When I was a kid, the layers in a cake had the same frosting as the outside of the cakes. I don’t know when it happened – sometime in the '80s? – but somewhere along the line the default ‘office cake’ (a cake brought into the office to celebrate whatever) became jelly-filled. Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting, and raspberry jelly between the layers. Or a white cake or a yellow cake with jelly in it. I can’t remember the last time I had ‘office cake’ without jelly in it. What’s up with that?
Make mine yellow cake with chocolate frosting outside and inside.
A friend who went to England said the English just love to put jelly in cakes and other pastries. Consider it a rare treat, they do. Maybe they did that because of shortages during WWII and it carried over? But I haven’t seen jelly in a layer cake for decades and haven’t read of any trends to do so.
My Grandma used to make an apple jelly cake. She told me it was from the depression, it was very sweet, but good. All there was to it was one layer of yellow or sponge cake sliced very thin into four layers, and home-made apple jelly spread between the layers.
Kinda like a poor man’s torte, I guess. I haven’t had it since the '60’s, and now that I’m thinking of it, I want to try it again.
(Is it just me, or did Jim Henson see a picture of Franz Sacher at some time, and then subconsciously base the Swedish Chef muppet on him?)
I think it is tied up in preserves being literally a “preserved” delicacy within European tradition. Fruit, year round is a relatively new development… these are the classic preperations and flavors of our heritage. Europeans and the world in general are much more into candied fruit flavors than America… it also shows a lot more “sugar extravagence” on the part of the frosting cultures. We simply didn’t have to “cut” our sugar it was so bountiful and cheap.
You’re mischaracterising it somewhat – jelly (or more often jam) is hardly a rare treat, just a traditional option. Some cakes, pastries and puddings have jam in, some don’t.
And WWII shortages have nothing to do with it (at least as far as origins go) – it dates to when most jam was homemade. If you’ve a dozen jars of bramble jelly sitting in your larder, it becomes an obvious choice when you’re making something sweet – you use what you have; that’s just basic household economy.
… and it didn’t have jelly in it! It was carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Maybe all I had to do these years was mention the overabundance of jelly-filled cakes.
