All the Great White Cakes of Southern Living

By Mary Allen Perry
Call us shameless name-droppers, but Southerners have a habit of honoring places and people, real or fictional, by naming cakes after them. In the late 1800s, Emma Rylander Lane, of Clayton, Alabama, took first prize at the county fair with her sponge cake iced with a fluffy white frosting. She originally called the recipe Prize Cake, but friends convinced her to make the cake her namesake, and today you'll likely find Lane Cake served at a family's noteworthy occasions. Southern Living first published a recipe for Lane Cake in the second issue in 1966. Along with Mrs. Lane, other cakes honoring people and places include Lord and Lady Baltimore Cake and Martha Washington's Great Cake. Other Southern-bred cakes include ruch caramel cake, red velvet cake, and our favorite, Hummingbird Cake, submitted by Mrs. L.H. Wiggins. While a few of these cakes may rarely appear on today's tables, the art of cake baking remains a point of great pride among Southern cooks, and now, as in colonial days, the type of cake served still conveys, to a degree, the status of the occasion. Cakes made with available ingrediemts like everyday pound cakes and upside-down skillet cakes are for family; those made with previously hard-to-get ingredients like citrsu fruit or coconut are reserved for weddings and holidays. And perhaps there's no cake in the South quite as important as the cake served on the holiday table. In 1995, we put a photograph of a three-layer Coconut-Lemon Cake on the cover. The overwhelming reader response to this cake began a tradition of "the big white cake," as the staff knows it, adorning the cover every December.
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1 of 25

1995

Recipe: Coconut-Lemon Cake with Lemon Filling and Fluffy White Frosting

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2 of 25

1996

Recipe: Gift Box Cake with Powdered Sugar Frosting

3 of 25

1997

Recipe: Chocolate Truffle Angel Cake

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4 of 25

1998

Recipe: Red Velvet Peppermint Cake with Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting

5 of 25

1999

Recipe: Holiday Lane Cake with Nutty Fruit Filling, Holly Leaves, and Candy Bow

6 of 25

2000

Recipe: Twinkling Star Cake with Nutty Cranberry Filling and White Chocolate Frosting

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7 of 25

2001

Recipe: Pecan Divinity Cake with Divinity Frosting

8 of 25

2002

Recipe: Orange-Pecan-Spice Pound Cake

9 of 25

2003

Recipe: Chocolate Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese-Butter Pecan Frosting

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10 of 25

2004

Recipe: Cream Cheese-Coconut-Pecan Pound Cake

11 of 25

2005

Recipe: Chocolate-Red Velvet Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Praline-Pecan Cake, and Fluted Chocolate-Red Velvet Cake

12 of 25

2006

Recipe: Lemon-Coconut Cake with Lemon Filling and Cream Cheese Frosting

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13 of 25

2007

Recipe: Vanilla Butter Cake with Fluffy Wintry-White Icing and Sparking Peppermint Candy

14 of 25

2008

Recipe: Sugar-and-Spice Cake with Vanilla Buttercream

15 of 25

2009

Recipe: Chocolate Citrus Cake with Whipped Ganache Filling, Seven-Minute Frosting, and Candied Oranges

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16 of 25

2010

Recipe: Spice Cake with Citrus Filling and White Icing

17 of 25

2011

Recipe: Chocolate-Gingerbread-Toffee Cake with Silky Ganache and Ginger Whipped Cream

18 of 25

2012

Recipe: Mrs. Billet’s White Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

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19 of 25

2013

Recipe: Red Velvet-White Chocolate Cheesecake with White Chocolate Frosting and White Candy Leaves

20 of 25

2014

Recipe: White Cake with Peppermint Frosting and Fondant Bow

21 of 25

2015

Recipe: Spice Cake with Cranberry Filling and Apple Cider Frosting

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22 of 25

2016

Recipe: Coconut Cake with Rum Filling and Ermine Frosting

23 of 25

2017

Recipe: Snowy Vanilla Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream and Edible Ornaments

24 of 25

2018

Recipe: Homemade White Cake with Vanilla Buttercream and Gingerbread Topper

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25 of 25

2019

Recipe: Buttermilk-Chocolate Cake with Swiss Meringue Frosting and Gum Paste Flowers

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