Tyler Wright | Special to the Fitzhugh
Welcome to the inaugural article of Taste of Jasper! An ever changing menu of stories, recipes and food fare cooked up and written right here in Jasper.
In the planning stages, I reached out via Facebook to locals and had an overwhelming response of recipes and story ideas.
A town “steeped” in history, it was fitting that my first article would end up being about a historical tea room.
I received a recipe for a popular orange cake that was served at the Cavell Teahouse. Built in the 1920s by Fred Slark, the teahouse was located at the Astoria viewpoint on the Edith Cavell Road.
After Slark’s untimely passing in 1927, his wife, Gladys, kept the business running. With the help of Don and Anne Guild, a new location was built closer to the mountain. The Guilds took over the tea room in 1946 and it was renamed Mount Cavell Chalet.
The Mt. Cavell Chalet operated for many years until its sale to the government in 1972 where it sat vacant for many years. Before it was demolished, Ray Indic dismantled the chalet and had it rebuilt in the Valemount area.
The orange cake is surprisingly easy to make, with a total prep time of about 30 minutes, plus 45-minute bake time.
Start by candying diced orange peels and fold liquid into dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly and pour into a greased and lightly floured pan. Bake for 45 minutes at 350°C.
A fluffy, but dense texture, it falls somewhere between a cake and a loaf. The sticky sweet flavour from the candied orange peel lingers on the pallet much like an orange hard candy.
Not called for in the recipe, I added a teaspoon of cinnamon to compliment the orange notes.
Pair the cake with an orange pekoe, mint or black tea.
For the full recipe and more pictures, visit @tasteofjasper on Instagram. For this week's edition of Taste of Jasper, I would like to extend a big thank you to Elizabeth Anne Sande-Warren for the recipe, Karen Byers from the Jasper Museum Archives and Melanie Hindler for the tea set.
