Boxed cake mixes were invented in the 1930s and their popularity grew in the 40s and 50s. Cake mix and store bought icing have a distinct flavor and texture most of us can recognize. Convenience foods are great, but we all look forward to the homemade desserts at gatherings. Vintage Methodist Church cookbooks are full of made-from-scratch cake recipes. Try one for your next church potluck.
This recipe uses sour cream for a moist, rich cake. One thing to note when trying vintage recipes is that product sizes have changed over the decades. This recipe calls for "2 squares" of Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate. In 1948, a box of Baker's chocolate contained 8, one-ounce squares. Many recipes simply call for squares of Baker's chocolate and the old standard measure is assumed. Today, Baker's chocolate comes in 4 ounce bars. With old recipes, you need to calculate how many ounces of chocolate the recipe calls for. Each "square" in an old recipe equals one ounce. This recipe takes 2 ounces for the icing.
Sour Cream Cake is from the 1948 What's Cookin'? in Ellendale, North Dakota, Cookbook, compiled by the Woman’s Society of Christian Service of the Methodist Church of Ellendale, North Dakota.
For more favorite Methodist recipes, visit our webpage: UMC.org/OurUMTable or our page on Pinterest.
This video was produced by United Methodist Communications in Nashville, TN. Contact is Joe Iovino.
This video was first posted on August 30, 2022.
