Depression cake

Depression cake was a type of cake that was commonly made during the Great Depression. The ingredients of depression cake have relatively little or no milk, sugar, and eggs because they were either expensive or hard to get at that time. Similar cakes are known as "War Cake" as they avoided using ingredients which were scarce, or were being conserved for the use of soldiers. A common Depression Cake is also known as "Boiled Raisin Cake," or "Eggless, Milkless, Butterless Cake." It gets the title "Boiled" due to the boiling of raisins with the sugar and spices, to make a syrup base, early in the recipe. Some bakers do use butter in this recipe though. Boiled raisin type cakes date back at least to the American Civil War.

Ingredients

The ingredients include:

sugar, strong coffee, water or apple juice, shortening, dark raisins or diced pitted prunes, med. apple, unsifted all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, chopped walnuts, almonds, or pecans