Pies, Cakes, and Biscuits

~ Johanna Turano

For some reason, I find what people ate and their diets back then very interesting. It might just be that my sweet tooth acts up and makes me want to learn more about Victorian desserts and how the desserts have changed and morphed into the modern desserts we have now. It is intriguing to discover the unexpected timeline of these desserts however. So I decided to compare three desserts that seem popular today as well as popular during the 1800’s-1900’s. Pie, cake, and biscuit looked appropriate enough for the time period, but instead of using cookies like I originally planned I used biscuits because the word cookie didn’t really come about until later on.xPePSDMUAccording to the graph, cake is by far the winner! It could possibly be obvious to some people that cake is above the rest when it comes to dessert popularity since it’s presented on so many holidays and special occasions nowadays. However, pie was actually mentioned the most for a good portion of this chart! All of the desserts have a long history and background to mark their always changing recipes.

Cake might be the most popular dessert from the 1800-1900 time period, but pie has a much longer history that dates back to the Egyptian Neolithic period (the New Stone Age) and is mentioned in 1301 according to the Oxford English Dictionary. These pies consisted of oats, wheat, rye or barley and usually contained honey for the inside treat, it wasn’t until 5th century BC where fruit was added. Cake also has an expansive history as well, it’s origins have been traced back to the 13th century. Pie definitely wins in longevity, but what about biscuits (cookies)? Actual confectionery biscuits (cookies) didn’t come about until 7th century AD, so biscuits have cake beat too, but they are mentioned in literature around the same time. Cake most likely took the lead when the first dry cake mixes were produced in England around the 1840’s. This lead to a much faster and less time consuming way to bake a dessert that excluded several ingredients from the traditional recipe, making this process very convenient.

Work Cited:

“Food Timeline: Cakes” foodtimeline.org Web. 7 Oct. 2015

Strdaley, Linda “History of Pie-Pie History” whatscookingamerica.net Web. 7 Oct. 2015

Stradley, Linda “History of Cookies-Cookie History” whatscookingamerica.net 7 Web.7 Oct. 2015