While everyone has their own idea of a birthday celebration, one thing is universal: there is no better way to food to eat on your birthday than cake. Perhaps the most ubiquitous birthday cake is a yellow cake smothered in chocolate frosting but when it’s your birthday, it’s your rules! Whatever brings you joy and celebration in every slice should make a presence at your party. And for Martha Stewart, the best birthday cake would be the Lady Baltimore cake.
There are regular cakes, and then there are legendary cakes. And this Martha Stewart-approved dessert is definitely the latter. The Lady Baltimore cake is a towering, regal beauty filled with candied nuts and fruit and offset by a fluffy, white, seven-minute frosting. Martha is known to have this cake for her birthday because it’s the recipe her mother made for her growing up. So with it being Martha’s 84th birthday on August 3, I knew I had to try it out.
Get the recipe: Martha Stewart’s Lady Baltimore Cake
What Is Lady Baltimore Cake?
Lady Baltimore Cake is a classic dessert, dating back over a century and oozing with Southern charm. It’s a white cake made with whipped egg whites, giving it a light, almost angel food texture. But what sets it apart is the intensely flavorful filling made of dried fruit soaked in rum (here, it’s dates, golden raisins and toasted walnuts). The whole thing is frosted with a boiled seven-minute frosting that’s glossy, fluffy and completely cloudlike.
Despite its name, the Lady Baltimore cake has no ties to the city in Maryland. Its roots are actually Southern—specifically, Charleston, South Carolina. According to Martha Stewart, the cake’s backstory begins with an early 1900s romance novel by Owen Wister, Lady Baltimore. In the book, a character walks into a bakery and orders a Lady Baltimore cake for a wedding, only to fall for the clerk behind the counter and marry her instead.
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Ingredients You Need to Make Martha Stewart’s Lady Baltimore Cake
For the cake, grab butter, cake flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk, water, vanilla and almond extracts, plus three egg whites. For the cake frosting and filling, you’ll need golden raisins, pitted dates, dark rum, toasted walnuts, sugar, light corn syrup, water, more egg whites, vanilla and salt.
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How to Make Martha Stewart‘s Lady Baltimore Cake
Butter and flour two cake pans and preheat your oven to 375°. Sift your dry ingredients a few times and set them aside. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy, then mix in a splash of vanilla and almond extracts. Alternate adding the dry mix with milk and a bit of water until you have a smooth batter. Whip egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the batter. Divide between pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool cake layers completely.
Meanwhile, simmer chopped dates, raisins and a splash of rum until the liquid is absorbed, then stir in chopped walnuts. For the frosting, cook sugar, corn syrup and water to soft-ball stage (238°). While it heats, whip egg whites with vanilla and a pinch of salt until stiff, then slowly stream in the hot syrup and whip until glossy and cool.
Fold some of the frosting into the fruit and nut mix to make the filling. Split the cakes into layers, then stack and spread with filling. Finish by frosting the whole cake generously.
Related: The One Ingredient You’ll Never Find in Martha Stewart’s Recipes
My Honest Thoughts About Martha Stewart‘s Lady Baltimore Cake
After reading through the directions for this one, I knew two things: One, it was going to be a full afternoon of work, and two, it was going to be a showstopper of a cake (and both were true). A white cake with fruit-and-nut filling felt a bit outdated to me—how good would this one be, really? But the final result absolutely floored me. The cake is soft, light and flavored with the slightest hint of almond, which plays off the nuts, fruit and rum in the filling so beautifully. It’s like fruitcake’s super formal, super elegant cousin coming to the party to steal the show. And the frosting is not only easy to make (I promise) but it’s dramatic in its own way, both in taste and presentation.
This cake doesn’t need anything fancy to garnish it because it is already *everything*. And it’s absolutely worth making at least once, if only to say you did.
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Tips for Making Martha Stewart‘s Lady Baltimore Cake
- Use a candy thermometer. Don’t play the guessing game on this one. You must get the sugar mixture to the soft-ball stage in order to get the frosting right.
- Sift your dry ingredients three times. Don’t let impatience win here (I almost did). This step really does make a difference, giving the cake that delicate, airy texture you want.
- Invest in a good serrated or bow knife. I grabbed my bow knife that I usually reserve for sourdough bread, and it made all the difference in slicing this cake into four layers. It didn’t shred the crumb or squash the layers into pancakes.
Related: The Genius Way to Make a Vanilla Cake Mix 10x Better
