I have not been to Smith Island but it has received quite a lot of publicity recently following the proposal to make its’ signature cake the official state dessert of Maryland. It even got a write up in the New York Times last week.
A few of the articles about the cake included recipes and many were different from each other. There isn’t even any real agreement about how many layers it should have. It appears it started out as a regular four layer cake and then some competitive ladies on the island got ambitious to the point where the layers are all baked separately as they are too thin to cut.
I decided to test out the recipe myself and a video of my baking session will be posted later. I tried out two recipes for the chocolate icing and found some impartial judges to taste both versions (thank you teachers of Indian Creek School). The most popular recipe was the one appearing in The Capital last week and I reproduce it below.
Let’s see if our legislature has as sweet a tooth as Smith Island.

Smith Island 10-Layer Cake

Set the oven to 350 degrees.
Make the chocolate icing.
2 cups sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
5 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 stick butter at room temperature
½ to 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the sugar in the evaporated milk over a medium heat for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the chocolate, allow it to melt then stir the sauce and add the butter. Stir again to amalgamate and leave to cool. After about 10 minutes add the vanilla and stir again. Set aside until the cake is baked.

2 cups sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
5 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup evaporated milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup water

Cream the sugar and butter together in a mixer until light and creamy. Add the eggs, beating after each addition and then the vanilla. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and add to the egg mixture in thirds alternating with the evaporated milk and water. Do not over mix once the flour has been added.
Spoon the batter into 10 9inch baking pans which have been either greased and floured or lined with parchment paper if, like me, you don’t want to live dangerously. About three serving spoons of batter is the right quantity for each pan. Try to get the batter more or less level in the pans, I found this rather tricky. Those Smith Island ladies must be pretty skilled by now.
Bake the cakes for 8 minutes –until the batter is set and starts to smell good. The official recipe says that the cake is done when you don’t hear a sizzle when you hold it near your ear, I never heard a sizzle.
The cake layers can be cooked in batches and you can start assembling the cake as soon as the first layers have cooled a little, 5 minutes or so is all you need.
Turn the first layer out of the pan and peel off the parchment paper. Lay the cake on a cooling trivet set over a plate or chopping board to catch errant drips of icing. Anoint the cake with about 3 spoonfuls of the chocolate icing and spread evenly, don’t use much as you’ll need a lot to cover the sides and top. Continue to layer the cakes and icing until you have used up all 10 layers. Do remember to peel off the parchment paper! I like the idea of adding thinly sliced banana to the layers.
Finish the cake by icing the sides and top, I found I had to warm the icing a little to make it runny enough to spread evenly.
Serve with glasses of cold milk and toast our very own Smith Island.