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Applesauce Cake (Mrs Eleanor Suydam t cloves t)
1/2 C shortening Mrs. Eleanor Suydam. 12 t cloves 12 t ginger 1 C sugar 1/2 t cinnamon Cream shortening and sugar together, and add the spices. 2 T hot water 1 t soda 1 C applesauce 1 C raisins Nuts, if desired 2 C flour Mix hot water, soda and applesause together. Beat to white froth. Add this to first mixture. Add 1 cup raisins (nuts also if desired) and the flour. Bake in moderate oven Mrs. C. I. Casey.
Note:-Mrs. E. Quenten uses 1¾ C applesauce, 1/2 T hot water and 2½ C flour.
A plain wartime-style spice cake that leans on applesauce for both moisture and sweetness. The ingredient list is telegraphic and one or two quantities have to be inferred, so read it through before creaming anything.
- Missing shortening quantityThe method says to cream shortening with the sugar, but no amount is given. With 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of sugar, something in the region of 1/2 cup of butter or shortening is a reasonable guess, but the figure is not in the text.
- Reading the spice amountsThe cloves and ginger are written as "12 t" where the intended measure is almost certainly half a teaspoon each, matching the 1/2 t cinnamon. A full 12 teaspoons of either would be inedible.
- AbbreviationsC is cup, T tablespoon, t teaspoon. Soda is bicarbonate of soda, what is now sold as baking soda; there is no other leavening in the cake.
- The soda and applesauce stepThis is the hinge. Warm applesauce, hot water and soda together will foam up dramatically as the soda reacts with the fruit acid, and that foam is the cake's lift. Beat it to a froth and fold it in at once, then get the batter into the pan without delay.
- ApplesauceThe recipe does not say whether the applesauce is sweetened. Sweetened supermarket applesauce will make an already sweet cake sweeter; if that is all you have, you may want to cut the sugar slightly.
- Oven and pan"Moderate oven" is usually taken as somewhere around 350F (175C); the recipe gives no temperature, pan or time. In a greased 8-inch square pan or a loaf tin, reckon on roughly 40 to 50 minutes and test with a skewer; the applesauce keeps the crumb damp, so judge by the skewer rather than colour.
- Raisins and nutsToss the raisins and any chopped walnuts in a spoonful of the measured flour before adding, or they will sink through this loose batter.
- The variation noteThe closing note records another cook's proportions: an applesauce quantity printed as "14 C", 1/2 T hot water and 2 1/2 cups of flour. The applesauce figure has lost its fraction and could be either more or less than the original cup, so treat the whole note as a rough guide rather than a second recipe.
- Yield and keepingAbout 9 squares or one loaf. Applesauce cakes improve on the second day and keep four or five days wrapped at room temperature.
Applesauce cake belongs to the family of American "economy" cakes in which fruit purée does the work of part of the fat, egg and sugar, and soda alone does the leavening. Recipes of this shape multiplied in community and compiled cookbooks through the First World War and the Depression, when butter, eggs and white sugar were dear or rationed and home-canned applesauce was one thing most households had by the quart. The heavy hand with cloves, ginger and cinnamon plus raisins is deliberate: the spices and dried fruit stand in for the richness of a true fruitcake. A loaf like this was as likely to be sliced at supper as served as dessert.