War Cake: Waiting, Rationing and Raisins
Today we’re back at my grandmother’s recipe tin, fingers plucking out a card that I’ve passed over each of the hundreds of times I’ve rummaged through the collection.
The tin is dented at the corners and speckled with rust spots, like it spent time in someone’s damp basement or maybe it just lived a long, full life atop a New England refrigerator.
There’s one card in particular I keep coming back to. It’s labeled “War Cake.” Nothing looked appealing about it over the years, but as my collection of those vintage, spiral-bound community cookbooks grows, so does my curiosity. Many of these vintage cookbooks have entries for “depression cake” or “war cake,” with some even calling it “poor man’s cake.”
The majority of cookbooks published and aimed at the women of my grandmother’s (and mother’s) generation all have multiple entries for this rationing wunderkind of a dessert.
No butter. No eggs. No milk. Just boiled water, brown sugar, spice, and (of course) raisins.
I’ve never liked raisins. Too often in an oatmeal cookie they’ve fooled me and led me to believe they’re a chocolate chip. Ditto for trail mix, when all I really want is another knock-off M&M candy and instead I end up with a mouthful of raisins.
But my grandfather? He loved them. Raisin-studded hermit cookies (marked on the card as “Pop’s favorite”). Raisin pie. Cinnamon raisin toast. Rum raisin Haagen Daz Ice Cream.
War cake, too, I’m told, though I can’t say I ever saw him eat it in my lifetime.
Still, he lived 90 raisin-filled years, and the notes in the tin don’t lie.
I used to think his preferences were just that—preferences. But the more I research New England food traditions and foodways, the more I see them as echoes of something larger.
He was a Depression-era New England boy who served in the Navy during World War II. And in those years of want and ration, raisins weren’t just food. They were another attempt at survival. They were sweetness, preserved. Comfort in a cupboard when softened and added to baked goods.
What Is War Cake, Anyway?
War Cake, also called Boiled Raisin Cake (gross), first made the rounds during World War I, but it came back into American kitchens with a vengeance in the 1940s. Designed for times of rationing, it used no eggs, butter, or milk, all ingredients that were strictly regulated and hard to come by. Instead, women turned to boiled water, vinegar, molasses, and spices.
Dried fruits like raisins became a clever substitute for both sugar and texture.
This wasn’t a glamorous cake. It was pantry-stable and like many of New England’s heritage foods, it is brown and modest.
But it was a cake all the same. It filled the house with cinnamon and clove and that was probably enough. It fed families during uncertainty. It gave the illusion of normalcy when the world was anything but.
The Women Who Stayed Behind
While my grandfather was overseas in the Navy on the subs USS Pelias and the USS Crevalle in the Pacific theater, my grandmother stayed home.
A newlywed at 19-years-old in May of 1943, she started building a life for herself and my grandfather even after he was shipped back out shortly after their wedding. She opened letters from ships and squinted at black-and-white newsreels. She saved coffee cans and bacon grease. She planted vegetables, cut coupons, and baked cakes without butter.
Like millions of women on the home front, she endured the long, quiet wait. She watched the calendar. She held her breath when the phone rang. She rationed sugar and, knowing her, good cheer in equal measure.
War cakes weren’t just dessert. They were a ritual. A way to say: we’re still here. We still make do. We still hope.
Pop and His Raisins
After the war, my grandfather came home. He lived another seven decades, built a life in Massachusetts and Vermont and never stopped loving the humble sweets of his youth. Hermit cookies. Molasses cake. Anything with raisins.
I wonder if it was about taste at all. Or if raisins were his madeleine—the flavor of survival, of thrift, of just enough. Maybe, for him, a raisin cookie was a kind of homecoming. A bite of resilience.
I’ll be honest. I still don’t like them. I pick them out of my oatmeal and mutter about it when they show up in trail mix. But I’ll bake with them anyway. I’ll keep the recipe card. I’ll keep the tin.
A Different Kind of Memorial
On Memorial Day, we gather to honor the fallen. We place flags, light candles, tell stories. But sometimes, remembrance is quieter than that. Sometimes it’s a handwritten recipe, stained with time. Sometimes it’s a cake that uses no butter, no eggs, no milk, only memory.
This year, I’m remembering the women who waited, who kept the home fires burning. I’m remembering the men who came back and stitched their lives back together with small joys like a slice of cake or a warm cookie. I’m remembering my grandparents—not just their service, but their survival.
And I’ll bake the war cake. Raisins and all.
Margaret Larsen’s War Cake (Eggless, Butterless, Milkless)
A Depression-era classic, sweetened with memory and spice
Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 ½ cups water
1 ½ cups raisins
1/3 cup shortening or neutral oil (vegetable, canola, or melted coconut oil)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
Optional: ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Instructions:
In a medium saucepan, combine brown sugar, water, raisins, shortening (or oil), cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt.
Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour a loaf pan or an 8x8 baking dish.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
Stir the dry ingredients into the cooled raisin mixture until just combined. Fold in nuts if using.
Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35–45 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool before slicing. Serve plain or with a dusting of powdered sugar.