Sandwich Cake: Why?

    Cookbooks and food are somethings that feel almost universal or shared across certain places and times. However, there are a lot of old recipes that are agreed upon by people as being disgusting or they are confused about why it was even a thing that existed in the first place. One of the recipes that people point out as weird, that at least to me seems reasonable, is sandwich cake.

    You might be thinking from the name alone that sandwich cake is along the lines of just being a layer cake with a filling like jam. But it’s name is actually a little more literal than that.

    A sandwich cake is best described as having the visual and structural elements of a cake, but with the savory ingredients and flavors of a sandwich. For example, while a cake might have chocolate frosting and a jam filling between the layers, sandwich cake would have cream cheese as a frosting and a chicken salad filling between layers of bread. Sandwich cakes are amazing creations that many attribute to a seemingly bizarre time of food experimentation that occurred around the 1950's.

    This association with the 1950's is not wrong, as you can find plenty of photos online of old cookbooks mentioning sandwich cakes and showing images of them. I personally have an old Betty Crocker cookbook from the 1950's that helped introduce me to the food. You can also find many other recipes from this era online that people find atrocious like aspic. So while you can draw the conclusion that many made poor food decisions back then and they shouldn't be repeated, I think it’s more fun to ask why. Why do we think these things are bad? Surely if they were as bad as we think they wouldn’t have made it into so many cookbooks. Or is it the case that they were truly bad back then, but did they somehow have an elevated place over recipes that might have been more deserving of being in a cookbook?

    First regardless of being good or bad, a sandwich cake seems to be portrayed as a party food for a luncheon or a tea. Party food isn’t necessarily everyday food, when you host a party there tend to be some dishes that are somewhat reserved for more special occasions. A sandwich cake is unique because it’s an everyday food dressed up for the party like the guests are in a sense. So it might be in a cookbook because of the spectacle of it, while also being somewhat simple to assemble because no baking is involved if you buy or have all the components. From this outside perspective of it being both a sort of spectacle for parties and easy to make, then it makes sense why the sandwich cake might have been a thing or have been popular.

     So would you make it? Here is the recipe from my copy of Betty Crocker's Guide to Easy Entertaining:

There are many variations on the sandwich cake and are quite easy to find recipes on Pinterest for it. 

Would you make it or have you made it? Why do you think Sandwich cakes were popular? Would you like to see me try it? Please let me know what you think!

Cook Book:

General Mills. (1959). Betty Crocker's Guide to Easy Entertaining: How to Have Guests -and Enjoy Them. New York, New York: Golden Press.