{"id":5449,"date":"2024-06-07T08:30:20","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T08:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/?p=5449"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:34:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:34:16","slug":"happy-birthday-gwendolyn-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/2024\/06\/07\/happy-birthday-gwendolyn-brooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday, Gwendolyn Brooks!"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Dana Miller<\/p>\n

Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas. She is often recognized for her time as Poet Laureate of Illinois (1968-2000) and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress
\n(1985-1986), and for being the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize in any category (1950).<\/p>\n

While many materials in the Gwendolyn Brooks Collection (MS00086<\/a>) document her professional life, there are also many materials that offer a glimpse into her personal life\u2014including her time spent as a homemaker. One such treasure is her recipe box<\/a>, whose how-tos range from Never-Fail Pie Crust to a Cure for Hiccups. Join us as we celebrate 107 years of Gwendolyn Brooks by making her recipe for Light and Dark Cake!<\/p>\n

\"Left:<\/a><\/p>\n

Left: Box 541 (Digital image 147), Right: Box 354, Folder 3<\/em><\/p>\n

\"You<\/a><\/p>\n

Instructions (edited for clarity)<\/strong>
\n1. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl (\u201cdry ingredients\u201d) and set aside
\n2. In a large bowl, beat shortening, sugar, and vanilla extract until fluffy. Then, beat in eggs (\u201ccreamed mixture\u201d) and set aside
\n3. In a small bowl, add vinegar to milk (\u201cliquid\u201d) and stir
\n4. Alternate adding dry ingredients and liquid to creamed mixture. Beat well after each addition
\n5. Pour half of the batter into one bowl. To the poured half, add baking chocolate and mix throughout. Leave the remaining half as is. (Note: Ms. Brooks did her mixing in the pan instead<\/em>)<\/span>
\n6. Pour each bowl of batter into its own pan and spread evenly<\/span>
\n7. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes
\n8. Cool the cakes. Then, stack, frost, and enjoy<\/p>\n

This recipe did not include a frosting recipe, so we decided to use a simple Butter Cream Icing recipe courtesy of Martha Holmes (Peoples Gas Home Service).<\/p>\n

\"Butter<\/a><\/p>\n

Right: Box 541 (Digital image 144)<\/em><\/p>\n

Voil\u00e0! Now you have a delicious two-layer cake. We hope you enjoyed this birthday celebration for Gwendolyn Brooks. If you followed along, let us know how your cake turned out!<\/p>\n

For more from Gwendolyn Brooks’ recipe box (and other digitized content), browse the Gwendolyn Brooks Digital Collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a video tutorial on how to make her Light and Dark Cake<\/a>, in addition to her Orange Cake<\/a>, visit our YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Left:<\/a><\/p>\n

Right: Box 350, Folder 32<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Dana Miller Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas. She is often recognized for her time as Poet Laureate of Illinois (1968-2000) and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1985-1986), and for being the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize in any category (1950). While many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":848,"featured_media":5452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[449,464,424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-cooking","category-gwendolyn-brooks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5449"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5772,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5449\/revisions\/5772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/rbx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}