Vegan Cake Recipe: War Cake
During WWII, foods were rationed: eggs, milk, sugar and other items. Vegans do not eat these foods, so what better recipes for vegans than recipes from WWII? Here is my grandmother's famous eggless, sugar-less butter-less milkless "war cake" recipe. I've tweaked the recipe only to remove lard' or shortening from the ingredients list and replaced with olive oil. If you want to make an authentic war cake, use shortening as olive oil would have been difficult to find and probably boycotted as we were at war with Italy. If you're looking to lose weight or just lighten up your cake, use mashed avocado, applesauce or ground flaxseed to sub for oil and eggs.
War Cake
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/ 2 cup corn syrup
1/2 molasses
1 cup cold water
1 cup chopped raisin
2 teaspoons any combination of spices: cinnamon, mace, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cloves
one half teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
one half cup olive oil (or mashed avocado, mashed banana, applesauce or milled flaxseed)
Bring to boil oil, spices, corn syrup molasses, salt, raisins and water. Boil three minutes. Sift together dry flour, soda, baking powder. Blend wet and dry ingredients. Pour into oiled tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted into top of cake comes out clean.
