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Applesauce Cake (Louise Wehrenberg C sugar C)
Louise Wehrenberg. 2 C sugar 1/2 C butter 3 eggs 1½ C unsweetened applesauce 1 C raisins Bake in square tin. 1/2 C shortening 1 C walnut meats 1 t cinnamon 14 t cloves 2 t soda dissolved in hot water 2 C flour
A community-cookbook contribution written for someone who already knew how applesauce cake goes: ingredients only, no method, no oven setting. The quantities are sound once the abbreviations are decoded.
- The abbreviationsC is a cup, t is a teaspoon. "14 t cloves" is a transcription of 1/4 t — a quarter teaspoon of ground cloves, which is in proportion with the single teaspoon of cinnamon.
- Two fats, not oneThe list gives 1/2 C butter and 1/2 C shortening, a full cup of fat between them. Splitting the fat was common in home baking, though the recipe gives no reason for it, and "shortening" here could equally mean lard. All butter works and gives a firmer crumb.
- Soda in hot waterThe 2 t soda dissolved in hot water is the only leavening; there is no baking powder. It reacts with the acid in the applesauce, so the batter should go into the pan and into the oven promptly once the soda is stirred in.
- Unsweetened applesauceThe recipe specifies unsweetened for a reason — 2 cups of sugar is already generous. Modern jarred applesauce is often sweetened; check the label or the cake will be cloying.
- Oven and panNo temperature is given; a cake of this composition is usually baked around 350F. "Square tin" is unspecified — an 8- or 9-inch square pan both fit this quantity of batter — and baking will take roughly 45 minutes to an hour depending on depth; test with a skewer at the centre.
- What is missingThere is no salt and no vanilla. A half teaspoon of salt improves it noticeably. The flour is presumably plain all-purpose — self-rising would add baking powder and salt on top of the soda already called for.
- YieldOne square cake, roughly 12 servings depending on the tin used. It keeps well for several days wrapped.
Applesauce cake belongs to a family of American cakes that lean on soda for lift and on a moist fruit purée to stretch butter and keep the crumb soft for days. Recipes of this kind were common in church and grange fundraising cookbooks, where contributions were collected under members' names — Louise Wehrenberg's here is typical in assuming the reader has baked cakes of the sort already and needs only the proportions. The bare listing, with no method and no oven temperature, is characteristic of that format. The cup of raisins and cup of walnuts suggest a cake for an occasion rather than an everyday one.