What was carrot cake like during the war, grandad?

I have a longer introduction to the idea of carrot cake, and how the modern oil-based cake is a relatively recent innovation. Read all about it here.

This is adapted from another blog. It’s a butter cake like you’d expect to make, but there’s less sugar (because of rationing) and carrots are added for sweetness and moisture.

Oven at 200 °C (gas mark 7). Prepare a 20 cm cake tin.

Rub the fat into the flour until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Add the sugar, grated carrot, dried fruit and the egg.

Mix well, adding milk to make the batter a bit more runny.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, then cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Allow to cool before eating.

I didn’t ice this. I don’t think they would ice a cake in the war, what with sugar being in short supply.

Judgement

It’s OK. Not as moist as the oil-based carrot cake I made the other day, but an acceptable cake nonetheless. Younger child asked me to make it again, but we agreed on a couple of adjustments. First, add some cinnamon. Second, add some icing. After a brief discussion, we agreed that an orange icing similar to that used for lemon drizzle cake would be the first thing to try.

All of which means two things: One, I’ll be updating this recipe before too long. Two, I’ll have to do a recipe for lemon drizzle cake.

Rationing

Of the six ingredients in this cake, all were rationed in 1943, except flour.

Dried fruit was part of a points system. Each adult got 16 points per month towards non-essential items such as dried fruit, canned goods and biscuits. In 1943, a pound of currants would take up all 16 points for the month.

Ingredient	Adult ration/ week	Used here
Flour	Not rationed
Margerine	4 oz	3 oz
Sugar	8 oz	3 oz
Egg (fresh)	1	1
Egg (dried)	3	not used
Dried fruit	points based	2 oz

I resisted the urge to use dried egg. This is partly because they didn’t have any at Waitrose¹, and mainly because the taste was supposedly revolting².

Flour wasn’t formally rationed during the war, but it wasn’t always easy to come by. Flour and bread were rationed from July 1946 to July 1948, partly due to a dreadful summer ruining wheat crops.

Nutrition Facts
Serving size: slice
Servings: 8
Amount per serving
Calories	249
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 10.1g	13%
Saturated Fat 1.8g	9%
Cholesterol 47mg	16%
Sodium 128mg	6%
Total Carbohydrate 35.4g	13%
Dietary Fiber 1.2g	4%
Total Sugars 12.6g
Protein 4.8g
Vitamin D 4mcg	22%
Calcium 20mg	2%
Iron 2mg	9%
Potassium 111mg	2%

1. The place is going to the dogs, I tell you! ↩︎
2. Esther Rantzen in particular recalled how disgusting the taste of powdered egg was. ↩︎