Maryellen's Sweet Story Cake

A retro recipe due for some time in the spotlight!

Have you been wondering what to make for Valentine's Day this year? Look no further! This vintage cake is the perfect thing for a dessert that's just a little bit different, but in a way you're sure to love. 

At least, that was my experience with it. I know I'm often quick to say I have a new favorite dessert recipe after trying out a historical or historically inspired recipe, but this cherry and almond flavored cake had a really unique flavor that totally made it worth hand pearling the decoration. Read on to see how to make this vintage 1948 recipe yourself!

I first stumbled upon this recipe when I discovered the Mid-Century Menu, a blog dedicated to trying out mostly mid-century recipes and seeing how they hold up to a modern palate. In some ways, it's pretty similar to how I approach A Peek into the Pantry, although RetroRuth's photos (the author) are a lot more beautiful than mine. Her posts are always a really interesting read, and she's very, very adventurous in which recipes she decides to try her hand at. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who's looking for even more mid-century food history. 

This recipe for Sweet Story Cake comes from a 1948 advertisement for Spry shortening - with cake improver! Ruth has a large personal collection of period advertisements and cookbooks, and noted that she was able to find similar cherry flavored cakes from Spry that predate this recipe, but the Sweet Story cake is what really grabbed the public's attention. She was able to find references to it throughout the 50's and 60's, with people noting that they often baked it for Valentine's Day or anniversaries. One woman apparently had it for her wedding cake! Which is admittedly giving me some ideas for our upcoming vow-renewal-slash-big-reception this August. 

Ruth says she initially found this recipe in a 1960's magazine, where a reader had written in saying she had misplaced her copy of the recipe and wanted to know if anyone else had a copy. The reader response was so huge, the magazine couldn't print the name of every person who fulfilled the request. Pretty cool that this cake was so popular, but definitely interesting thinking about how it's completely fallen off most people's radar all within living memory. 

Although this is from 1948, the cake's enduring popularity through the 50's and 60's made me think this was a perfect recipe to feature for Maryellen. It easily could have been a recipe Mrs. Larkin set aside and made over and over again for her family. 

You can find other recipes for this cake online, and the recipe authors often credit their moms or grandmothers with introducing them to the cake. Maraschino cherries are a crucial ingredient, and that alone marks this as something retro to me. Most people turn their noses up at them outside of ice cream sundaes these days. 

Spry advertised that their recipes helped bakers finish their cakes two thirds faster by changing up a crucial step in cake baking: you don't need to cream your butter and sugar together, or fully separate your wet and dry ingredients. 

Instead, you put 2 1/2 cups of cake flour, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 3 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 cup shortening in a bowl. In a measuring cup, combine 1/4 of a cup of maraschino cherry juice with 3/4 cups of milk, and then pour 3/4 of this mixture into the dry ingredients. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 2 teaspoons of almond extract, then beat it on low for two minutes. 

Once that's done, add the rest of the liquid and the whites of four eggs and beat it for another two minutes.

Chop 18 maraschino cherries and 1/2 cups of pecans (or walnuts) into small pieces, and then fold these into the batter. 

Now, I learned long ago to flour my fruit before putting it in cake batter, but I have to admit I still approach truly vintage recipes with a healthy amount of wariness. Ingredients can and have changed over time, so I've found it's better to be safe than sorry and not experiment too heavily when trying it out the first time. This is why I actually bothered to use cake flour instead of regular flour for this recipe. I literally had the thought as I went to throw the cherries into the batter that "gee, probably should have floured this even though the recipe didn't say I should", but by then it was too late and I threw them in. 

The original recipe technically calls for baking the batter in two 9 inch pans and then cutting them into heart shapes, but I found a really cheap heart shaped cake pan on a GoodWill run and decided to give it a shot. As I quickly discovered, my pan was a little too shallow to give the cake enough room to rise, which means my resulting cake came out a lot denser than it probably would have otherwise. 

The cake bakes at 375 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes if you're making it in two pieces, or 350 for 45 to 50 minutes if you're baking it in one layer like I did.

I was really careful with this pan, having never baked in it before. I greased it with butter, lined it with parchment paper, greased it again, and floured it. This made removing it from the pan after baking super, super easy, and I left it to cool before frosting it. 

Besides the cake being a little denser than it should be, there was also a noticeable dip in the middle of the pan. This made me really wary about cutting it into two layers to get it looking like the real deal.

The frosting is pretty simple too. Beat 2 tablespoons of shortening, 2 tablespoons of butter, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract in a bowl until everything is light, fluffy, and well combined. Alternately add 4 cups of powdered sugar with 9 tablespoons of scaled cream. The cream should still be warm. Add just enough of the cream to get the cake to a nice spreading consistency, you don't want it to be too liquidy. Finally, drop in a few droplets of red or pink food coloring and mix until you've got a nice pale pink color. 

Ruth warned that her cake came out a little dry and recommended frosting your cake as soon as possible to help trap in some of the moisture. Because my cake ended up coming out a little more dense than light, it stayed pretty moist regardless, but still a good tip if yours came out more perfectly.

 

RetroRuth also recommended doubling this frosting recipe to make sure you've got enough to frost and fill your cakes. I didn't have enough powdered sugar to do this and figured since I wasn't going to be filling the inner layer, I wouldn't need to worry about it. 

As it turned out, I literally had just enough frosting to cover my one layer cake. I definitely wouldn't have had enough to frost the sides, top, and an inner layer with the amount of frosting I had. 

Texture wise, it felt a little grainy, but it spread nicely and looked good on the cake. I feel like I'm finally getting a little more confident frosting and decorating cake. 

Speaking of which...

The original recipe recommends taking a toothpick and writing a Valentine's message on top, then filling it with silver dragees. I couldn't find those, so I ended up using white pearls. I think I suffered from John Mulaney going too big, too fast on this one, but the message seems legible enough, and I was pretty proud of it. 

One complaint was that my grocery store had pink pearls mixed in with black and silver pearls, but no packets of red. The pink, white and black color schemed works for a Maryellen themed cake, but I would have preferred red for a more explicitly Valentine's look.

Not too bad though, right? 

(Okay, I'm really proud of it.)

Okay, let's cut into it!

So, as you can see, the fruit and nuts did indeed drop right to the bottom. Also, cutting a heart shaped cake into a perfect triangle shape is really tricky. But taste wise? Oh man, this cake was really good. 

Like I said in the intro, the flavors are definitely unique and fun for 2019. The maraschino cherry juice brings a nice fruity flavor to the cake that isn't sickeningly sweet or overpowering, and the pecans and cherries compliment it well. The almond extract is definitely present, but similarly not overpowering. It's a nice, light, delicate flavor. 

You know what was a little overpowering? The frosting. It was extremely sweet, almost to the point of hurting your teeth. After realizing just how sweet it was, I was actually pretty happy I didn't have more to heap on the cake.  I also think the Spry advertisement promising that the "Spry Method" of mixing all your ingredients in one bowl overstated how much time this would save you. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated only having one mixing bowl to clean for the cake batter, but it didn't take two thirds less time to make this cake happen.

I made this cake last weekend, and already Jess and I are plotting when we can make and enjoy it again. Next time, I think I'd skip the frosting entirely and maybe just dust it with powdered sugar. This seemed like something that would be really fun as an accompaniment to an afternoon tea. 

Hope you've enjoyed this look at a really fun vintage cake, and don't forget to check out The Mid-Century Menu! Maybe you'll find some other inspiration for vintage treats to enjoy yourself.

And happy Valentine's Day!