Ingredients for War Cake were common home items during World War II. Wonderful when topped with whipped cream!
| Servings: | 18 |
| Yield: | 1 -9-x13 inch cake |
Ingredients
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 ¼ cups water
- 1 cup raisins
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- ½ cup chopped candied citron
- ⅓ cup shortening
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 5 teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×13-inch baking pan.
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine brown sugar and water. Add raisins, nuts, candied citron, shortening, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon; bring to a boil and boil 3 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.
- Sift in flour and baking powder; stir until well blended. Pour into prepared pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Leave in pan and cut into squares. .
Reviews
Loved this. My daughter put it together and mixed everything at the “wrong” time – still turned out delicious.
I made this cake. It was terrible. So dry and hard.Needed much more liquid. Had a hard time putting it in the pan. Did not bake as long and the directions said and still was too hard to eat. I doubt anyone made this before putting the receipe on your site. I felt i was a waste of nuts, raisins , and citron.
The great thing about this delicious tea cake is that for those on no cholesterol diets it’s the answer.
It came out tasting very good I used blueberries instead of walnuts, will make again!!
Minor changes: I doubled the cinnamon and left out the nutmeg. I used 2.5 cups total of dried cranberries and almonds instead of the other fruit/nuts. I used sunflower oil instead of shortening. Cut back on the baking powder to 3tsp which still seemed like a lot compared to how much flour it has. REVIEW: The batter was VERY THICK, more like a sticky dough then batter. Seeing that I only cooked it for 25 minutes and checked it, toothpick came out clean and edges were starting to brown. Also bounced back when pushed on. Let it cool a few min and cut it. Very good. Not ultra sweet like modern cake, or light, but a denser bar type snack. Not super moist and sticky like quick bread either. Gave it four stars because the time stated to cook is far far too long, no wonder some turned out dry. Also the quantity of the baking powder.
The ingredients used in War Cake were used because they were easy to find during the depression… therefor no candied citron! It’s delicious and moist and flavorful with just the true War Cake ingredients.
I made this with chocolate chips instead of raisins, and left out the nutmeg. Delicious, even if it wasn’t true war cake!
Not very good. It was VERY thick batter and it came out very dense and dry. The raisins tasted burnt too. The cake wasn’t but the raisins tasted burnt anyway. I won’t make it again.
I made this for a BBQ and everyone loved it. The kids wanted this cake instead of the box cake I made with all of the sweet frosting. Thanks for a great recipe and a definite keeper!
I have been looking for this recipe for over 50 years! My mom used tomake this for us all the time as we were very poor and couldn’t afford real cakes and desserts so we got War Cake . I LOVE IT!!! Thank you very much. Pati
i loved this recipe… both my daughter and my mom are highly allergic to milk and milk bi-products this was the first time in 20 years my mom was able to have cake! I made a few minor changes though…trippled the cinnamon so i used 1.5 tps and we dont eat raisins or nuts…so instead i added a cup of apple sauce….it was really good and i will certainly use this recipe again thanks a lot stephanie!!!!!!
My grandma makes this with a little variation. It’s made in a bundt cake pan minus the candied citron and then cooled and covered in a melted Hershey’s bar. It’s wonderful! Keeps well too!
THis recipe dates back to WW1Very good and keeps well