Hough Bakery was founded in May, 1903 by Lionel Pile of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The first Hough home bakery was on Hough Avenue and by 1930 was operated by Pile, his son Robby, and four employees. In 1952, the name was changed to Hough Bakeries, and by 1973 Hough had annual sales of $12 million with 1,000 employees. It was an institution in Cleveland and its environs. However, by 1992 the company had fallen on hard times, probably due to having failed to modernize its operations, and was liquidated in bankruptcy court. Kraft/General Foods now owns the company name and its recipes.
I found this statement, purportedly from Robert Pile's nephew, on "Recipelink":
Hough Bakeries did not allow anyone to publish recipes and that included the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Individuals who knew formulas or recipes may have submitted what they knew but the company, which
was closed by then owners Amerifoods and Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, did not release any such
information.
The reference to my Uncle Robert's cookbook, "Menu Planning for all Occasions", did include some of the older recipes geared to the catering side of the business which he ran until he retired.
I have that book, "Menu Planning for All Occasions" by Robert Pile, and it has neither the white cake recipe in it, nor any of the Hough Bakery recipes that have been requested from me.
These are the only Hough Bakery recipes or clones that've made it onto the Internet:
In the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper on July 2, 2003, there was an article in the
Food Section highlighting the "old" head baker from Hough Bakeries! His name is Archie
Garner and he has his own bakery now where he is using the old Hough Bakery recipes.
Archie's has a webpage here: Archies Hough Bakeries
And a Facebook page here: Archies Hough Bakeries on Facebook
I have searched for these Hough recipes and have not found them to be on the Internet:
