Sunflower and Piñon Cakes

Until late in the nineteenth century, a cake in America did not connote a sweet treat but referred to a molded shape—as in hotcake, hoecake, johnny-cake. As the Indians molded corn into shapes we sometimes called “cakes” and sometimes “breads,” so they molded nuts and seeds into delicious nuggets that, unsweetened, we would now call cocktail biscuits and, sweetened, cookies. The unsweetened form below is a kind Laverne Garcia makes according to the time-honored ways of her