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Lindsey Hayes
The Great Depression required home cooks to be crafty and creative with their recipes. With many ingredients scarce or too costly, these culinary geniuses had to find alternatives for eggs, butter, heavy cream, and other foods we consider staples today. Unusual choices like mayonnaise, vinegar, and baking soda, or even canned tomato soup were swapped in to create rich and delicious baked goods. But even after the Great Depression ended and cooks found their pantries full again, many of these recipes stuck around as family favorites. Try making one of our Depression-era dessert recipes to see just how tasty budget-friendly baking can be.
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Wacky Cake VIII
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Liza Chalaidopoulos
Wacky cakes get their name from home bakers learning how to make do without eggs for leavening cakes. Here, a tablespoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of baking soda make for a fluffy texture in this chocolate cake.
20 Pantry Desserts That Don't Need Butter, Milk, or Eggs
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Mimi's Tomato Soup Cake
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lutzflcat
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! A can of tomato soup makes for a rich texture in this Depression-era cake, while the trio of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg mask any tomato-y flavor.
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Depression Cake III
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Irene Y
"A cake handed down from my Great Grandmother when they didn't have much to use in their mixes," says Wayne. Strongly brewed coffee gives the cake a distinct flavor when paired with raisins and spices.
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Grandma's Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
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Julia D.
"My gramma used to bake cakes and pies during the Depression and my grampa would sell them door-to-door and on the street corners to support them during that awful time," shares C.N. "This is one of my favorites."
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Eggless Milkless Butterless Cake
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Lindsay D
No eggs, milk, or butter? No problem! This recipe swaps in shortening for a moist crumb and utilizes raisins and spices for plenty of sweet flavor.
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Chocolate Mayo Cake
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Bee
Since mayonnaise's two main ingredients are eggs and oil, it makes sense to include it in this rich chocolate cake. Virginia Godd says, "My mom made this cake while living in the Depression. It is so good, I hope this fills your needs and your memories."
15 Chocolate Layer Cakes You'll Become Famous For Making
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Depression Cake I
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Trusted Brands
This unique recipe is made by simmering together shortening, sugar, raisins, and spices until a thick syrup is achieved, then mixing it with flour and baking soda. The result is a delightfully light cake infused with the flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
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Chocolate Peanut Butter Wacky Cake
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Kitchen Kitty
While it uses some milk and butter, this decadent recipe still falls into the "wacky" category by forgoing the eggs. This version is a rich chocolate cake, topped with a creamy brown sugar frosting.
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Poor Mans Cake III
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Okhomk
Sweetened with brown sugar and studded with raisins, you'll never know this spice cake was made for times of hardship. Jill D shares how this dessert has been in her family for generations: "This recipe if from the l930's. My Grandmother gave it to my Mother and she gave it to me. Now I am a grandmother and passed it down to my kids."
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Waste Not Cake
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Diana Moutsopoulos
This easy, delicious, and moist cake calls for soured milk—a perfectly safe way to use up milk that’s just past its prime instead of pouring it down the drain. Reviewer Galen says “this is basically the recipe for my mother’s signature chocolate cake. As a child growing up on a hard-scrabble 160 acre homestead farm and beginning marriage during the depths of the Great Depression, she learned early to ‘waste not.'”
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Grandpere dans le Sirop
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cloethier
Also called simply Grand-pères, this recipe was popular in Quebec during the Depression. Many variations call for maple syrup, though this recipe uses budget-friendly brown sugar with just a handful of other ingredients.
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Water Pie
Lindsey Hayes
Water pie—made with just six ingredients: water, flour, sugar, vanilla extract, butter, and a pie crust—may seem like a fun hack today, but during the Great Depression, it was simply a dessert that reflected the circumstances for many Americans.
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Depression Era Peanut Butter Bread
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Yolanda Gutierrez
”This Depression Era peanut butter bread is not too sweet, and was developed during the depression when eggs, oil, and butter were hard to come by,” says recipe creator Yolanda Gutierrez. ”I have modernized it a bit by adding chopped peanuts and PB2 powdered peanut butter, but they are optional. The bread is equally delicious without them.”
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Kim's Buttermilk Spice Cake
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”This spice cake was inspired by a recipe from one of my mom's old cookbooks,” says recipe creator Kim. ”It was my great-grandpa's favorite cake, and I used to make it for him all the time. It's a simple cake that's not too sweet, and has a rather strong spice flavor.”
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