A Bakehouse favorite from many years ago, Jake’s Cake is named after managing partner Amy Emberling’s son Jake, who’s all grown up now, and still loves this cake. It’s soft, fluffy, sweet, and light—“pillowy,” the people at the Bakehouse like to say—heavenly angel food cake made with lots of fresh egg whites, cane sugar, a small bit of flour, a touch of cream of tartar, and lots of vanilla extract and vanilla bean. This time of year, it’s particularly relevant because this lovely light cake marries so marvelously with berries.
Angel food cake is named for its lightness. A cake angels might eat. Although some will say it must have come down from heaven, culinary historians don’t seem to agree on its actual origins. Many give credit to Pennsylvania Dutch bakers. Others argue it was invented in the American South. Mrs. Porter’s New Southern Cookery Book has a recipe for “Snow-drift Cake” which was pretty much the same thing. Many historians agree that the invention of the eggbeater—which made making it much easier—in the 1860s increased its popularity. If it did come from the South, it was likely developed and perfected by enslaved women. In The American Pastry Cook, Jessup Whitehead says it came from St. Louis in 1894. And, he says, it was shipped from St. Louis all over the country in an early form of mail order. Some were even sent all the way to London.
In her 1881 cookbook, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Soups, Pickles, Preserves, Etc., Abby Fisher, a former enslaved woman who’d moved to San Francisco after Emancipation, calls it “Silver Cake.” To get the full context, the recipe on the top of the same page is “Gold Cake.” Gold cake is made with egg yolks. Silver cake starts with the egg whites you’d have set aside when you’re “going for the gold.” Mrs. Fisher had quite a business selling pickles and sauces in San Francisco and was a well-known local culinary authority. The book was published by the very progressive Women’s Co-operative Printing Office.
What I love best about angel food—or maybe I’ll say silver—cake is that it goes great with berries and as other fruits come into season, it’s well suited to them too. Just crush your berries and add a small bit of sugar. Let the juices come out for an hour or so, then ladle the berry mix over slices of the cake. Eat up and enjoy!
P.S. What Mrs. Fisher Knows was the second cookbook published (in 1881) by an African American woman. The first was Malinda Russell’s Domestic Cookbook, published in 1866, in Paw Paw here in Michigan. An original copy sits in the Longone Collection in the Hatcher Library on campus. You can see both women represented on what might well be my favorite (out of like 500) Zingerman’s T-shirt—the one with the artwork of my friend Patrick-Earl Barnes that’s taken from the wall piece “Blacks in Culinary” that he did for us at the Roadhouse. Proceeds from sales of the shirt support the African American Cultural and Historical Museum here in Ann Arbor.
Hungry for more?
- Order Jake’s Cake for local pickup at the Bakeshop (it goes on vacation September 2nd, so don’t delay!).
- Get your hands on our newest cookbook, Celebrate Every Day, for the recipe.
Ari Weinzweig
In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.
Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.
Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Ari regularly travels across the country (and world) on behalf of ZingTrain, teaching organizations and businesses about Zingerman’s approach to business. He is a sought-after Keynote speaker, having delivered keynotes for Inc. 500, Microsoft Expo Spring Conference, Great Game of Business Gathering of Games, Positive Business Conference at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the American Cheese Society. Most recently, Ari and Paul Saginaw were invited to address an audience of 50,000 for the University of Michigan 2015 Spring Commencement.
One of Zingerman’s Guiding Principles is being an active part of the community and in 1988, Zingerman’s was instrumental in the founding of Food Gatherers, a food rescue program that delivers over 5 million pounds of food each year to the hungry residents of Washtenaw county. Every year Zingerman’s donates 10% of its previous years profits to local community organizations and non-profits. Ari has served on the board of The Ark, the longest continuously operating folk music venue in America.
Over the decades, the Zingerman’s founding partners have consistently been the recipients of public recognition from a variety of diverse organizations. In April 1995, Ari and Paul were awarded the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award. In 2006, Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the James Beard Foundation. In 2007, Ari and Paul were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit magazine for their work in the food industry. Ari was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Cheese Society in 2014. And Ari’s book, Building a Great Business was on Inc. magazine’s list of Best Books for Business Leaders.
Notwithstanding the awards, being engaged on a daily basis in the work of 10 businesses and 21 partners, writing books on business and in-depth articles on food for the Zingerman’s newsletter, Ari finds time to be a voracious reader. He acquires and reads more books than he can find room for. Ari might soon find himself the owner of the largest collection of Anarchist books in Ann Arbor outside the Labadie collection at the University of Michigan library!