Stephen Fries: Recipes for War Time Cakes — orange and honey apple sauce (2024)

FOUND: Pam Trepanier of North Haven wrote: “As an avid reader of your weekly column in the New Haven Register, I thought you might be able to help your readers and me with this recipe request. There is a new baking competition sponsored by King Arthur Flour at the 75th North Haven Fair being held Sept. 7-10. The contest is for 1943 War Time Cakes using King Arthur Flour.

“In some of your past columns you mentioned the old recipe books you collected over the years. Do you have any recipes for a War Time Cake that you can share with your readers? The fair also has other 1943 baking contests this year too; spoon bread, cherry lattice pie and peasant cookies. I thought this would be something you would be interested in. Many people have expressed excitement over the new 1943 contests.”

Pam, I looked through my vintage recipe pamphlets and found the perfect one. The following recipes are from “250 Ways to Save Sugar Cook Book: How to Stretch your Sugar in Cooking, Canning, and Baking,” published for the Culinary Arts Institute, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer. The booklet was published in 1942 by Consolidated Book Publishers.

I will be interested to see if cakes using these recipes are entered into the contest.

During this period there was rationing of goods, including sugar, butter and eggs. Creative cooks used molasses, corn syrup or apple sauce for sweetness and lard or shortening for butter. Whether called War Cake, Depression Cake or Victory Cake, preparing these treats showed that you were doing the best with the rations set while still enjoying a little bit of sweetness during those difficult times.

In the book “American Cake: From Colonial Gingerbread to Classic Layer, the Stories and Recipes Behind More than 125 of Our Best-Loved Cakes,’ by Anne Byrn (© 2016, Rodale) it says, “Victory Cakes became the cake you baked out of sacrifice, without precious granulated sugar. Bakeries made them, too, advertising that the cakes were made with corn syrup to ‘keep the lid on the sugar jar.’ The words ‘victory cake’ were mentioned in World War I, but the real American Victory Cake was a World War II cake made with corn syrup and often vegetable shortening instead of butter.” It was interesting to also find out in chapter five of Byrn’s book, “Victory Cake fairs were staged on lawns, porches, and storefronts across the country. Cooks baked their best ‘sugar-shy’ cakes. Visitors to the patriotic fairs bought war stamps at the door and pasted them into the stamp book next to the cake they deemed best. The winners often received war bonds as a prize.”

Those who follow this column might remember when I wrote about Ebinger’s Blackout Cake. For those who are from New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, as I am, you might remember Ebinger’s Bakery, the chain founded in 1898 which closed in 1972. When I arrived home from school and saw the distinctive, pale green box with twine tied around it, I knew that heaven was waiting after that night’s dinner. It was, indeed, a mouth-watering treat.

Dozens of articles have been written about this famous bakery and its Blackout Cake. There is even a Facebook page called “Ebinger’s Bakery Brooklyn” where more than 3,300 “Ebingerites” have joined the group, reminiscing on those fond memories.

Byrn’s headnote for her recipe, and yes there are many for Brooklyn Blackout Cake, says, “The Brooklyn Blackout Cake is more than a cake. It is a legendary bakery that lives on in memory. And it is a chocolate cake named for the mandatory blackouts in Brooklyn during World War II that protected the battleship and aircraft carrier assembly, and the 71,000 workers at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“Near the Yard was a bakery named Ebinger’s, where a 3-layer dark chocolate cake filled with chocolate custardy pudding, frosted with chocolate icing, and packed with chocolate cake crumbs was baked. It was a visual blackout, and Ebinger’s named the cake Blackout Cake, a name that stuck for a chocolate cake made in the war years when chocolate was hard to find and sugar rationed.”

For those interested in the history of cake in America, with recipes from 1650 through the present, Byrn’s book will keep you baking through the ages. For those who missed the recipe the for Blackout Cake visit bit.ly/2vONxEZ.

Orange Cake

½ cup shortening

1 cup light corn syrup

2 eggs

2 tablespoons grated orange rind, divided

1/3 cup water

2½ cups sifted cake flour, divided

4 tablespoons orange juice

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

Cream shortening; add syrup gradually, creaming continually. Beat in one egg at a time. Add 1 tablespoon of orange rind, water and 1½ cups flour; beat thoroughly.

Add orange juice and fold in remaining flour, sifted with baking powder and salt. Put into a greased 9x13-inch baking pan and sprinkle with remaining orange rind and the 1 tablespoon of sugar. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 30-35 minutes.

Honey Apple Sauce Cake

2¼ cups sifted flour, divided

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon cloves

1 cup raisins

1 cup broken nut meats (chopped walnuts or other nuts)

½ cup shortening

1 cup honey

1 egg, well beaten

1 cup thick apple sauce

Sift 2 cups flour with baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cloves. Mix remaining flour with raisins and nuts. Cream shortening with honey until fluffy.

Add egg and beat thoroughly. Add floured raisins and nuts. Add sifted dry ingredients and apple sauce alternatively in small amounts, beating well after each addition. Pour into greased 8x8-inch pan and bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) 50-60 minutes.

Desperately seeking

Christie Ward of Orange wrote: “I enjoyed the beet salad at Woodbridge Social. Could you ask if they will share the recipe?”

Christie, I will check to see if the chef will share.

Send us your requests

Which restaurant recipes or other recipes would you like to have? Which food products are you having difficulty finding? Do you have cooking questions? Send them to me.

Contact Stephen Fries, professor and coordinator of the Hospitality Management Programs at Gateway Community College, at gw-stephen.fries@gwcc.commnet.edu or Dept. FC, Gateway Community College, 20 Church St., New Haven 06510. Include your full name, address and phone number. Due to volume, I might not be able to publish every request. For more, go to stephenfries.com.