Smith Island Cake

I was charged with bringing a dessert to a family party on Sunday and wanted to make something that would make an impression. As I thought about what to bring, I remembered recently seeing an article about Smith Island Cakes. I spent a lot of time on Smith Island when I was working at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation many years ago and have a lot of fond memories of these islands located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.As I mentioned in the previous post, I looked for a recipe on Epicurious, but it was an epic fail. I searched a little more and found a recipe on Saveur’s website. It seemed pretty similar to the others I had seen, so I used that one.

Their recipe said to use Duncan Hines cake mix, but to change it to use a stick of butter, a can of evaporated milk and some additional flour. It also called for chopped peanut butter/chocolate cups, but that seemed to be too much. Instead, I used crushed peppermint candy canes on top.

The main problem with the recipe is that they say ice the cake five minutes after you cook the icing. Of course, it all just slides off the top of the cake and puddles around the bottom. Luckily, I was using a high-sided plate, so it didn’t matter. As we served the pieces of cake, we just scooped the extra icing on to it.It seemed to be a big hit with everyone and there were just two small pieces left, so they went home with two siblings.