Grandma Brown's Boiled Raisin Cake

Boiled raisin cake is a very special holiday cake that my Dad's stepmother (aka Grandma Brown) always made every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter in our family.  It is also sometimes called "Christmas Cake", "Ration Cake" or "Depression Cake" since most variations of it came about from rations given during "The Great Depression". You could say that it is sort of a variation of Christmas pudding, although the cooking method is different and it is not as dense. 

Distinctively dark in color, our family's version looked a lot like a dark chocolate cake, because of the cocoa powder.  To us, that made it unique among most other boiled raisin cakes out there  which are mostly a tan color. No frosting was needed, since it was flavorful enough on its own. It was basically eaten like banana bread. 

The taste is somewhat like pumpkin pie, with an extra rich "cloves" flavor. However, the spices in the cake really don't come to their full flavor until the next day. So we NEVER ate it fresh out of the oven. Grandma would always make a few loaves a day or two before a holiday, wrap them in foil and let them rest on the counter at room temperature until the next day. Then we would all start carving it into slices and spreading soft butter on it!  Ahh, the memories... 

Step 1 Ingredients:

1 cup seedless raisins

2 cups water

1 cup sugar

3 table spoons shortening

3 tablespoons cocoa

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

Step 2 Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1.       In a medium sized pot, bring Step 1 ingredients to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.  Remove from heat.  

2.       **Allow mixture to cool to room temperature.**  This is a very important step in the making of this cake.  Adding the dry ingredients while the mixture is too hot will ruin the batter and make the baking soda activate too soon.

3.       Add the teaspoon of vanilla extract.

4.        Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

5.       Mix Step 2 ingredients into the pot with Step 1 ingredients.  

6.       Coat baking pan(s) with shortening and a light dusting of flour.  Use 2 pans for smaller loaves, 1 pan for a larger loaf.  

7.       Pour batter into pan(s).  Bake 1 hour, remove from oven and place on a flat protected surface to cool.  

8.       After cake is cool, remove from pan carefully, loosening the edges from the pan with a butter knife.  Wrap loaves in plastic or foil to store. 

Serve either at room temperature, or reheated if you wish.   Its best to store either wrapped in plastic at room temperature, or refrigerated.