Grace Cuneo Lineman and Karen Cuneo are sisters who published a cookbook, named Empowdered Sugar, which celebrates the accomplishments of famous women in pop culture, politics, and history. Lineman graduated from the Northeastern University in 2013 with a business degree concentrated in marketing.
It started when Grace Cuneo came up with a pun which put a playful spin on a popular nickname for Beyoncé, the world-famous pop star known to many super fans as “Queen Bey.” Grace came up with the name of a pastry inspired by the nickname, “Beyhive Honey Cake”, and then wondered whether she could create a recipe that lived up to the pun. She talked about this idea with her sister, Karen Cuneo and asked for help. Karen works as a food scientist.
Within the next two years, more than 80 baking recipes have been crafted by the sisters,inspired by the accomplishments of famous women. The name of each recipe, like “Beyhive Honey Cake”, combines the name of a famous woman with an ingredient in the tasty treat. Some of these are: “Gwen Stefani Hollabaklava”, which honours the pop star who sang “Hollaback Girl,” which reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2005. ‘“Sandra Day Oat Cobbler”, pays tribute to Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. And “Eleanor Roosevelvet Cake” celebrates Eleanor Roosevelt, who fought for racial equality, advocated women receive the same pay for the same work as men, and served as First Lady of the United States for 12 years.
These recipes were then combined to publish a cookbook of 242 pages, Empowdered Sugar: A Collection of Sweets, Treats, and Female Feats. Cuneo helped in creating the recipes and Lineman came up with the puns. And an all-female staff designed the book, edited the recipes, and taste-tested the treats.
“We felt since the book was grounded in ideas of female empowerment, we wanted to share with our female family and friends. We reached out to all of these different women in our lives and asked them to be a part of what we were creating”, Lineman says.
Shahjadi Jemim Rahman
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