Name: Wartime Christmas Cake
Yield: Makes one small cake, using a 450 g/1 lb loaf tin
Ingredients: ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda, dissolved in 1 tbsp warm water; 2 tbsp black treacle; 225 g/8 oz unsweetened apple purée; 170 g/6 oz butter (or margarine); 170 g/6 oz caster sugar; ½ tsp ground cloves; ¾ tsp ground cinnamon; Pinch of nutmeg; Pinch of salt; 2 tbsp golden syrup; 225 g/8 oz wholemeal flour; 85 g/3 oz currants; 85 g/3 oz raisins

Preparation info

Makes
one
small cake, using a 450 g 1 lb loaf tin

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

At Christmas We Feast

By Annie Gray

Published 2021

About

Elizabeth Craig, 1941, Cooking in Wartime¹¹⁷

Wartime recipes were a mixture of sensible suggestions based on poverty cookery from the past, and more far-fetched solutions dreamt up in desperation and longing for pre-war largesse. With sugar, fat, dried fruit and fuel rationed, and spice in short supply, at Christmas cakes and puddings were particularly problematic. This recipe was