Old-Fashioned Boiled Raisin Cake Recipe - These Old Cookbooks (2024)

November 8, 2018November 19, 2023

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Old-Fashioned Boiled Raisin Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting is a spice cake featuring raisins cooked in brown sugar. This vintage war cake is flavored with a combination of cocoa, cinnamon nutmeg, ground cloves and allspice. Sometimes, this is also called Poor Man’s Cake since it has no eggs or milk.

Old-Fashioned Boiled Raisin Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

We were delighted to be sent on a vintage recipe hunt for a blog follower.The mission was a Boiled Raisin Cake with a frosting.Patti wanted to surprise her 91-year-old father by making this cake that he remembered fondly.After searching high and low through all her vintage cookbooks, Barbara came up empty-handed.

And then, like divine intervention, someone posted a photo of their dinner in a Facebook group.Included in the photo was a Boiled Raisin Cake. The cook was kind enough to share her recipe, so Barbara went to town tweaking it just a tad. The original recipe called for the cake to be made in a tube pan sans a glaze or frosting.

Grandma’s Raisin Cake

This Old-Fashioned Boiled Raisin Cake is made withraisins that are boiled in water and brown sugar to soften them, making a sweet, sugary syrup.

Barbara decided to go the route of a 13 x 9-inch glass dish which she thought would complement the cake to frosting ratio.Barbara also came up with a delicious brown sugar frosting. The simple brown sugar frosting could be used on any type of cake, especially spiced cake, rum cake or pumpkin cake.

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Chocolate Raisin Cake Ingredients

• Raisins
• Water
• Cocoa Powder
• Butter
• Brown sugar, light or dark
• All Purpose Flour
• Baking Powder
• Baking Soda
• Salt, iodized
• Ground Cinnamon
• Allspice
• Ground Nutmeg
• Cloves, ground

Brown Sugar Frosting Ingredients

• Brown Sugar, light or dark
• Butter
• Milk
• Powdered Sugar

Cinnamon Raisin Cake Recipe

The flavor and aromas of this cinnamon raisin cake is very much that of a lovely fall dessert. This cake is full of spice flavor with the combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and allspice.If you are lacking one or more of these spices, just omit and add a little bit more of those ones you do have on hand.

It may be the perfect cake to accompany a cup of coffee.Our mom noted that it reminded her of an applesauce raisin cake her mom used to make.Our dad gave this cake 2 thumbs up. It passed the test!

How to Make a Boiled Raisin Cake

Step By Step Instructions

1. In a medium pot, bring to a boil, water, brown sugar, raisins, butter and cocoa. Whisk while letting it simmer for 5 minutes and then remove from heat and let cool.
2. In a different large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.
3. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until completely incorporated.
4. Pour batter into greased 13-by-9 inch glass dish or cake pan.
5. Bake in 350-degree F oven for 35 minutes. While the cake bakes, prepare the frosting.
6. Remove old fashioned raisin cake from the oven, and set on a wire rack to cool.

Full recipe steps and ingredient amounts for chocolate raisin cake is found in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

How to Make Brown Sugar Frosting

1. On the stove, stir together brown sugar, water and milk.
2. Heat until brown sugar dissolves while whisking constantly.
3. Remove from heat and cool completely.
4. Once cooled, pour into mixer bowl and add powdered sugar. Mix until a frosting is formed.

Recipe FAQs

• We typically use purple raisins but yellow would work too.
• Use light or dark brown sugar in the boiled raisin cake and/ or the brown sugar frosting.
• Let the brown sugar syrup cool before preparing the raisin cake batter.
• If you are missing a couple of the spices, feel free to leave them out. Just add a little bit more of the other spices.
• The brown sugar icing is completely optional. The chocolate raisin cake is just as good by itself. You could even dust with powdered sugar.
• Try sprinkling chopped nuts such as walnuts or pecans over the icing.
• Check out our Amazon Store for our favorite pantry and kitchen items.

Old-Fashioned Dessert Recipes

We love finding and making the desserts that our grandmothers made for their families and friends. Here are some of our favorite vintage dessert recipes.

• Vintage Spiced Pumpkin Cake
• Amish Applesauce Cake
• Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cobbler
• Blueberry Pudding Cake
• Old-Fashioned Banana Pudding
• Three Day Coconut Cake

What is raisin cake called?

Raisin cake is often referred to as Old-Fashioned Boiled Raisin Cake or Poor Man’s Cake due to its simplicity and lack of ingredients like eggs and milk. Its vintage variation is sometimes called Grandma’s Raisin Cake. Or, lastly, it is called war cake from its reign of being made with rations were tight in the war years.

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