My Momma’s Spiced Prune Cake

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved cooking.  I spent many hours in the kitchen with my mom either helping with canning food from our garden, cooking dinner for the family or making sweet treats.  Sometimes, I would just sit at the table and scroll through her cookbooks.

Like so many young homemakers of the early sixties, my mother often cooked from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.  As a little girl, I remember flipping through that cookbook and looking at the pages of beautiful desserts, fancy appetizers, and delicious looking casseroles.  The one picture that stood out in that book was a picture of a woman in an apron with five arms holding a variety of foods.

I remember my mom cooking many of the recipes from that cookbook, but the one that stood out the most was the Spiced Prune Cake.  She would set me up on the counter and let me “help” put the ingredients in the mixing bowl.  She always let my sister and I lick the bowl after she poured the batter in the baking dish.

When she made that cake, she took a short cut in the preparation.  I don’t know if someone had shared that kitchen hack with her or she came up with it, but instead of using rehydrated prunes in the cake, she used 4 jars of baby food prune puree.  The frosting for the cake was an adaptation of the Coconut Frosting and Filling recipe from the same cookbook.

Somewhere along the line, something happened to that cookbook.  I don’t know if it got misplaced, damaged or loaned out, but it was replaced by a later edition.  While that cookbook also had some great recipes, it was missing the spiced prune cake recipe.  My father had that book for many years after my mom passed away.  We would refer to that cookbook often for recipes, but I was still missing that spiced prune cake recipe.

Many years later, as I had a family of my own, my kids got me a Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.  I referred to that book often.  Owning a natural food store, many of my customers would ask me what my favorite cookbook was.  I always told them the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.  I liked that book because it is a great reference for many basic recipes.  You can swap out the ingredients for healthier choices.  It really is just a matter of the willingness to take chances on adapting a recipe.

Several months ago, I was in an antique store and found a 1973 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  As I stood there scanning the recipes, memories of those delicious dishes came right back to me.  This was my mother’s second cookbook!  I bought the book and spent hours reminiscing about some of the delicious meals she had made from that cookbook.

I was still trying to figure out what edition was the one that had the spiced prune cake (and the picture of the woman with five arms).  After a little research, I was able to track down a copy of the original cookbook that my mother had.  It was the 1962 edition.  Going through that cookbook, I found so many familiar recipes and colorful photos of fancy food that I remembered as a little girl.  There it was, on page 108, Spiced Prune cake!

When I baked that cake, it took me right back to my mother’s kitchen.  I was a little teary eyed when I smelled the spices in the cake batter.  Because of my intolerance to gluten, I did switch the flour in the recipe to gluten-free flour, and I replaced the sugar in the recipe with Florida Crystals, a less refined sugar.  The cake turned out just as I had remembered it!

For the frosting, my mom used the recipe for Coconut Frosting and Filling which is commonly used for a German Chocolate Cake.  For the spiced cake, however, she omitted the coconut and the chopped pecans and used this more as a glaze for the spice cake.  The buttery rich flavor of the frosting works perfectly for this cake.

The recipes in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook have changed over the years.  The first edition was printed in 1930.  BHG cookbooks are still being printed today.  While many of the recipes have been omitted or changed, this cookbook remains a mainstay in many American kitchens.

If you are a foodie like me and are lucky enough to have an old copy of this cookbook, spend a little time scrolling through.  It really is a walk down memory lane, right into the kitchen.