Sam Rhoads tastes a special cookie-like “Cake”, again, after a fifty year hiatus. Here he is at the Historic Wyck House and Garden annual new year tea. Rhoads, treasurer of the Wyck Board and a descendant of the Quaker Haines family that established the hundreds-year-old Germantown estate. The family house is now a non-profit open to the public.
Rhoads recalled how disappointed he was as a child in the 1970s, when he bit into the large flat cookie formed from a traditional decorative metal mold. It was dry and lacking in flavor. Would it have more flavor this time? He has learned that the recipe has been tweaked in recent years so, at the New Year’s tea, at your correspondent’s nudging, he tentatively ventured a bite and… (see video)
Caspar Wistar Haines’ Diary,January 4, 1913, describes an earlier recollection of the recipe and its baking.
From the Wyck Website “Wyck is a National Historic Landmark house, garden, and farm in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia that served as the ancestral home to one Philadelphia family for nine generations (1690-1973). Here, traditional Quaker culture blended with a passion for innovation. The people who lived and worked at Wyck expressed these values through their commitment to education, horticulture, natural history, and preservation. Today, the Wyck Association connects this family and its rich history to our community through programs that focus on history, horticulture, and urban agriculture.”
