The Presidential Scandal that Spawned Two Desserts: Part 1

It’s President’s Day, the perfect time to dive into the origins of two popular 1970s desserts: Watergate Cake with Cover-up Frosting and Watergate Salad. Both take their name from Richard Nixon’s infamous Watergate scandal. Entire books have been devoted to the scandal, but in a nutshell, the scandal takes its name from the Watergate Complex, a group of buildings in Washington, D.C. that housed the offices of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters. On June 17, 1972, men hired by Nixon’s Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP – the most apt acronym ever) were caught breaking into the DNC offices. What at first seemed to be a simple break-in turned out to be a widespread, coordinated, and illegal effort to undermine Nixon’s democratic opponents, followed by a massive cover-up that was traced all the way to the Oval Office. News of the scandal dominated headlines in 1973 and 1974. Faced with impending impeachment, Nixon resigned on August 7, 1974, and was later pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford.

The American presidency has been rocked by many scandals over the years, but there were no Iran-Contra Cookies or Teapot Dome Dainties. I have no good explanation for why Watergate inspired this particular response from the American people, except that pistachio pudding, the base of both recipes, was relatively new and very popular at the time. That somehow intersected with journalistic references to the Watergate scandal as a “cake” to create a recipe that in today’s parlance “went viral.”

First, let’s take a closer look at pudding mixes. Various companies started producing dessert mixes in the early 1900s. Jell-O marketed an ice cream powder that could be adapted for a variety of desserts. By World War I, other brands like “My-T-Fine,” appeared on the market. Although every source on the internet says My-T-Fine started marketing the first pudding mix in 1918, I found advertisements from 1917 offering the mix in six flavors: chocolate, vanilla, nut-chocolate, lemon, maple, and macaroon. Jell-O started selling dedicated pudding mixes in 1936. Pudding mixes were a time and ingredient saver for America’s cooks. Most mixes only required milk and a short five minute cook time on the stovetop, eliminating the need for eggs, sugar, or heavy cream.

In 1966, Standard Brands, Inc. introduced instant pistachio-flavored mix under its Royal brand at a dinner for food critics in New York City. Instant pistachio pudding debuted with two other products: Nesselrode pie mix (a cream pie flavored with chestnuts and dried fruit) and no-bake Dutch Chocolate pie mix. “There is a highly sophisticated coterie which considers the flavor of the bright green pistachio nut the only flavor worth bothering about, and wouldn’t give a penny to corner the Dutch chocolate market,” wrote food critic Ann Chester of the new product. “For them, the instant pistachio flavor will take all the honors.”

It appears the Nesselrode pie mix did not survive the 1960s, but instant pistachio became a popular staple, showing up in many dessert recipes, becoming a base for frosting, ice cream, cream puffs, and cakes. It also shows up on the menus of many ladies luncheons. At the Republican National Convention in 1968, for example, GOP women held a brunch that featured “Pistachio Pudding Royale,” a recipe that put a twist on Royal Instant Pistachio pudding by using skim milk, adding a dash of rum, and folding in beaten egg whites.

In 1970, recipes for pistachio cakes made with cake mixes and instant pistachio pudding begin to appear in newspapers. One early variation uses orange juice and marbled with chocolate syrup. Another variation omits the chocolate. Some use a yellow cake mix, while others use white. Some add extra nuts. Some replace the orange juice with club soda or Sprite. Some call for three eggs, while others use four.

Despite the many variations, these are all essentially the same thing. Women across the country submitted these recipes for “pistachio cakes” to their local newspapers. As I mentioned in my post on “Your Neighbor’s Secret Recipes,” the true origin of recipes can be lost as they are passed from owner to owner. One early version of the pistachio cake recipe, from Mrs. Abe Schwartz of Knoxville, Tennessee, published in 1970, specifically mentions Duncan Hines Cake Mix, Hershey’s Syrup, Crisco Oil, and Royal Pistachio Pudding Mix. My hunch is that Mrs. Schwartz got the recipe from a product label or magazine advertisement. A 1975 article by food columnist Shelly Kalkowski supports this theory. She writes that the recipe known as “Watergate Cake” first appeared on a box of Royal Pistachio Pudding with the title “Pistachio Cake.” I haven’t been able to track down other sources to corroborate this evidence. Either way, Mrs. Schwartz of Knoxville; Mrs. Bell of Emlenton, Pennsylvania; Mrs. Blaine of Windsor, Vermont; Mrs. Rosebraugh of Salem, Oregon, and many others all claimed authorship.

In the midst of this cake’s popularity, the Watergate scandal broke in the news. In researching Watergate Cake, I found a few articles that referred to the scandal as a “cake.” One AP article from May 6, 1973 titled “Watergate Cake Recipe Has Many Ingredients,” explained that the scandal grew out of a combination of distrust, fear, and a “terminal clot of zealotry and inexperience, arrogance and power.” At least two letters to the editor in response to Nixon’s August 15, 1973 speech, in which he addressed the Watergate investigation, referred to Nixon’s remarks as being “icing on the Watergate cake.” Reader S.W. Hall from Lexington, Kentucky wrote “It is strictly an insult to our intelligence that he can put icing on the Watergate cake to disguise the fact that it is rotten and crawling with ‘bugs'” (pun intended – Lexington Herald, August 18, 1973). Another letter writer from Massachusetts shared those sentiments, feeling frustrated that Nixon “questioned the intelligence of the American people” and then “attempted to put icing on the Watergate cake by emphasizing his economic and foreign accomplishments” (Transcript-Telegram, Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts, August 21, 1973). Granted, this is a relatively small sample size, but the fact that at least some people were associating cake and icing with the Watergate scandal might help explain the Watergate Cake that followed.

A few months later in October, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram printed a recipe for “Senator Ervin’s Watergate Cake.” Sam Ervin, a senator from North Carolina, was the chair of the Senate Watergate Committee. The hearings, which started in May 1973, were widely televised, with PBS rebroadcasting the hearings each evening. “We don’t know where Mrs. Edith Warren got this one,” the paper states, “but it brings a smile or two, which we all need these days.” The joke is in the asides at the end of each ingredient, which mimic the qualifiers that peppered Watergate testimony. Mrs. Warren’s cake sounds tasty, but it did not catch on.

The earliest print reference that I could find to pistachio cake being called “Watergate Cake” appeared in December 13, 1973 in the Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania).

Watergate Cake – submitted by Mrs. Charles Perry

• 1 pkg Duncan Hines Improved DELUXE II White Cake Mix
• 1 pkg Royal Instant Pistachio Pudding Mix (add dry)
• 1 cup Wesson Oil
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped fine
• 3 whole eggs
• 1 cup Canada Dry Club Soda

• Mix cake mix and pudding mix: push to side of bowl. Add the eggs, oil, nuts, and club soda. Mix all together until blended and bead 4 minutes at medium speed.
• Grease and flour a Bundt Pan. Bake at 350 for 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan for 20 minutes; then turn out on cake plate and cool completely. Cover with frosting. Sprinkle lightly with coconut, chopped nuts, and maraschino cherries, if desired.
• May be baked in a 13x9x2 cake pan instead of the Bundt pan at 350 for 40 minutes

The next newspaper reference to the Watergate Cake recipe appeared in September 5, 1974 edition of The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Maryland), about a month after Nixon’s resignation. Recipe contributor Christine Hatcher was pictured feeding a piece of the cake to Norman I. Broadwater, Democratic candidate for state’s attorney. The newspaper called the cake “the newest thing on political and not so political menus.” Hatcher couldn’t remember where she got the recipe, and when asked why it was called Watergate Cake, she replied “I don’t know . . . unless it’s because of all the nuts that are in it!” It is the same as Mrs. Perry’s 1973 recipe, minus the brand names. Hatcher’s version included a recipe for frosting – one box of pistachio pudding, one envelope of Dream Whip, and 1 1/4 cups of milk, mixed according to the instructions on the Dream Whip box. Hatcher’s recipe was simply titled “Frosting,” but other versions call it “Impeachment Icing” or, more commonly, “Cover-Up Frosting.”

From here, the recipe took off. Not only was it reprinted in newspapers across the country, readers wrote to their local papers to request it. It was featured in baking contests, county fairs, and appeared on menus for community events. As I mentioned, the recipe had many variations and many “authors.” In her February 9, 1975, “Recipe Exchange” column for the Sunday News (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), Linda Collingwood addressed the diversity of recipes by printing three different Watergate Cake recipes, as well as a recipe for Watergate Salad. A few weeks later, another “Recipe Exchange” reader wrote that she got her Watergate cake from a friend in Illinois in September 1972. Mrs. Anna Smith, a reader of The News-Virginian (Waynesboro, Virginia), claimed that Watergate Cake got its name because it was Nixon’s favorite flavor. “He eats only pistachio ice cream, according to Mrs. Smith,” the paper reported, before adding that the cake was “rapidly taking over dessert and party menus.” Other recipe contributors repeated the line about the cake being “full of nuts,” just like the Watergate scandal. Requests for the recipe peaked in 1976 and 1977, but it continued to be reprinted in newspapers into the early 1980s.

After all this research into Watergate Cake, I had to make one. Instead of cake, I made the recipe into cupcakes to share with my students. None of them had heard of the cake, but as I explained the ingredients, several of them exclaimed, “oh, like that salad that my grandma used to make, the one with the pineapple in it.” Yes, like that. They thought the cake tasted fine, but Watergate Salad is what made them nostalgic. More on that in part 2 of this post.