Poverty Cake (And Jews Without Money)

Working at Henry Street Settlement, a social service agency founded in 1893 to fight the social causes of poverty, I tend to think about poverty a lot.  I've been thinking about it even more than usual, having just read Michael Gold's 1930 best seller, Jews Without Money, a semi-autobiographical novel of his childhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  In the book, Gold (a communist who co-founded The New Masses and later was a columnist for The Daily Worker), blamed every misfortune, large or small, on poverty.  (I was lucky enough to attend Vivian Gornick's illuminating salon/conversation about the book at the Tenement Museum's Tenement Talks; the next and final session of her Immigrant Novel Series there is March 5, when she will tackle another classic, Henry Roth's Call It Sleep. Do consider going to that, or you can spend the evening with me at a poverty-fighting event at the Park Avenue Armory that night, The Art Show Gala Preview to benefit Henry Street.)  

That's a long way to get to Poverty Cake but here we are. Initially, I figured it was another version of Depression Cake, Poor Man's Cookies, Canada War Cake or any number of similarly named confections created when butter, sugar and eggs were scarce.  But, as the DH said upon trying a slice, "This poverty cake is rich."  And it is -- rich in flavor and fat (it has both butter and eggs) and is a really good spice cake -- not at all what one would expect from poverty cake. This would make a perfect after-school snack.

To make the cake, boil the raisins in the water and then add one stick of butter.

Add the rest of the ingredients and then simply pour into an 8 x 8 inch pan, which you've either greased and floured or lined with parchment paper.

This cake travels really well.  Of course, I brought some to work...

...where even poverty-fighter-in-chief David Garza had a small piece. (Who would want a big piece of poverty?)  

Henry Street's original poverty fighter, founder Lillian Wald, was fond of the expression "full of ginger."  This cake isn't full of ginger, but has plenty of other spices.

The cover of the latest edition of Jews Without Money -- a compelling novel certainly worth a read. In it the narrator writes that poverty makes some people insane, and he quotes his father as saying:  "It's better to be dead in this country than not to have money."

Spice Cake (good one)

On Sunday, knowing my daughter, Alex, and her sugar-loving boyfriend, Josh, were stopping by for dinner, I decided to bake a cake. After pouring through the contents of a recipe box I purchased at an estate sale in Akron -- (I remember the person making the sale kindly offered to dump all the cards -- she thought I just wanted the box!)-- I was all set to make Sugarplum Spice Cake, mostly because I liked the name.

Then, I discovered a recipe card simply titled "Spice Cake." On the reverse side was the notation: (good one). So with that endorsement (from an unknown 1940s home cook) that's the one I made. It's a keeper. Simple to make and absolutely delicious. Josh said it was like carrot cake, but without the carrot. All of us liked the fine crumb, moist texture and bold spice of the cake. And having just eaten two more pieces, I can guarantee that it's as good, if not better, the day after it's baked.

Like many butter cakes of the 1940s (and those popularized more recently by Rose Levy Beranbaum in The Cake Bible), this is made using a rather uncoventional (by today's standards) method. The butter is initially mixed with the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, etc.), not with the sugar. This method produces a very fine textured cake, according to uber baker Nick Malgieri, who notes that it was called high ratio baking when it was introduced by Proctor and Gamble in the 40s.
Tomorrow: The caramel frosting for the cake.