Brown Stone Cake

 

 

The oldest Brown Stone Cake recipe I found on the internet was dated 1905, while putting the words together to form "Brownstone" Cake travels back to at least the mid 19th century on the east coast and then beyond that to Europe. If you stop your search at New York City you would believe the recipe was named after the rowhouses found there, but I think it is the density and color of the cake that led to it being named in Europe after the sandstone building material found there. When the recipe came across the pond to America, first on the east coast, the name became associated with the buildings made out of local sandstone, called brownstone. All of that is my educated guess, so I would love to hear other theories.