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Apple Sauce Cake (One cup hot apple sauce one)
One cup hot apple sauce, one cup sugar, one-half cup shortening, one heaping teaspoon soda, one teaspoon ground cinnamon, one teaspoon ground cloves, one-half teaspoon salt, one cup raisins, two and one-half cups sifted flour. Bake slowly.
— Mrs. William Martin
— Mrs. G. F. Wolfe
A one-bowl spice cake of the eggless, milkless type, leavened entirely by soda reacting with the acid in the apple sauce. The original assumes you know what to do with the ingredients, so the method is worth spelling out.
- The hinge: hot apple sauceThe sauce is specified hot, and the usual reading is that it goes over the shortening to soften or melt it, with the soda stirred in while the mixture is still warm; the soda reacting with the acid in the sauce is what leavens the cake, so it is sensible to add the flour last and get the batter into the pan promptly rather than letting it stand.
- "Bake slowly"A slow oven in this period is 300-325F. At 325F an 8-inch square pan or a standard loaf pan takes roughly 45-55 minutes; test with a skewer at the centre.
- ShorteningHere this means lard or a solid vegetable shortening. Butter works and tastes better, but adds salt and water, so hold back a pinch of the half teaspoon of salt.
- Apple sauceUnsweetened, and thick rather than watery -- the cup of sauce is the only liquid in the cake. Commercial sweetened sauce will make it cloying against the full cup of sugar.
- A heaping teaspoon of sodaRead that as roughly 1 1/2 level teaspoons, more than the flat measure in any case. The generous quantity has the apple acid to neutralise as well as the cake to raise.
- RaisinsToss them in a spoonful of the measured flour before folding them in so they do not sink. The recipe does not call for them to be plumped, but a brief soak in hot water does no harm.
- No eggsNot an omission. Eggless, milkless spice cakes of this kind keep well and were made when eggs were scarce or dear. The crumb is close and moist, not light, and it improves on the second day.
- YieldAbout one 8-inch square cake, 9 to 12 servings. Serve plain, dusted with sugar, or with a thin brown-sugar glaze.
Apple sauce cake belongs to a family of thrift cakes -- along with boiled raisin cake and war cake -- that leave out eggs, milk and butter and lean on fruit, spice and soda instead. The type spread widely during and after the First World War, when wheat, sugar, fats and meat were all subject to voluntary conservation, and it stayed in community cookbooks long afterward because it is cheap, keeps for days and travels well to a church supper. The double attribution to Mrs. Martin and Mrs. Wolfe is characteristic of these books, though what lies behind it in this case is not recorded.