Fruit Cocktail Cake

Growing up in Akron, the fruit most commonly found in our house was in a can, so I have a special fondness for fruit cocktail. And apparently, so do many others -- I found several vintage fruit cocktail cake recipes in my collection.

I made this to bring to the Sugar Sweets Festival at the City Reliquary in Williamburg last Sunday.  I wasn't exactly sure of my role at the event, but the website said I'd be bringing "historic culinary curiosities" so I made this cake from the 1950s, plus desserts from the 1930s and 1940s for sampling, allowing visitors to "eat their history."  The fruit cocktail cake proved quite popular.

If you can open a can, you can make this cake. And the recipe is very uncomplicated -- just put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until combined.

Then, just pour into a greased and floured pan. (I used a 12 x 9 inch pan. See what happened here when I used a 9 inch pan the first time I made this.)  And as if the cake weren't sweet enough, the instructions call for topping it with a mixture of nuts and one cup of brown sugar!

Note that the recipe has no butter. (But plenty of sugar.)

One of the event highlights at the Sugar Sweets Festival was meeting the charming Lillie Auld, author of the wonderful blog, Butter Me Up Brooklyn, who was judging a cupcake contest at the event.

Below are two of the desserts I brought to the event.  Here's the recipe for the Depression Cake (which is actually a recipe from WW I, but was reprised in the 1930s) and the recipe for the wonderful chocolate cake.

The City Reliquary has some great baking exhibits at the moment, including a display of some of my vintage recipe cards.

Sugar Sweets Festival scene. Special thanks to the DH for these photos.