1946 Applesauce Spice Cake Recipe | Retro Recipes Revived

From the pages of The American Woman’s Cook Book, a simple old-fashioned spice cake returns to the kitchen eighty years later.

Some recipes ask to be modernized. Others ask only to be remembered.

While paging through my 1946 edition of The American Woman’s Cook Book, I stopped at a quietly practical recipe for Applesauce Spicecake — the sort of everyday cake that feels completely at home beside a cup of coffee, a well-used mixing bowl, and an old loaf pan.

There was nothing elaborate about it. Applesauce, warm spices, raisins, nuts, and the familiar instruction to bake it in a moderate oven. It felt less like a showpiece and more like something that might once have appeared on an ordinary kitchen table.

That was reason enough to bring it back.

Watch the Recipe Come Back to Life

From the Cookbook Shelf

The American Woman’s Cook Book was one of the large household cookbooks intended to do far more than supply a few dinner recipes. The 1946 edition was published in Chicago by Consolidated Book Publishers and edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, Director of the Culinary Arts Institute.

Its pages move through the practical work of feeding a household: buying food, planning menus, baking, preserving, preparing vegetables and meats, and turning familiar pantry ingredients into dependable everyday meals.

The Applesauce Spicecake fits naturally into that world. It is economical without announcing itself as such, warmly spiced without being extravagant, and flexible enough to be baked as either a loaf or layers.

Inside a 1946 Kitchen

A cook reading this recipe in 1946 would have encountered several instructions that feel distinctly of their time, yet are still perfectly understandable today.

The recipe calls for the dry ingredients to be sifted three times, asks for a “moderate oven” of 350°F, and gives both loaf-pan and layer-cake baking options. The original version uses unsweetened applesauce along with cinnamon and nutmeg, chopped nuts, and a full cup of chopped raisins.

There is something wonderfully revealing in those details. Nothing is rushed. Ingredients are sifted, alternated, beaten thoroughly, and baked in a straightforward pan. It is the language of a kitchen built around method rather than shortcuts.

The Original Recipe

The original Applesauce Spicecake recipe is wonderfully straightforward: applesauce, warm spices, raisins, chopped nuts, and the familiar baking methods of its era.

It offers both loaf and layer-cake options, which tells us something about the flexibility of recipes like this one. This was not a precious dessert reserved for a single occasion. It was the sort of dependable cake that could adapt itself to the pan, the table, and the household.

That practicality is part of what made me want to try it almost exactly as written.

What I Changed — and Why

I made only one small adjustment to the original recipe: I reduced the raisins from a full cup to ½ cup.

A full cup would certainly have been true to the recipe, but I wanted the finished loaf to remain firmly in spice-cake territory rather than edge too far toward fruitcake. Half a cup gave the cake little pockets of sweetness without overwhelming the crumb.

Everything else was allowed to remain very much itself.

And because the little details are half the pleasure of baking from an old cookbook, I baked mine in a vintage white loaf pan — exactly the sort of quiet kitchen object that makes a recipe like this feel less like reenactment and more like continuity.

And Then We Tasted It

The result was tall, moist, warmly spiced, and surprisingly gentle.

A slice of 1946 Applesauce Spice Cake with raisins and nuts — The revived 1946 Applesauce Spicecake, baked in my kitchen nearly eighty years after the recipe was published.

The applesauce gave the cake tenderness without making it heavy, while the cinnamon and nutmeg supplied the familiar warmth you expect from an old-fashioned spice cake. The raisins and nuts added texture without turning the loaf into something overly rich or dense.

It tasted exactly like the sort of cake that belongs beside coffee — simple, comforting, and completely uninterested in showing off.

Is It Worth Reviving?

Yes — this one is staying in the kitchen.

Some old recipes are fascinating because they belong firmly to their time. Others survive because they still make sense on a modern table.

This 1946 Applesauce Spicecake belongs in the second group.

It is easy to make, modest in its ingredients, lovely with coffee or tea, and just unusual enough to remind us that everyday baking has a history of its own.

The LIBK Kitchen Version

Below is the version I baked in my own kitchen, with the raisins reduced to ½ cup and the spirit of the original recipe left very much intact.

View Recipe: 1946 Applesauce Spice Cake

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients

½ cup butter or shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
½ cup chopped nuts
½ cup chopped raisins
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup unsweetened applesauce

Method

Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease and line an 8½ × 4½ × 2½-inch loaf pan.
Cream the butter or shortening, gradually adding the sugar, until light and fluffy.
Add the beaten eggs gradually, beating well after each addition.
Stir in the chopped nuts and raisins.
Sift the cake flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon together.
Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with the applesauce, mixing until well blended.
Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake at 350°F for about 1 hour, or until the cake tests done.
Cool before removing from the pan and slicing.

LIBK Note: The original 1946 recipe calls for 1 cup of chopped raisins. I reduced that to ½ cup, which gave the finished cake little pockets of sweetness while allowing the tender, warmly spiced crumb to remain the star.

Original variation: The 1946 recipe notes that the batter may also be baked in two 9-inch round layer pans for approximately 25 minutes at 350°F.

Adapted from The American Woman’s Cook Book, 1946.

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