Frog cake 2001 the frog cake was listed as a South Australian Heritage Icon by the National Trust of South Australia. The frog cake is a small dessert shaped to resemble a frog with its mouth open, consisting of a sponge base with a jam centre, topped in artificial cream and covered with a thick layer of fondant icing. The recipe today remains identical to the one employed when the cake was first produced in the 1920s. When manufactured, large layers of sponge cake are combined and cut mechanically into shape, covered in the fondant, and the mouth is then formed with
Frog cake a hot knife. Fondant eyes of a contrasting colour are manually added to the head, and the completed dessert is presented in a paper patty-pan. The fondant is normally brown, green or pink, but for special occasions colours can include variations such as red and yellow. Having traveled to France in the early 1920s, Gordon Balfour, the nephew of John Balfour, (who was one of the co-founders of Balfours Bakery), found inspiration for the frog cake in European confectionery. The frog cake was introduced by Balfours in 1922 after Gordon's return to Adelaide, during a time in which tearooms were