"Tracing cakes chronologically from the dark, moist gingerbread of New England to the elegant pound cake, the hardscrabble Appalachian stack cake, war cakes, deep-South caramel, Hawaiian Chantilly, and the modern California cakes of orange and olive oil, Byrn shares recipes, stories, and a behind-the-scenes look into what cakes we were baking back in time."--Back cover.

1650 to 1799: baking cakes in early America -- 1800 to 1869: new cakes & new directions -- 1870-1899: a scientific approach: baking powder & Fanny Farmer -- 1900 to 1916: birth of the American layer cake -- 1917 to 1945: baking in the good times & the bad times -- 1946 to 1962: Tupperware, Bake-Offs, ® & a new domesticity -- 1963 to 1979: American cake times are a-changin' -- 1980 to 1999: cakes born in the USA -- 2000 to the present: the cakes of the new millennium -- Frostings & icings.