Photo courtesy of Rebecca Simonfalvi
Our recent post about Aston’s Bakery found Rebecca Simonfalvi, a granddaughter of the bakery’s founder, Bill Aston.
A news story from 1956 shows Aston orchestrating the move of an 800-pound cake for a Dallas business’ anniversary.
Simonfalvi writes that seeing her beloved “granddad” in motion moved her to tears because she still has so much love for him and her grandma LaVeda. Her 4-year-old son has the “food-creation gene,” she says.
“We make a carrot cake every year that celebrates granddad’s creation,” she writes. “Did you know he created the carrot cake that we know today?  He took a carrot bread recipe that one of his customers gave him and combined it with his chiffon cake to give it a light and airy texture.”
Aston’s granddaughter says he also came up with the cream-cheese frosting.
Has anyone else ever heard that carrot cake was “invented” in Dallas?
Because I have, actually.
A government professor at Mountain View College once told our seminar that a bakery in Dallas had invented carrot cake. I can’t remember the context, but I remember both of my parents laughed when I repeated the information at dinner, and it’s just always stuck with me. This was in the ’90s, and you couldn’t just google it.
Now the internet informs us that the history of carrot cake goes back to ancient times, and that George Washington was served carrot cake once. It’s pretty riveting stuff.
But as far as “the carrot cake that we know today,” what was Aston’s Bakery’s role? Nothing on Google or in local news databases offers clues. Help us solve this mystery by sending tips to editor@advocatemag.com.
