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Found my grandma's recipe for 'Depression Cake' in a box of her stuff
I was cleaning out my mom's attic in Toledo and found a whole folder of my grandma's handwritten notes. One was a recipe for a cake that uses no eggs, milk, or butter, just vinegar and oil. My mom said they called it 'Depression Cake' because her mom made it during hard times in the 1930s. I tried making it last weekend and it was surprisingly good, a dense spice cake. It got me thinking, we never make stuff like this anymore because ingredients are easy to get. Has anyone else found a recipe from a time when people had to make do with less?
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oscarthompson5mo ago
Tbh it's wild how those recipes were basically food science hacks. They knew exactly how vinegar reacts with baking soda to replace eggs.
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nathan_moore125mo ago
Yeah, @oscarthompson, my grandma's cake recipe did that exact thing.
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sams254mo ago
You mention "food science hacks," but I see it a bit different. My own grandmother made these cakes during the 30s and she wasn't thinking about chemistry. She was just using what she had because there was no money for eggs or milk. The vinegar worked because someone figured it out through trial and error, not science. These recipes come from real hardship, not clever experiments. I think we lose something when we turn survival cooking into a science project.
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