Cake: A Slice of History by Alysa Levene, book review: A sweet treat

An engaging cruise round the tea table, from the Victoria sponge sandwich to lemon drizzle cake

The Victoria sponge sandwich has become 'an emblem of national identity' (iStock/Getty Images)

Like the confection it explores, this erudite history delivers extended pleasure. Our fondness for cakes goes back at least to King Alfred, though the royally singed items were probably unsweetened. It was not until the 14th century that European cakes became distinctively different from bread due to the incorporation of spices, eggs and butter.

With the arrival of cheap sugar in the 18th century and baking power around 1830, the cake became part of the teatime ritual. First described by Mrs Beeton, the Victoria sponge sandwich has become "an emblem of national identity". The eponymous monarch would not, however, have like the whipped cream that has invaded the filling. She rightly thought that jam was sufficient.

In the US, the wonderfully simple pound cake (a pound each of sugar, butter, flour and eggs in their shells) occupies a similar place. A more demanding American concoction that presaged the Domestic Goddess gets Levene in a froth: "There is scarcely a more ridiculous or daunting cake for the home baker than the angel food cake." In her view, it "sums up the key attributes associated with femininity when it started to appear" (the 1870s). It is unfortunate that Levene does not include the appearance of this treat in Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, where the thug Moose Malloy is described as being "about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food".

In the course of her engaging cruise round the tea table, we learn that Betty Crocker is an invention and (less surprisingly) so is Mr Kipling. She also discloses an unexpected link between Queen Elizabeth II and de Sade. On her birthday, HM has enjoyed the same chocolate cake for the past 80 years, while the Marquis instructed his wife to send him a chocolate cake in prison. Uneasy about cupcakes, Levene insists that "women are not hardwired to need or even desire foods that are small, cute, pretty or sugary."

Far more welcome is the recent revival of the lemon drizzle cake. This ubiquitous pleasure is curiously unmentioned by Levene though she devotes several pages to the US sponge known as a Twinkie. Do we really need to know that Twinkies sponsored "the prime time family Howdy Doody Show"? The book would have been better sticking to Europe.

Given the number of cake cookbooks and websites, Levene was probably wise not to include recipes, though a tip from 1837 remains the best way of telling when a cake is done: "when a twig or wooden skewer thrust into the cake comes out clean." (A metal skewer works equally well.)

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