Everyone on social media is talking about cakes right now, so we’re talking about cake too.
And since July 13 is the anniversary of the famous New York City blackout in 1977, we’ll talk about a landmark baked good from Brooklyn known as the blackout cake.
The cake was not named for a power outage; the anniversary is just a good excuse to talk about it.
Blackout cakes gets their name from the blackout drills the Civilian Defense Corps carried out during World War II, and from the cake itself, which was made of the deepest, darkest chocolate.
It came from the Ebinger Baking Company, a family-run retail bakery that served up hundreds of German-style pastries.
The official recipe remains secret, possibly lost, but it’s believed to have had chocolate syrup in the batter, and there was a chocolate pudding filling that meant the cake had to be eaten in 24 hours.
Not that there were many slices left by that point.
Blackout cakes were so beloved that it’s said when Ebinger’s closed in 1972, people bought as many of the cakes as they could and kept them in the freezer, only eating them on special occasions.
Today Brooklyn has a number of bakeries that sell their own version of the blackout cakes, and if you’re like me and you’re kind of craving a piece of cake now, remember, these days you take your joy where you can get it, right?
Today is also the birthday of inventor, sculptor and cube namesake Erno Rubik.
At some point you may want to check out a hotel room in Houston, Texas, that is Rubik’s Cube themed.
The wallpaper looks like blocks, there’s a copy of the cube diagram from the original patent, and of course an actual Rubik’s Cube on the table.
Ebinger’s Blackout Cake is Gone But Not Forgotten (Edible Brooklyn)
There’s A Rubik’s Cube Hotel In Texas And It’s The Definition Of Nostalgia (Only In Your State)
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