess.
Because nuts are hard, and so are ginger biscuits?
And yes, they ARE biscuits. Cookies are American, and softish. Gingernuts are hard and, to me, feel decidedly British biscuit-ish.
I’m not much of a dessert person, but I’ll occasionally enjoy Tiramisu with an espresso after dinner.
Coffee cake is so named because it’s meant to be consumed with coffee.
Then there are Teacakes. Exactly what they are apparently depends on where you eat them.
Yes, I know. I mentioned it because it falls in the OP’s category of “American cake names that aren’t simple self-explanatory descriptions of what’s in the cake”.
I’ve never had it, but I always assumed it’s some type of meringue, based on the name. Looking at the ingredients, it seems like that’s what it is, more-or-less, though somebody who’s had it can maybe describe it a bit better. I don’t think the name is that abstruse.