Lady Baltimore cake

Did You Know?

• The first printings of the recipe appeared in newspapers including Harrisburg's Daily Gazette and Bulletin, The Columbus Journal, and The Washington Times in 1906.
• Modern versions may use meringue, boiled, or seven-minute frosting, and may include rum or liqueurs in the filling.
• A version called Lord Baltimore cake is made with leftover egg yolks instead of whites.

History

The most popular legend holds that Southern belle Alicia Rhett Mayberry baked and served the cake to novelist Owen Wister in Charleston, South Carolina. Wister was said to have been so taken with it that he used its name for his novel Lady Baltimore, which includes a description of the cake. Food historians suggest the cake may have actually originated with Florence and Nina Ottolengui, longtime managers of Charleston's Lady Baltimore Tea Room, who developed it from a version of the common Queen cake.

The Ottolenguis reportedly baked and shipped a cake annually to Owen Wister as thanks for making their creation famous, and at Christmastime they shipped hundreds of cakes across the country. The cake is currently made by Charleston's Sugar Bakeshop. The first recorded mentions of a cake called "Lady Baltimore" began appearing in 1906, with newspaper articles referring to it as the "famous" or "original" cake.