This is a fall-themed cake using common pantry ingredients. The cake is in some ways my own creation, but was inspired by a significant amount of reading I did this summer. This perusal was of early- and mid-20th century cookbooks aimed to new Jewish housewives from the middle class, and Jewish housewives new to the middle class. Besides “educating” them in proper “housekeeping” – which, I suspect, would realistically rely on things learned from family, friends, and life experience – the books were chock-full of recipes, including recipes for cakes when company is coming over soon. Or recipes for cakes from everyday ingredients that one could serve for various occasions.
These cakes seemed, to me, the highlight. As ardent bloggers of mid-century cuisine have noted, these sort of cakes were far more common than the showier and more infamous confections of the era. And many, honestly, seemed delicious. I spotted some familiar bakes – smetanakuchen, banana bread, and apple cake among them. I also spotted the use of various other delicious things – like jam! So I toyed with an old vegan muffin recipe I had, added some eggs and dairy, and…voilà. I have been told that these sort of cakes – “company is coming” cake – are also part of the Soviet/Russian-language cookbook canon, but I do not have the Russian language skills to research this. Any readers care to help?
The cake is very autumnal. I use normal supermarket applesauce – which, on a normal day, makes for a fine replacement for eggs. The sour cream adds to moisture and rise, but you could probably mix in milk. Most of the time for this cake is really in the baking – the prep is very simple. I wrote the recipe in a different format this time – let me know what you think!
Applesauce Raisin Cake
Preheat the oven to 400F. Grease a deep loaf pan or a rectangular (9x13in/23x32cm) pan.
Pour hot water over 1 cup of raisins to cover. Set aside.
Melt 4oz/125g butter on a stove or in the microwave. Then, beat in 1 cup applesauce, 3 tablespoons sour cream, 1 ¼ cups white granulated sugar, and 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice mix until combined. If you do not have pumpkin pie spice mix, use 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon each of ground ginger, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg.
Beat in three large eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly combined.
Add two cups of white all-purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and a dash of salt, and mix thoroughly until you have a thick batter. If your applesauce is runny, you will need to add more flour – for every additional ½ cup flour, add 2 tbsp of white sugar.
Drain the raisins, and fold them into the batter until evenly distributed.
Pour the batter into a pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick or knife come out clean and the top is golden brown. Cool for a while, then store sealed until serving to hold moistness.
Thank you to my classmates at the University of Maryland’s Master in Community Planning program for participating in User Acceptance Testing for this recipe!
Thankful for this!