These often turn out wonderfully, and it got me thinking what it would be like to try a wartime recipe using the same ingredients that people would have been restricted to during rationing.
Rationing was a system implemented to make sure everyone got their fair share of food during national shortages in wartime.
This was exacerbated by enemy ships and submarines attacking imports of food, which caused a greater reliance on items produced in the UK.
Marguerite Patten was one of the earliest celebrity chefs, presenting a popular BBC radio programme during World War Two, in which she shared recipes for cooking with wartime rations.
Here she is demonstrating how to make an Easter cake back in 1950.#ThrowbackThursday pic.twitter.com/sicwECXLIo
— BBC Current Affairs (@BBC_CurrAff) April 9, 2020
Several foodstuffs, such as sugar, meat, fats, bacon, eggs and cheese, were rationed, which caused a great impact.
After doing a bit of research for wartime cake recipes, I was recommended by my mum to check out recipes from Marguerite Patten.
She was one of the earliest examples of a celebrity chef and became famous during World War II, where she shared recipes on BBC radio that could work within the limits of rationing.
It sounded like the perfect thing to explore, and I found her recipe for a Vinegar Cake, which was a fruit cake that used vinegar instead of eggs.
This can be seen in her book Feeding the Nation, and is notable for using vinegar instead of eggs as a main component.
How to make a World War II-era light fruit cake
Making the cake will not require too many ingredients (Image: Newsquest)
In terms of ingredients for the fruit cake recipe you will need
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6oz of self-raising flour
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3oz of margarine
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3oz of sugar
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1/4 pint of milk
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1 tablespoon of vinegar
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1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
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3-4oz of mixed dried fruit
Meanwhile, for equipment, you will need:
Baking cakes is not something I do very often, so I made it with my Mum overseeing things to make sure I didn’t mess up anywhere.
The first step involves creaming the margarine and sugar together (Image: Newsquest)
Firstly, we creamed the margarine and sugar together and made sure it was well-combined.
After that, the recipe recommends pouring the milk, vinegar and bicarbonate of soda into a “large basin”.
It was quite a vague term, so we combined the elements into a large measuring jug as it would supposedly froth up quite a bit.
The recipe involves 3-4 ounces of mixed fruit (Image: Newsquest)
However, this didn’t happen in practice, so any worries of creating a mess were quickly alleviated, at least.
We then poured that mixture into the mixing bowl with the creamed margarine and sugar, before sifting the flour into it.
After mixing that, we then added the dried fruit, which was a combination of raisins, peel and cherries.
All the ingredients will eventually be mixed together into the bowl (Image: Newsquest)
Finally, after briefly mixing together, we then poured it into a seven-inch baking tin.
The recipe recommends flouring and greasing the tin, but if you have a cake case to hand, you can line the tin with that.
All there is to do after that is to pop it in a “moderate oven” (approximately 170-180C) and bake it for an hour.
The verdict
Once the hour was up, I took the cake out of the oven and was pleased to see that, at least aesthetically, it had turned out quite well.
The cake certainly looked the part coming out of the oven (Image: Newsquest)
It had a nice golden-brown colour with bits of dried fruit popping through the outer layer.
All that was left to do was to try it, and I was pleasantly surprised with the results.
I’d seen from other people trying the recipe that it had turned out really crumbly, but in this case it held its shape perfectly.
The cake had a light and fluffy texture (Image: Newsquest)
Having it warm was certainly a bonus, and it had a delightfully fluffy and light texture.
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It also wasn’t overly sweet and balanced all the flavours remarkably well.
Due to how relatively few ingredients this requires and how it doesn’t take too long to make, I would highly recommend giving this a try.
While rationing is, of course, something nobody ever wants to go back to or experience in the first place, it is somewhat comforting to know that with a bit of adjustment, people were still able to enjoy some treats like this.
