Craving Comfort: The History of the Texas Funeral Cake
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Texan culinary culture is rich and multi-faceted, finding its way into every nook and cranny of day-to-day life. Food is a sacred cornerstone of any social gathering in the Lone Star State, including the unfortunate but inevitable event of a funeral. Dubbed the “Texas Funeral Cake”, this massive, chocolate confection is traditionally offered at funeral potlucks: designed to be comforting, satisfying, and capable of feeding a large crowd in short order.
Topped with gooey fudge icing and, optionally, fresh, crispy pecans, the ritual of the Texas Funeral Cake traces across the pond to northern Europe: particularly to the rural regions of Sweden. Known as “seed-cake”, this European predecessor was much thicker and more cookie-like in texture, created to provide ample nourishment to mourners as well as to serve as a keepsake. It was common for seed-cakes (how long do cakes last?) to be highly decorative: wrapped in black crepe paper and adorned with floral patterns, or symbols such as skulls.
What is Texas' Funeral Cake?
The Southern iteration Texans know and love today is most commonly credited to the state’s beloved former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson. However, the first printed reference to the dish was first found in a 1936 publication of the Galveston Daily News. A second pecan-topped sheet cake surfaced in the pages of a Dallas newspaper in 1957, calling for buttermilk, pecans, and the sweet, dark chocolate produced at the Baker Chocolate Factory. In the decades since, the recipe for the funeral cake has remained virtually unchanged. Designed to be thrown together quickly and with minimal effort, most recipes call for all ingredients to be blended in one large bowl, as opposed to the more classical method of melting chocolate, creaming butter, and beating egg whites separately. The traditional funeral cake is often thinner than a typical sheet cake, with a consistency more akin to brownies. The trademark gooey texture is achieved by applying warm chocolate frosting soon after the cake is taken from the oven. Holes are often poked into the surface, allowing the melted icing to seep inside. Flavor variations include chocolate peanut butter and red velvet, but the original chocolate-pecan version is by far the most popular among Texan families.
Not Just for Funerals
Apart from funerals, the sheet cake is a well-known fixture at many church events, earning it the nickname “church lady cake”. Its festive holiday incarnation replaces crushed peppermint candies (how long do peppermint candies last?) with pecans, and the dessert is often found at Easter dinners and birthday celebrations, as well. So established is the Texas funeral cake, that its absence is quick to be noted. In a 2013 op-ed for The Baptist News, Dallas pastor Mark Wingfield lamented a particularly disappointing funeral potluck, in which no chocolate sheet cake was to be found.
“There was no green bean casserole, no fried chicken, no homemade rolls, no chocolate cake. Finally, someone in the family drove over to KFC to bring home the kind of food we all needed at the moment. And did I mention there wasn’t even a single piece of chocolate cake brought to the house?” The pastor then went on to muse: “Is it wrong of me to think of chocolate cake as heaven-sent?”
To those in mourning, in need of Southern comfort, it’s certainly easy to see it that way. The roots of Texas' food culture entwine with the customs of the South, seeking to create consolation through the ritual of a familiar home-cooked meal. Comfort food isn’t only about sentiment: there’s a solid scientific foundation behind it. Shira Gabriel, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Buffalo, states that comfort food wields its greatest power in times of rejection or distress:
“Comfort foods are often the foods that our caregivers gave us when we were children,” Gabriel explains. “As long as we have positive association with the person who made that food, then there’s a good chance you will be drawn to that food during times of rejection or isolation.”
It is this familiarity and comfort which we crave most in the wake of loss. For Texans, the chocolate funeral cake has become a symbol of togetherness and safety, in times of joy as well as grief. It represents the hallmark that, if you have good food in the company of good folks, you can steel yourself to weather any storm.
