Ah, with nearly everyone staying inside and the shelves at the store bare, you might be thinking of having just a little snack. This might seem difficult if your pantry is running a bit low, but, it’s not. People have dealt with that pesky paltry pantry many, many times in the past, and there’s almost always something you can put together from whatever you have available. Think that sounds far-fetched? Well, we’ll show you how to make a tasty cake from whatever you have around the house. All you need is 2 cups of flour and a few other staples.
This recipe was published in our local newspaper, by Robin Mather, under the title War Cake; a reference to How to Cook a Wolf, by M. F. K. Fisher, was provided as the inspiration. We were fascinated by how flexible this recipe is; it does seem as if you could make a cake from almost anything, which is the reason we renamed it.
Paltry Pantry Spice Cake
Ingredients
- 280 g flour, white or whole wheat or a mix (2 cups)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- Pinch salt
- 1/2 cup butter, margarine, shortening, oil, or whatever fat you have available
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp mixed ground spices, such as nutmeg, coriander, ginger, clove, or allspice
- 160 g dried fruit, raisins, dried cranberries, figs, dates, coconut, currants, or a mix, or no fruit at all (1 cup)
- 200 g sweetener, such as sugar, brown sugar, molasses, or a mix (1 cup)
- 240 g water (1 cup)
Instructions
- Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan. Set aside.
- Mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium saucepan, combine remaining ingredients and place over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Let cool completely.
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Combine flour mixture with the mixture from the saucepan, stirring until just combined. Scrape into prepared pan.
- Bake 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove from pan to cool completely.
- Serve dusted with powdered sugar.
Ingredient discussion:
Since this is such a variable cake, we’ll go through our choice of ingredients; you choose what you have on hand. For the flour, we went with a 50/50 mix of all-purpose flour and spelt flour, because we wanted some whole-grain in the mix. For the fat, we used butter, mainly because we always have a lot of that in the freezer, and we think that it’s a healthier choice than shortening. For the extra teaspoon of mixed spices, we used allspice, nutmeg, and cardamom, mainly because they were handy. Our dried fruit was a mix of dried cranberries, some dried coconut, and some dried cherries. Our sweetener was a 75/25 mix of brown sugar and molasses. We have a couple of jars of molasses that we never seem to use much of; this cake seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. Finally, this cake seems to be a good place to mix in a handful of nuts; we didn’t do it, but feel free.
Procedure in detail:
Grease pan. Butter or grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside. You might be tempted to dust it with flour, too; we were tempted, but we didn’t. Set it aside.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, stir together whatever flour(s) you’re using, along with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. The original recipe said to whisk, but it just didn’t seem right to get out a whisk to make this cake. This is a cake made with a spoon, so we just stirred.
Cook remaining ingredients and cool. Place the remaining ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring once or twice. Let cool to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Heat the oven while the liquid ingredients cool; that seems somewhat symmetrical, doesn’t it?
Make batter. Pour the cooled liquids over the flour mixture and stir together until you have a batter, and all the flour is moistened. Don’t over-mix or your cake will be tough. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
Bake. Bake the cake for about 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool. Let the cake cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then turn out to cool completely.
Serve. We simply sliced ours, dusted with a bit of powdered sugar, and went at it. If you happen to have a bit of whipped cream, that would be good, too.
A cake with no eggs and no milk, how good could it be? Well, it’s good. No, it’s not as tender and light as a cake with eggs and milk, but it’s very good. And talk about easy; it’s super easy to make. Plus, you can pretty much make this cake anytime you have a couple of cups of flour available. Everything else is up for grabs, so you’ll have a different cake each time you make it. Five stars.
