Just Desserts: National Cake

The History

Did you know that yesterday was flag day? February 15th is the National Flag of Canada Day as it was on February 15th, 1965, that our iconic red and white flag was raised for the very first time on Parliament Hill. So today, we’re hungry for all things celebratory!

Before we had our iconic Maple Leaf flag, we had two other notable flags to represent us. Following confederation in 1867, Canada flew the Union Jack (The Royal Union Flag). It was a visual tie of our colonial roots. This didn’t last long, we adopted the Canadian Red Ensign informally by the 1870s, and it became our country’s civil ensign in 1892. There were three formal designs of the Canadian Red Ensign which bore the various Canadian coat of arms. Funnily enough, it was never formally adopted as our National flag. Then began the Great Flag Debate. In 1964, Lester B. Pearson appointed an all-party committee (seven Liberals, five Conservatives, one New Democrat, one Social Credit and one Creditiste) to decide on the final flag design. The group was given 6 weeks to determine a design, with thousands of suggestions submitted by the general public and previous design suggestions. Three flags were left after the group met: the Pearson Pennant, our current flag just with a different designed leaf, and the same flag with the Union Jack on the upper left red band and the banner of France on the other. The flags were voted on October 22nd 1964, with a unanimous vote for the single leaf design. That flag was then presented to the House of Parliament. On December 15th, 1964, the Members of Parliament voted and the flag was accepted with a vote of 163 to 78! Then it passed to Senate where it was approved on December 17th. On January 28th, 1965, Queen Elizabeth II signed the royal proclamation approving our new flag! Then on February 15th, 1965 the newly approved flag was flown for the first time at Parliament Hill!

We fly a Pitt Meadows Flag and Canadian Flag at the Pitt Meadows Museum, usually when the weather is nice. The flag features the most recent City Logo. Prior to 1975 the District of Pitt Meadows (which is was known at at the time) did not have an official logo, or crest! It wasn’t until 2007 that the District of Pitt Meadows became the City of Pitt Meadows. Did you know that the City also has an official motto “Prosperity Through Endeavour”?

The Cookbook

This National Cake recipe comes to us from one of our favourite cookbooks at the Museum, the Five Roses Cookbook! This one is the 1938 version of the book. The Five Roses cookbook was first published around 1913 and featured recipes submitted by people all across the country! It was issued by the Lake of the Wood Milling Company and still remains a popular choice as a resource for all wood be chefs (albeit the more modern versions). Most families would have had a copy of this cookbook.

You can view the original 1913 version online here.

The Recipe

It is fun to note, that the colour of the cake represents the colours that our flag originally were. That is blue, red and white. Such a time consuming recipe, sadly I think we will stick with our reliable box cake next time.

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Return to the kitchen.