Bake up a tasty vintage Honey Pound Cake

Like El Camios and Woody Allen films, raisins are one of those things that people generally tend to love or loath. Adoring them something fierce, I definitely fall into the first camp and have been known to combine raisins with everything from baby spinach to stuffed pork loin.

One of my favourite ways to enjoy raisins is actually so straight forward its instructions can't even be called a real recipe: simply smear however much plain cream cheese you like on bread, a bagel, crackers, etc and sprinkle over a handful of raisins and, should you like, shelled sunflower seeds, too (I could eat that combo until the cows come home!).

Today's vintage recipe for Honey Pound Cake - which originally appeared in the December 1944 edition of National Home Monthly magazine - calls for nine ingredients and is a somewhat more traditional use of these charming little dehydrated grapes.




{Honey and raisins mingle beautifully in this timelessly appealing 1940s cake recipe, which has a great cold weather vibe to it. Image via jbcurio on Flickr.}


Humans have harnessed the power of the sun to dry various fruits for thousands of years, one of the earliest of which is believed to be the grape. While not everyone adores raisins, many people do, which helps to explain widespread use (in both sweet and savoury dishes) and continued popularity. In simple to make loaf cakes like this they add flavour, texture, and a hint of moisture - as well as pops of dark colour in each delectable slice.

This cake sounds perfectly fine as it stands now, but (in a nod to raisin studded cinnamon buns) I'd most likely add a teaspoon of cinnamon, and perhaps a dash of nutmeg for extra spice. Alternatively, dried ginger or even cardamom would be lovely - and wholly aromatic - as well.

With each reading of this terrific 1940s recipe (which of course you can use butter or margarine in place of the shortening for), the more I keep thinking that a generous grating of orange zest (in lieu of the lemon extract, and perhaps in combination with some cinnamon) would be flat out fantastic here, too.

Cakes like this are excellent for those times - like an afternoon coffee break or relaxed weekend breakfast on a chilly winter morn - when you want a touch of sweetness, but not a full on sugar laden dessert.

It’s shape and compact crumb means it transports (and freezes) well, making Honey Pound Cake a delightful gift to bring your favourite hostess the next time you're invited over for dinner - assuming of course, she's a raisin fan.

A lovely, citrusy 1940s muffin recipe for any time of the day

When making people look back, waxing nostalgically about the foods of their youth, many remember of cookies as being the primary sweet treat of their youth. Indeed, for lots of folks such was the case, yet around my house - while cookies did certainly appear sometimes, especially around the holidays - perhaps the number one sweet snack that I remember is muffins.

Yes indeedy, whether they were zucchini and pineapple, classic blueberry, bran, apple cinnamon, chocolate chip, banana, pumpkin spice, or any other of a myriad of favourites, there was scarcely a week when one type of muffin or another failed to make an appearance at our table. Variety and great recipes helped ensure that we never got bored with these darling quick breads, but rather that we were always eager to see a piping hot tray of them being pulled from the oven.

Eaten generally for dessert, we'd sometimes get a muffin with breakfast or tucked into our school lunchboxes, too, and as I grew older and began cooking in the family kitchen myself, muffins were amongst the first foods I can remember cutting my culinary teeth on as I learned to cook and bake.

Jump ahead a couple of decades and I still adore muffins every bit as much as I did as youngster. Though these days I need to ensure I use gluten-free recipes, I still have a hefty stack of muffin recipes that I love pulling from, and that I bake on a regular basis.

A number of mine and my mom's muffin recipes include raisins (golden have always been my faves) or currents, and as I'm always on the look out for others, when I spotted this subtly zingy, appealingly tasty looking 1940s Orange Raisin Muffin recipe, I just knew I had to add it to my collection and share it with all of you as well.

{If you're a fan of raisins and citrus flavours, you're bound to want to give this super easy to make 1940s muffin recipe a spin. Vintage image via tonto--kidd on Flickr.}

Great as this recipe sounds as it is, I'd be very tempted to add a little vanilla and perhaps a sweet spice such as cinnamon or nutmeg. Ginger, likewise, could be really, really nice with the cheery orange hit in this muffins.

If you wanted to elevate them almost to cupcake status, you could also whip up a thin orange glaze to drizzle over top once they're out of the oven and have cooled for a tad. For a trendy modern (and yet, especially around the Mediterranean, timeless) spin, you could use blood orange juice and zest, though do keep in mind, that doing so will tint your muffins a soft shade of pinky-red.

As I sit here writing this now, it strikes me that perhaps, in addition to cookie jars, we should have specially designated (airtight) muffin jars or containers to give pride-of-place to our our kitchen counters, too - especially if your family adores muffins as much as mine does.

Wherever you store, eat and enjoy them, I hope that you have oodles of fun whipping up a batch of these great vintage Raisin and Orange Muffins.