Recipe # 5 Husband's Cake

 

This recipe is for the famous tomato soup cake, I have heard of it in various incarnations before but always thought it sounded inedible. Through my research I found this to be a common depression era recipe, although I can’t seem to figure out the exact origin or reason behind it (was there a surplus of canned soup?). The best part of looking into this recipe was that all the recipes I found when looking into this were called “Darling” Husband’s cake, whereas my Grandma’s recipe was entitled simply “Husband Cake”, take from that what you will.

Prep Time: Around 20 minutes

Cost: Around 8 dollars – the soup, Crisco, nuts and raisins were items I did not have in my pantry

Verdict: The batter smelled vile, and did not look very pleasing either. However the result was a moist and flavorful spice cake with a taste similar to carrot cake even though there was nothing close to a carrot in the ingredients.

Here is the recipe

¾ cup Crisco (I took this to mean shortening)

1 ½ cup sugar

1 can of tomato soup with ¾ cup water

1 tsp. baking soda

3 cups of flour

1 ½ cups of raisins

¾ tsp. salt

3 tsp. baking powder

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

1 ½ tsp. cloves

1 ½ tsp. nutmeg

1 ½ cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Blend Crisco and sugar. Combine soup, water, add Crisco to mixture, alternatively with dry, stir in raisins and nuts.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour, I found this was way too long it only really need around ½ hour

Cream Cheese Fondant icing

-       To 1 package of cream cheese add 1 beaten egg and 3 cups of icing sugar, 1/8 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. vanilla.

Recipe #4 - Rhubarb Crunch

Recipe # 4- Rhubarb Crunch

A really easy recipe, the first one that was complete enough that I didn't have to rresearch it further.

Prep Time- 15 minutes

Cost – The only slightly expensive or hard to find ingredient is the rhubarb, frozen rhubarb works fine.

Verdict- Easy to make, I liked the contrast of the tangy rhubarb and the sweet crust but you really need to grease the pan well or its going to stick.

Crust

1 cup of flour

½ cup of butter

2 Tbsps. sugar

Combine and spread in a 8x8 pan and bake for 15 minutes at 350 F

Topping

2 eggs

1 ¼ cup sugar

pinch of salt

¼ cup flour

¾ tbsp. baking powder

2-3 cups rhubarb

Beat eggs with dry ingredients. Add rhubarb, spread over crust and bake about 25 minutes.

Recipe # 3- Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie

 

I was excited to make this recipe having been a long time fan of Boston cream donuts, I mean does Tim Horton’s do anything better? I was confused right off the bat as this was clearly a recipe for a cake and in no one was talking about why they were calling it pie . I used my extensive research skills (google) and eventually found that in New England colonialists would use pie tins when baking cakes as they usually only had pie tins, the first reference to Boston Cream pie was from a newspaper in 1855, that called it Boston pudding pie cake. I thought this was interesting because it links back to the last recipe I made which was called pudding which was clearly cake, clearly people have had a variety of ideas of what constitutes a pudding pie or a cake.

Prep time – A good hour

Cost – Whip cream and chocolate don’t come cheap probably around $12, plus what I already had in my pantry.

Verdict- A little time consuming and not that exciting a product, might be better off going to Tim Horton’s

So here is my Grandma’s recipe, which was almost unusable, as it seemed to just be a recipe for the cake and not the filling or the icing

Ingredients

2 cups cake flour

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1/3 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2/3 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1. Sift dry ingredients, cream butter, sugar.

2. Add egg yolks, flour milk and beat.

3. Add vanilla, beat egg whites, stiff fold into batter, beat.

This is the recipe I used

 Ingredients

6 Tbsps. butter

2 Tbsps. AP flour

11/2 cups cake flour

2 tsps. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

¾ cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup milk

½ cup cream

½ cup milk

¼ cup white sugar

4 tsps. cornstarch

2 eggs

½ tsp. vanilla extract

3 1-ounce squares semisweet chocolate

2 tbsps. butter

¼ cup light cream,

½ tsp. vanilla extract

½ cup icing sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F. Grease 2 9 inch round cake pans. Mix the AP flour, the cake flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

2. Cream 6 tbsps. of butter with ¾ cup sugar. Beat in 2 eggs, and then add the vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternatively with ½ cup milk, beat until smooth and pour into pans. Bake for 15 minutes or until cake begins to shrink from sides of the pan.

3. For the filling combine ½ cup cream with ¼ cup of milk and cook over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the edge of the pan. Add the ¼ cup of sugar and the salt, stir until dissolved and remove from heat.

4. In a bowl combine ¼ cup of milk with the cornstarch and whisk to remove lumps, whisk in 2 eggs. Add the hot cream mixture and return to the saucepan and bring to a boil and cook over a low heat stirring constantly until custard thickens. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

5. For the chocolate frosting melt your chocolate in a heavy saucepan over low heat with 2 tbsps. of butter. Once melted remove from heat and add ¼ cup cream, add icing sugar beat vigorously and then stir in ½ tsp. of vanilla.

6. Once everything has cooled assemble your cake by placing custard in the middle and chocolate frosting letting it spill over the sides.