1930s Vegan Spice Cake

A Moist Vegan Spice Cake with No Eggs or Dairy

Vegan eating is enjoying more popularity than ever but, my grandmother was making vegan cake before it was hip.  She used her creativity to make a delicious spicy cake with the ingredients that were available during the Depression of the 1930s.  We all know that most cakes use eggs, butter, and sometimes sour cream to achieve the crave-worthy taste of a deliciously moist cake but, those items were in short supply during the ’30s. So she swapped those items out for oil and spices to create something that has been a family favorite for 4 generations.

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This is not a light and airy cake, it is a dense sweet cake, something more like a sour cream coffee cake. In fact, this spice cake and coffee make an amazing combination and have been known to appear at breakfast time without any objections.  

My sweet grandmother made this every year for our annual family road trip from Illinois to Maryland. She labeled it “Tedium Remedy” and packaged it up lovingly in a reused (she was ahead of her time in environmental awareness) Quaker Oats canister.  It truly did rescue us from the boredom of our annual 20 hour, 2-day road trip in the ’70s and ’80s.

This also was the recipe my sister and I made every year for Father’s Day and my dad’s birthday when we just didn’t know what to get him.  It was always a hit. Now, I make this for my own family.

Vegan Spice Cake

A moist vegan spice cake with no dairy or eggs, full of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and allspice. This cake was inspired by the baking of the 1930s Depression era, when butter and eggs were in short supply. It is a versatile cake that works just as well for breakfast as it does for an afternoon tea time, or an after dinner dessert.

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 12

Calories 450 kcal

Equipment

• stove top
• oven

Ingredients

  

Wet Ingredients, mix and boil

• 1 cup oil
• 2 cup water
• 2 cup raisins
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1.5 cups sugar

Dry Ingredients

• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup chopped walnuts optional but delicious

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Add all wet ingredients, including raising, spices and sugar, to a pan and bring to a boil on the stove.
• Once boiling, remove pan from the heat and let it cool while you complete the next steps
• While boiled ingredients are cooling, mix dry ingredients together in a seperate smaller bowl
• Grease or line a 9×12 baking pan with parchment paper.
• Add (slightly cooled) boiled ingredients to the dry ingredients, mix quickly till no flour is visible.
• Pour into prepared pan and bake 40 mins

Notes

This also works with just 1 cup of sugar if you prefer a “less sweet” cake for breakfast.

Keyword Vegan spice coffee cake