Smith Island Cake

Jeff the Chef
Smith Island Cake

I had a Smith Island cake once, during a trip to Baltimore. That was years ago, but I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve been aching to make one ever since. It’s rich and goes beautifully with a cup of tea. It would make one hell of a birthday cake.

Ingredients for one 9-inch, multilayer cake:

Rich enough to serve 16 or more.

With this cake, you start with the frosting.

Frosting ingredients:

10 oz. (1½ cups) chopped bittersweet chocolate
8½ oz. (1 cup) heavy cream
7 oz. (1 cup) sugar
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp vanilla
4 oz. (8 Tbs, which is 1 stick) unsalted butter, cubed

How to make the frosting:
  1. Place the chocolate in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
  2. Heat the cream, sugar, and salt, over a medium flame, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture come to a simmer. Pour it over the chocolate, and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla and butter.
  3. Cover and refrigerate until it reaches a spreadable consistency, about an hour.
Frosting notes:

This is one of the best chocolate frostings I’ve ever made. You will be hard pressed to resist eating it with a spoon while you’re waiting for the cake layers to finish baking.

If your butter is cold, cut it into 1/4-inch cubes. If it’s softened, cubing is unnecessary.

I almost always have chocolate chips around, and I like them for these kinds of applications. They don’t need to be chopped. I used a half-and-half mixture of Ghirardelli 60% and Hershey’s Special Dark for the cake in these photos.

Cake ingredients:

12¼ oz. (1¾ cups) sugar, divided
10 oz. (2½ cups) cake flour
1¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
5 oz. (10 Tbs) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 large eggs, separated, plus 3 large yolks, room temperature
3 Tbs vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch of cream of tartar

How to make the cake:
  1. Prep two 9-inch pans with grease, flour, and parchment.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350°.
  3. Mix 10½ oz. (1½ cups) sugar with the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt on speed 2 (of 10) for 30 seconds. Pour into a large mixing bowl.
  4. Mix the buttermilk, butter, yolks, oil, and vanilla on speed 4 for 30 seconds. Pour into a small mixing bowl.
  5. Clean and dry the mixer. Whip the whites with the tartar on speed 4 until foamy, about 1 minute. Increase speed to 6 and continue to whip, gradually pouring in remaining 1¾ oz. (¼-cup) of sugar. Continue to whip, ramping up to highest speed, until stiff and glossy, about 2 minutes. Scrape into a small mixing bowl and set aside.
  6. Return the dry ingredients to the mixer. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients, until just barely blended, about 15 seconds. Increase speed to 4 and mix until smooth and fully blended, about 15 seconds. Fold in the whites.
  7. Pour 5 oz. (about ⅓-cup) of batter into each pan. Distribute evenly. Bake until the cake’s edges are golden and just barely beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan, no more than 11 minutes. Cool in pans (on racks) 5 minutes. Loosen edges and turn out onto racks to cool fully.
  8. Repeat Step 7 until you’ve used all the batter.
Cake Notes:

The wet ingredients will appear curdled. Never fear, the texture will completely smooth out once you’ve mixed it into the dry ingredients.

This recipe comes from “The Perfect Cake,” by the editors at America’s Test Kitchen, pg. 146. Boston: 2018. (Thank you, Linda!) It’s supposed to produce an 8-layer cake, and I believe it does. However, you might notice that my cake is only six layers. I intended to follow the recipe and make thinner (and hence more) layers, but as I was pouring such miniscule amounts of batter into my pans, it just seemed so unlikely that they’d ever come out. I second-guessed the recipe, played it safe, poured seven ounces of batter into each pan, and wound up with only six layers. In retrospect, these layers came out of the pan so easily, and were so easy to work with, that next time, I will try for thinner layers.

Smith Island Cake
Assemble:
  1. Spread a generous ¼-cup of frosting onto each layer. Once all the layers are stacked, frost the top and sides. If you have leftover frosting, add it to the top.
  2. A 30-minute stint in the fridge will fully set the cake. This will make it easy to transfer to a pedestal or cake box, and easy to cut neatly . However, the cake is unquestionably at its best at room temperature.
Assembly Notes:

Because the layers cool so quickly, you can be filling the bottom layers even before all the layers are baked.

Be careful about laying on new layers; they’re all but impossible to adjust once they’re placed.

The frosting takes about 10 minutes to set at room temperature. If you allow this to happen between each new layer, it will be easy to spread frosting on the new layer. If any of the sublayers is not yet set, frosting a new one may cause them to slide around.

General Notes:

Tips:

My cake came out slightly lopsided. I figured out ways to prevent this as I went along:

  1. Don’t pour the batter only into the center of the pan. Pour it around, so that it starts out somewhat more distributed.
  2. To distribute the batter fully, tilt the pan in a circular fashion so that the batter runs around the circumference of the pan, rather than merely from one side to another.
  3. Once the batter’s distributed, give the pan a couple of long, vigorous shakes, side to side. Turn the pan 45° and repeat.
  4. When adding frosting, attempt to push more of it to the sides, and leave less of it in the center. Also, take care to always work in four directions: east, west, north, and south. It’s tempting to spend more time spreading east-west.
Backstory

Smith Island Cake is the official dessert of the State of Maryland. Smith Island is a remote fishing village located ten miles off shore in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, accessible only by ferry. Settled in the 1600’s and for decades – if not centuries – considered isolated and remote, the island is host to a people rich with unique traditions, one of which is a penchant for multilayer cakes.

An authentic Smith Island cake features 8 to 14, individually baked, thin layers. The most popular version features a cooked chocolate fudge icing; that’s what you see in this post. Other flavors such as banana, orange, fig, and coconut are popular. The one that I had during that memorable trip out east was an off-the-beaten-path strawberries and cream version.

Smith Island Cake
Smith Island Cake

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. 

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57 thoughts on “Smith Island Cake”

  1. This is a cake I’ve experienced a number of years go at a friend’s house in Annapolis. They had purchased it from some famous bakery nearby.
    I’m very impressed with your cake baking skills, always improving. Jeff, I think it’s time for you to try out for the Great British Bake off. I think they call it The Great American Baking Show on your side of the pond. I can so see you competing in that show.
    Ron recently posted…Autumn in Skåne and the smell of cinnamon…

    Reply

    • (Blushing) I’m a rabid fan of the show. I’d consider emigrating and perfecting an English accent to do it. (The American version is somehow not as charming.) But there’s no way I could weild a spatula on that level. Those people are amazing and so creative. Thanks, though, for your steady stream of compliments and encouragement!

      Reply

  5. Holy cow, Jeff! This is one stunning cake. (On a side note, your cakes lately have been mighty impressive. This one, well, takes the cake, though.) 6 layers looks amazing still. I’m trying to imagine what 8 layers (or 14!?) would look like. As a baker myself, I really want to try this cake out. It would be a stunning birthday cake…or a cake for a day that ends in -y. 🙂
    David @ Spiced recently posted…Coconut Chocolate Kiss Cookies

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  7. These are simply layers of perfection and that beautiful bittersweet chocolate frosting binding it all together is genius. This is postcard material thanks for sharing.

    Reply

  9. This looks wonderful – I think more a special occasion cake than a tea cake but I would be challenged by making so many layers and I really love all your tips. And your raving about the frosting makes me want to just make some to eat – it looks very good!

    Reply

  12. What a beauty, Jeff! And perfect for this holiday season. I made a chocolate cake today for Thanksgiving and wish I had read your post first….as your frosting would have been perfect! Happy Thanksgiving!

    Reply

  15. Jej, TO dopiero jest przepis wspaniały! Nie mówiąc już o wyjątkowo pięknym i starannym wykonaniu 🙂

    Reply

  20. Those are some seriously perfect layers you have there! I was just thinking how very thin the layers were, when mentioned making them even thinner. I guess that would look cool, too — but, it’s so pretty as is. And yes, lovely for a birthday celebration. Or maybe for breakfast with my coffee? 😉 ~Valentina

    Reply

  23. Jeff,
    That cake looks super impressive and delicious. I can understand how you have never forgotten about it since you first tried it.

    Reply

  24. How gorgeous!!!!! You say your cake turned out lopsided, but all I see is the most perfect multi-layer cake! I have never heard of Smith Island, and now you’ve got me completely intrigued. I’m a total history nut, so having a cool story to associate with a recipe is always really exciting. The strawberries and cream Smith Island Cake you had sounds divine! The chocolate frosting you’ve got here is exactly the sort of thing I could snack on all day long!

    Reply

    • Thanks so much, Shannon. I’m going to figure out that strawberries and cream version, and post it one day!

      Reply

  26. This cake looks beautiful, Jeff. I have had a Smith Island Cake recipe on my bucket list for over a year but intimidated to try it. Your notes have given me courage, thanks for sharing!

    Reply

    • You’re welcome! It takes a while, but it’s not really all that difficult.

      Reply

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