Eggless Milkless Butterless Cake

My mother made this recipe often and the family loved it. It is dense, but my people were German, altho my mother was not. If you are not vegan, cover with buttercream frosting with healthy dose of peanut butter mixed in to flavor it. I loved it. (I believe it was popular in the WWars, because sugar, milk, and eggs were rationed.)

There is no point in putting baking soda in a recipe unless you add something acidic like vinegar or lemon juice. This is baking 101. If you do that, you may not need the baking powder. The baking powder is baking soda with cream of tartar which acts as the acid. I have not tried it yet, though, but not much different than other vegan cakes.

Perfect!! I actually separated out the raisins from a bag of trail mix (desperate times call for desperate measures), so a few cranberries snuck in. I didn’t have a 8 inch pan, shame on me, so I put it in a pie pan. I ended up leaving it in the oven for 40 mins. I otherwise followed the recipe exactly and it made a lovely light cake. Oh, I did sprinkle a little brown sugar on top!

I’m giving this a 5 not because it was the tastiest thing ever. But it let me satisfy a craving for my family of 10 in a pinch without me having to go to the store for ingredients. That being said, it was delicious, easy, and satisfying. I substituted the raisins for chopped dates and shortening for butter ONLY because it’s what I had on hand…and doubled the recipe. Everyone loved it, I would definitely make it again!

This cake is so delicious!!! Dense, light and moist at the same time. Reminds me of ginger bread. My family loved it, and my daughter doesn’t even like cake!!! I added dried figs, instead of raisins. Also topped with orange glaze, as another reviewer suggested. Awesome!!!

My grandmother taught me to make this in the 1950’s. It is a depression era recipe. I lost the recipe long ago and this is as close to what I remember as possible.

Made this last night for a cookout tonight. Read through quite a few reviews and used craisins instead of raisins. Made an orange juice glaze (orange juice & confectioners sugar) and hit was a hit!! Will make again and again. Will try some variations since this recipe allows for a lot of leeway. A hit! Thank you Ms. Thurston.

Made without raisins, used rounded scoop of baking soda, and two teaspoons of cinnamon as I did not have raisins, baking powder, nor all spice. I also used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. It needed to cook longer perhaps since I used a 9-inch round cake pan. Overall, my daughter and I really liked it. Next time I’ll try it with raisins, craisins, or dried cherries for a little extra flavor.

I have been making this cake for over 30 years…it is actually the first cake I ever made all on my own as a young child. The only thing my mom (who got the recipe from her mom) and I have done differently, is to bake it in a jellyroll pan. This makes for more of a bar-like treat, rather than a thicker cake, and helps with the density of the cake. We also grease and flour the pan, rather than just grease it, making it even easier to lift the bars out when serving.

Made this recipe but switched it up a bit, took out the raisins and the allspice and just put a bit extra nutmeg and cinnamon. Turned out great! Whole Family loved it. Was soft and just amazing.

This is from the depression era. My Mom used to make it after the depression because her Mom made it for her during the depression. It was originally called “Poor Man’s Cake” as no ration coupons were needed to be used (or purchased on the black market) for butter, eggs, or milk. Just be careful not to over bake so that it does not dry out. The original recipe calls for it to be made with bacon drippings. If you have these, it really does make the cake more moist and flavorful; but, I know it’s not good for you….My Mom said that my Grandmother kept a jar on the stove for bacon drippings. They wasted nothing in those days…

This cake was one of my favorites from childhood and I am over half a century old. My grandmother made it as did my mother. We always did it in a tube pan and served it with homemade penuche/caramel icing. I even entered it in the county fair as a teenager and won first premium! I love that it can be made totally vegan for bake sales where people look for that type of thing. It’s still the one I request from my mom for my birthday.

** An update after 3 days: This cake holds up surprisingly well. I did not refrigerate it, or wrap it up very tightly, but it was still moist and soft after having it out on the counter. After trying everything to try and enjoy my cake, I finally took a bit of almond chocolate milk that I had handy, a bit of malibu, and bacardi rum, and let a section of the cake soak in it; needless to say, it was great! I only wish I did it sooner. Try to rotate it a bit so the rum mixture can soak through the entire cake, unless you can submerge the entire cake in the mixture (but that’s alot of rum mixture to use). Try and avoid one particular side to get overly soggy; other than that, I just found a new remedy for my not-so great turnouts! Original review: You do need to bake it for a bit longer (for me, 15 minutes longer), but my cake itself was just okay. I only had cinnamon and a little bit of vanilla and nutmeg, so maybe that’s why it didn’t taste all that interesting. I’m glad I was able to make a cake without the dairy products, but the flavor was just really ambiguous that I’m not too sure if I’d finish it. To me, It resembled a dairy-free wheat pancake (in taste, so I drizzled a bit of pancake syrup over a slice), and, I figure it can also be served with a savory sauce as its not too sweet. I probably won’t make this again, but I’m sure for those who enjoy spice cakes, they can make it work to their taste.

This was excellent!! I used coffee instead of plain water and omitted the allspice since I didn’t have any. I will be making this again, it’s a nice little breakfast/tea time bread!

Fantastic! I used a full teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of cloves instead of the nutmeg and allspice, and i threw in a half a cup of fresh cranberries, too. Very tasty!

Delicious. Made this for my husband’s grandma who is on a super restrictive diet because she has kidney failure. I left out the raisins and it was a HUGE hit.

Outrageous! I was looking for a cake without milk butter and eggs because my cupboards were bare and luckily had the ingredients listed in this recipe. I was pleasantly surprised to find this cake is almost exactly a cake recipe I have been searching for for years. If anyone remembers the old A&P grocery stores and their Ann Page brand of baked goods this recipe is as close to Spanish Bar Cake as you will find. Now all I have to do is find a recipe that resembles the frosting. I did have to bake this a little longer than suggested and had to remove it from the oven before the center was 100% done but I didn’t mind the tiny bit of the center that was still a little bit gooey since the recipes did not include eggs. Although I have eggs, milk and butter in the house now, I will be making it again today to freeze and give as gifts for Christmas

VEGAN!! and VERY easy to make. Dirties only one pot, a spatula, and the baking pan. Didn’t even have to use an egg beater or mixer. This must have been a WWII recipe when women were working long shifts and needed cake w/o much time consuming labor or rationed ingredients. What took the longest was waiting for the boiled spiced sugar syrup to cool down, but you can be preparing dinner during the half hour in the fridge it needs. This is the perfect day-before-payday-and-I-need-something-for-dessert-but-the-cupboard-is-bare recipe. Looking to see what I had available, I made it with no raisins, peanut oil instead of shortening, whole wheat pastry flour instead of white, used double-strenth black tea instead of water, and 1/2 teaspoon allspice and 1 teaspoon powdered ginger for the spices. (The tea helps the baking soda work, as it is a bit acid.) As others have said, it is moist, dense and delicious. I have to laugh when I see other reviewers using expensive and/ or non-vegan substitutions like butter, or serving it w/ ice cream. Kind of misses the point. If you can use that stuff pick another, richer cake recipe; it will taste better. However this is quite amazingly good given the limitations.

I halved the recipe leaving out the raisins (-as I didn’t have any) and made it into muffins. They came out well. They were moist inside and had a proper muffin ie. crispy top. As to spices I used 1/4t of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg as they were what I had. I used coffee instead of plain water but this didn’t seem to make any difference in taste. I will try this recipe again.

This cake was awesome!!! I was at the bottom of the bucket on food supplies(need to hit the market) but wanted something fast, easy and that I could make with practically nothing. I did use a little different of a recipe because I wanted to get rid of some things. I used a can of coconut milk(instead of water) a tsp of nutmeg and cinn as I had no allspice, 3 tsp of cocoa powder, half white/half wheat flour and half white/half brown sugar. It turned out awesome and I will absolutely make it again. I served it with some baked sliced apples that I cooked in sugar, cinnamon and butter def went very well with it.

It was 50/50 here. Two of my kids didn’t care for it, but my youngest & I liked it. Definitely put brown sugar on the top. It makes it more like a coffee cake that way. 🙂