With Thanksgiving approaching this month, I can’t help but think back to my childhood and all the good food our family shared over the years. Mostly, Thanksgiving dinner owed its success to my mother’s talented creativity and perseverance in the kitchen. She learned her homemaking ways from her own mother and could make a complete meal out of seemingly nothing. She grew vegetables every year and loved nothing more than to be out working in the garden. My mother was born in 1916, the seventh of thirteen children. As typical during war times, ingredients became scarcer in World War I and cakes simpler, with fewer ingredients. Various types of war cake recipes sprang up during this era. Some, especially hearty, long lasting fruit cakes, were delivered to front line troops. I like to think the following may have been a vintage recipe of the kind my grandmother taught my mother how to make.
WORLD WAR I CAKE
Ingredients: 2/3 cup shortening, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1 cup raisins, 2 cups brown sugar, 2 cups water, 3 cups flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda.
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil shortening, spices, raisins, and brown sugar in water for three minutes. Cool until mixture is lukewarm. Stir in the remaining ingredients, and pour into a greased and floured oblong pan. Bake for 40 minutes until inserted toothpick comes out clean. If a topping is desired, a simple one may be made by heating a little butter and sugar and spreading it on the warm cake.
Are you starting to think about your Thanksgiving dinner? What is included in your family’s traditional meal?
Cheers & Happy Writing!
Flossie Benton Rogers, Conjuring the Magic with Paranormal Fantasy Romance
I understand that for you, Americans, Thanksgiving is even more important than Christmas holiday, with all family gathering around a festive meal.We don’t have it. I know the historical reason behind it, anyway.
An interesting recipe. Yes, in times of shortages, women use to become imaginative and make tasty things with meager ingredients. It happened to us, too, during Ceausescu’s time. We invented dishes using the few things we could find. Everything was rationalized ( I speak of the 80ies) and only Vietnamese shrimps and pig’s or chicken legs glittered in shop windows!
Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I wouldn’t say more important than Christmas, but it is probably second in the roster of holidays. It’s a great time for the family to get together with turkey, dressing, and other good stuff. Your time during the 80’s had to be so hard. Thank you for sharing some of that with me.
Flossie, thank you for the recipe.
Interestingly enough, since the beginning of this year, I have been Divinely Guided to resume baking. However, between a busy Psychic Practice, and the occasional temporary position of employment, I have not made the time for it.
Nonetheless, this recipe sounds delicious and shall be a joy to make. I shall happily let you know how well-received my baking it is, and who knows? I may bake it for Thanksgiving!
Yes, please do let me know how it turns out, if you get a chance to make the dish. Thanks so much for stopping by, Robert!
I’ll be hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year for my family and we generally stick to all of the traditional dishes. I had never heard of a “war cake” before. I always find your vintage posts so fascinating, Flossie, especially the old photos you include with them (I love looking at old photographs!).
It’s amazing how large families were decades ago. My grandfather (who would have been born in the 1800s) came from a family of twelve children. That always amazes we when I stop and think about it!
Me too, Mae. I find it hard to imagine even giving birth to 12 or 13 children, much less raising them. Wow. If you are organizing it, I know your Thanksgiving with your family will be absolutely wonderful.
Great reminder this. My gran made a kind of plain cake. It was all she could do. She’d got used to powdered eggs, not a lot of sugar and scraping the butter ration together to make a cake druing the war years. I don’t know how she managed something so tasty with so little.
That sounds remarkable, Daisy. I would love to try making that to see how it tastes. It’s amazing what they did– so different from the plethora of products offered today. Thanks for stopping by.