War Cake

Time for something sweet. From page 194 of the 1942 edition of How to Cook a Wolf, I give you the aptly titled War Cake.

War Cake

1/2 cup shortening or bacon grease
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon other spices…cloves, mace, ginger…
1 cup chopped raisins or other dried fruit…prunes, figs… (I was lazy and just used raisins and didn’t even chop ’em)
1 cup sugar, brown or white (I used brown)
1 cup water
2 cups flour, white or whole wheat (I used 1 cup of white and 1 cup of white whole wheat because all this white flour stuff is NOT GOOD)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder

Sift dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, & baking powder). Put remaining ingredients in sauce pan and bring to a boil.

Melting the bacon fat

Cook 5 minutes then let cool completely.

Boil the "wet" ingredients

Mix in dry ingredients. Bake for 45 minutes at 325 degrees in a greased loaf pan.

Feeling daring, I followed the directions on page 22 for collecting bacon drippings: “pour…into a metal container and then pour water over it. The burned food particles will sink into the water, and the fat will rise as it cools and be clean and easy to lift into another cup or bowl.” Certainly, this is nothing new; I just haven’t done it before. The congealed fat was mostly a pure white color with a decided eau de bacon about it.  It took an entire package of bacon (don’t worry, we ate it over a period of several meals) to get a scant half cup and I probably should have strained it a little better as directed in this article. But, yes, I used bacon grease in this recipe and (so far) have lived to tell the tale though I had absolutely no desire to lick the bowl.

All Done

I’ll update when I try it. It’s too hot right now and I’m not hungry anyway.

Update: Well, it’s edible. Barely. Can’t say it tastes that great. There’s an underlying bacon-y flavor that isn’t altogether pleasant. If anyone else tries this, let me know what you think.