Origins of the Cake
No one knows the exact origin of the Smith Island Cake. Women have been
making the cakes on Smith Island for as long as anyone can remember. It seems
that every family on the island has their own recipe, handed down through
the generations. The Authentic Smith Island Cake is beloved the world over.
But how did these famous cakes come to be?
Legend has it that during the nineteenth century, when watermen would set
out from October to December for the oyster harvest, their wives would send
them with quilts, provisions, and cakes. Layer cakes became stale far too
quickly, so the women took to making thinner layers, and replaced butter
cream frostings with fudge. The cakes lasted longer, but more importantly,
the men preferred the taste and the presentation. Women began to take great
pride in incorporating more and more layers, making each one impossibly
thin, and frosting the cakes with their very own cooked fudge recipe. Thus,
the Smith Island Cake was born.