What Makes Smith Island Cake So Special?

Typically, it's easy to guess a state's official dessert, whether the state is in the name or by its ingredients. For example, Florida's Key lime pie makes use of the limes that are closely associated with the Florida Keys. Boston cream pie is, of course, the state dessert of Massachusetts. The beignet became the state dessert of Louisiana in 1986, and Missouri made the ice cream cone its official dessert over 100 years after it was first introduced at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. And then you come to the Smith Island cake in Maryland.

You've probably never heard of it, and even in Maryland you wouldn't have been alone for a long time. The Smith Island cake was declared Maryland's state dessert in 2008, but prior to the 1990s was virtually unknown beyond the watery confines of tiny Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Before that if you asked a Maryland resident what the state food was, the guess probably would have been classic crab cakes.  So, how did Smith Island cake become so well-known? And what's so special about it? The answer involves a very unique geographical location, lots of layers, and a little perfectly timed bribery.

Smith Island is the last inhabited landmass in a tiny chain of islands in the Chesapeake Bay, comprising three villages and boasting a year-round population of roughly 200 residents. Though the island is located just a few miles off the shore of mainland Maryland, there aren't any bridges to the villages; instead, residents and visitors rely on boats and ferries for transportation to and from the island. To give you an idea of how small this little strip of land is, there is no active school on Smith Island. 

There used to be one, Ewell Elementary, which for a typical school year enrolled fewer than 15 students. It was led by a single teacher who also happened to be the principal, but it closed in 2023 after its enrollment dropped to zero. Smith Islanders rely largely on the water to earn a living. Chesapeake Bay is famous for its crab and seafood, so crabbing, fishing, and oystering are the major industries, though there are businesses that cater to tourism as well. And there's a bakery on Smith Island — just one: the Smith Island Bakery that specializes in baking and shipping the official state dessert of Maryland.

Smith Island cake is all about the layers. The Smith Island Baking Company, which began on Smith Island but has since moved to the mainland in nearby Crisfield, Maryland, explains that the traditional Smith Island cake has eight very thin layers, and the most traditional flavor is a moist yellow cake with a rich, fudge-like icing. The cake typically has anywhere from eight to 14 layers, and an important feature of authentic Smith Island cake is that the layers are baked individually, rather than being made by slicing a thicker cake into multiple thinner layers. 

Sometimes you'll see naked cakes, with the layers exposed and the icing visible between the delicate sections of cake. Other times, for instance if you happen to wander into Smith Island Bakery, you'll find the cakes entirely sheathed in that delicious fudge icing. In the island's only bakery, you'll find nine-layered cakes in the traditional yellow and fudge, but also in flavors like red velvet, coconut, strawberry cream, banana, and even a colorful rainbow cake. The bakery also offers both gluten-free and sugar-free versions of the towering cakes.

Smith Island cake doesn't have a single creator, though some have claimed otherwise. Rather, it was Elaine Eff, a folklorist who assisted in establishing the Smith Island Visitor's Center, who first remarked on the many-layered cake that island residents didn't seem to think was all that out-of-the-ordinary. In fact, because this type of cake has reportedly been made on the island since the 1800s, the locals just called it "cake." 

The cake was created by local women who sent it off as a gift with their men during the fall oyster harvest, and according to Mary Ada Marshall, a local baker, that connection has lingered. She says "One of the things a woman would want to achieve before she got married was to be able to make a layer cake," she told Eff and Cliff Murphy in a 2009 interview (via the Salisbury University Libraries), adding that most women on Smith Island can still make them. And Eff also discovered that each family has its own variations, handed down from matriarchs to their daughters. 

As for why there are so many layers, there are two theories. One is that the multiple layers, coupled with the fudge icing, helped keep the cake moist as the layer cake was transported by watermen who journeyed the regional waters to support their families. And, since Smith Island didn't get electricity until the 1950s and '60s, the thinner layers may have been easier to cook in wood-fired ovens. Traditional icing also didn't need to be refrigerated, making it the perfect take-along dessert for a week of fishing.

So, how did this little regional specialty suddenly blow up? Members of the Lower Eastern Shore Heritage Council, in coordination with local tourism advocates, conceived the idea of naming the Smith Island cake as the state dessert, hoping to generate income for the island women who baked the cakes, as well as stoke interest in the region. Then-Delegate D. Page Elmore drafted the bill in 2008, and it turned out that there was a little competition for the honor of being named the official dessert of Maryland. It also helped that people really do love the taste of these cakes. 

Though a 2008 article in The Baltimore Sun proposed several regional alternatives to the Smith Island cake, legislators were unable to resist a tasty bribe. Advocates of making the cake the state dessert delivered carefully plated individual slices of Smith Island cake to every member of the General Assembly. How could anyone resist that? The bill passed, and a unique aspect of Maryland's historic foods and geography was preserved in the official record. And the bill had its intended affect. The new Smith Island Baking Company opened within a year of the legislation passing, and employed local women until its later move to the mainland. It also helped locals like Mary Ada Marshall develop their own small businesses shipping cakes.

Unfortunately for Smith Island, the Baking Company's move is emblematic of a larger problem. The company's owner had to move to the mainland due to the logistical problems of shipping cakes from an island only accessible by boat, and local women lost the jobs they had gained. A more general loss of local jobs has caused the population to decline by half since the 1990s. And an even bigger threat is the land itself. Warming water temperatures are affecting seafood, and as sea levels rise, the low-lying Smith Island is disappearing, losing around 12 feet of shoreline per year to erosion. Projections say the Chesapeake Bay will see up to four feet of sea rise by the year 2100 — the largest swing on the East Coast.

Still, longtime residents are determined to stay, and some newcomers have helped stabilize the population for now. People like Mary Ada Marshall are still baking and shipping Smith Island cakes, making them an important part of the local economy. And cake lovers anywhere can help them. Making a Smith Island cake is absolutely an adventurous labor of love, so ordering from one of the regional bakeries that specialize in the many-layered cakes both saves time and supports the island. A traditional yellow cake with fudge icing from Smith Island Bakery costs around $60, which includes shipping within the U.S. Should you want a unique take on the region's flavors, Smith Island Baking Company also offers an Old Bay Buttercream Smith Island Cake.